How many of you have long-term records of your times on a particular route over the years? I have a 12.8-mile loop I do about 3 times a week. It's a mix of streets, park roads and MUPs with a short 8% hill and a longer (0.6 mile) 5% hill. I don't go full speed every time because of traffic and I slow down for folks using the MUP, but on a quiet early morning I sometimes give it a blast to see what I can do. Best times over the years have been:

2005: June 1, 46.50
2006: July 1, 45.48
2007: July 9, 46.06
2008: July 8, 46.26
2010: Aug 20, 47.16
2011: Aug 26, 48.08

Last year was slower because part of a trail was under re-construction. I'm up to 48.45 so far this year but haven't really pushed it yet - I hope to beat last year's time at least. At 62 I'm pleased to have kept my health but I don't expect to match my 2006 performance again!

I don't know that I would ever time my ride since the fun , and the miles, are the only reason I ride.

If it took me all day to ride my goal miles I wouldn't mind a bit.

You should be banned for even bringing this topic up... I mean, we all have it in the back of our heads, but it takes a tremendously concerted effort to keep it repressed!

In all seriousness, I appreciate the monthly/annual variations of our performance cycle. At least we can continue to receive positive reinforcement on our performance, even as the macro trend inexorably declines.

I don't "race", I never ride "all out", and I am never seen pedaling my ass off. I am not in training for anything and rather doubt that most people are.

I am out there for the enjoyment, fresh are, and the fact that I can stop and smell the roses once on a while.

That's the joy of Strava: not only does it tell me when I suck compared to folks 25 years younger than I, lets me know when I suck compared to last month.

The only decline that concerns me is the day I need to give up cycling for safety reasons. I'll have bigger issues on that day, I'm sure.

I find great joy in going all out once in a while. Nothing like coming home completely spent. Not all the time but once in a while. I also like to explore at a slow pace sometimes, maybe stop for a photo. Most of my rides though are spent motoring along at a "good" pace.

I'm heading out the door for my 20mi personal TT course. I like to time it unless it's windy. There are 3-4 good sized hills. At 54yrs of age I'm still getting faster.

Why would you want to plot your decline? I mean, what purpose is there in it? So you know you are getting older and slower? I mean, I can assure you of that right now. Eventually you WILL get older and slower. So will I, but I don't want to graph it.

The one thing I might graph is smiles per mile, which is one thing that can actually increase as one gets older.

Otherwise, I will try and hide from the inevitable as long as possible.

I do keep track, but only in my head. I don't record the info, but I keep a general idea of what I've done in the past compared to now. I'm not trying to be competitive or have bragging rights, I'm just tracking fitness level. I like having a general idea that I'm improving my fitness level, or at least not going backwards.

At five years into my current bicycling career I am setting a faster pace than I have gone since I was under thirty. I don't have records of time and distance from my career during the bike boom of the seventies.

The only comparison I can make is that I did two centuries in my twenties and I probably couldn't do that now but it is one of my goals this year or next.

From my perspective I am just getting better right now.

OTOH I find a decline is preferable to an incline when it regards altitude. Still, if you only ride downhill you will never see home again.

At 54yrs of age I'm still getting faster.

Me too. But I only started last summer. And I don't seem to be getting very much faster. I don't keep track because I'd obsess too much. And at my age I know it will be a curve. I'll get a little better as I gain experience and fitness, but once I reach a peak I know I'll immediately start to decline. Graphic evidence of that I do not need to see.

Well I seem to have stirred up a bit of ant's nest among some of you. All I can say is there are lots of ways to enjoy riding a bike, even after you reach 50 (or 60). I don't record all my rides and I don't use Strava. Most of us are riding, at least in part, to maintain our health so why not keep track of that, at least in a minimal kind of way? I'm pleased that I'm still able to keep up a reasonable pace and would certainly be declining a lot faster if I didn't ride.

That's OK. I'm sure you meant no harm, but now we're all watching our vital forces drain away before our very eyes? One moment and we're riding along, then we're being carted around in a wheelchair in a nursing home, and before you know it, we'll be passed on! We'll be no more! We will cease to be! We'll be expired and gone to meet our maker! We'll be stiff, bereft of life, pushing up the daisies, our metabolic processes part of history, kicked the bucket, shuffled off our mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

I am a firm believer in keeping a fitness log. It helps me to track my miles/time and my weight. It helps to motivate me and to track my progress.

I can relate………..

My denial mechanism that helps me with that, I tell myself I can still get faster. Yes, I'm one of those that tracks my PR's on a number of different rides. Why? It is my motivation, my drive, my fun. I like to challenge myself and see if I can beat a previous PR.

I do one thing that helps as I get older; I keep track of overall PR's and PR's for the calendar year. This way, there is always a realistic PR for me to chase.

OBTW, I also have an incurable prey drive. If there is a bike, or kayak, in front of me, I must catch it…..Oh well, I have fun with it.

OK - here is my projected graph

My sister-in-law had a stroke yesterday

My brother-in-law is sitting at home dying of heart disease.

My perspective is a bit different, I suppose.

I don't see the data you posted as "decline". Rather, I see it as consecutive years of being able to ride.... A very, very good thing IMHO.

I was pretty darn optimistic in my "decline" planning. If I make it to 80, I will be happy.

Perhaps we need another name for it. I really do not jive on graphing my "decline."

I'm very sorry to hear that. I hope you have friends and family you can lean on.

The older we get, the faster we were

We spend far too much time throughout our lives worrying about getting things done as fast as possible. At your job, at home, on vacation with your kids. As we get older we SHOULD worry less about this.

As for me, well, I spent a lot of time in "high stress" jobs where the contracts needed to come in on a specified date. Well, no more.

I had a surgery in 2010 that woke my happy butt up. I spent about six long months not being able to do much of anything. Now, whenever I do virtually anything, I am not longer in a hurry.

I am certainly not going to take away from my riding experience by throwing any sort of time, charts, or anything else into it. I ride for the pure enjoyment. The smiles that I receive, and the looks that I get from others.

Being over 50 one shouldn't be striving for anything BUT the enjoyment. If keeping charts and timetables is what makes YOU happy then go ahead and do just that. But, in the end, that's a complete waste of time.

You do realize that you completely contradicted yourself......Pretty funny, really.

Thanks - we are doing fine. My wife's family is - shall we say - "unique" - as all families are, but hers is a bit more unique than others, and leads to "interesting" relationships.

Words of solace from Tolstoy:

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it.

His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them.

So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. And this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.