Parson

I've recently gotten interested in road bike riding and I have some questions about what is realistic for a beginner.

I'm in my mid 30's and haven't been doing any sort of cardio activities for the past 10 years or so. Despite that, I am somewhat athletic and remain in decent shape (6 feet 155lbs) from doing non cardio activities and eating fairly healthy.

Until I was in my 20s I rode my mountain bike recreationally a couple of times a week so cycling isn't completely foreign to me. I still have my mountain bike and I've started to ride it (on the road) for the past couple of weeks.


I'm wondering what I can expect to achieve if I start to take cycling more seriously. I've been reading through the forum and I hear of people riding 200km in a day or averaging around 35km/hr for over an hour. These feats seem so foreign and unimaginable to me. Is it possible for someone like me, at my age, starting now, to accomplish these sorts of things? If so, what would be a reasonable/realistic time frame to start riding like that? If not, what sort of goals would be realistic?

At this point, I'm sure the answer will be "just ride more", but are there any certain things I can do to improve more quickly? Should I be trying to ride every other day or would my body need more time to recover this early on?

For now, my plan is to keep riding my mountain bike to make sure that this is something that I will enjoy and that I will keep doing it. Assuming I keep at it and keep enjoying it, I plan to buy a road bike. After reading through the forums and various reviews, I was thinking about trying the CAAD10, Cannondale Synapse, Felt F75, and Giant Defy1. Would these bikes be "too good" for someone of my ability? I don't want to buy a low end-entry level bike and then get the upgrade bug shortly after, but at the same time, I don't want people to think "why is that beginner on that"? and be labeled a Fred or something like that.

So, I guess I've asked two very different questions in one thread, but if anyone has insight or suggestions on either or both questions, I'd greatly appreciate your answers. Thank you.

Paul Barnard

The first thing to do is stop wondering what anyone else thinks. By the standards of serious cyclists, I suck as a rider. I have a Tarmac Expert, so there's most assuredly a mismatch there, but I wanted something nice and got it. I am a Fred of sorts and that's OK with me. I am of the firm belief that your only goal to start with should be to just have fun. Get on the bike and ride. Go a little further or a little faster each day, then once you have established a base level of fitness, start with specific goal setting.

pallen

Improvements will vary from person to person, but I can almost guarantee that you will be surprised at how fast you improve if you get serious.

For now, yes, "just ride" is good advice. If you want to push a little harder find hills to climb and try doing intervals a few times a week. If you want to get really serious, hire a trainer or start digging into some books on training.

zaqwert6

You can definately 'do it' at that age. Its like any other cardio based activity , get yourself a heart rate monitor and keep track of your work load and keeping your heartrate in ideal target areas for growth.

If you want to improve the quickest , do it with a purpose. Set goals. Track your progress, establish strengths and weakness' , assess , adjust and re-evaluate to reach goals. set new goals.

Or something like that.

joe_5700

Go join a no drop ride in your area. This will help you ride in groups as well as push you more than you would on your own. Once you feel fast enough, you can try the drop rides and even go out and join a race team. You will be surprised by two things. First you will not believe how far you have come after looking back after a few years of serious cycling, Two, you will not believe how far you have to go to catch the better cycists in your area.

neneboricua

Even in your mid 30's, you can still improve a heck of a lot. Don't worry about speed or trying to do specific workouts when you're first starting out. The increase in speed will come naturally over time. For now, just ride based on time or distance.

Shoot to ride maybe 3 days per week to give your body time to get used to using muscles you might not use too often. One ride per week should be your "long" ride. At first that might be 5 miles or less. Increase the length of this ride slowly. Someone new might be able to go our and ride 10 miles. Chances are your legs won't feel bad, but other parts of your body (butt, hands, shoulders, etc...) may hurt. That's why you should increase your mileage slowly to let your body get used these things. Get some bike shorts, even if you wear gym shorts or something else over them.

banerjek

As is the case with most things, it's realistic to expect that you'll totally suck at first and gradually get better. In cycling, this means that a lot of women and guys with gray hair will drop you like a rock at first. But the more you ride, the more fun you'll have. As far as the specific objectives you mentioned (35 km/hr for an hour and 200km in one day), you won't do the first on a mountain bike, and unless you're especially talented, you probably won't do it on a road bike either unless you ride with others. But you'll still get a lot faster. 200km in one day is nothing, and you'll be able to do that within a year if not within a few months. If you do something that actually resembles training (most people don't), you'll improve way faster, but it will also be much less fun. Better to just ride more because that's fun and you'll still get better.

Don't worry if you're labeled as a Fred. First of all, you will be one as are most people here, so may as well come to terms with that. Secondly, anyone who actually holds that against you in some way is an idiot, so you should ignore them.

JasonJones

As to your first question: Here is a quick summary of my return to cycling after being off the bike for about 5 years, to give you an idea.

Aug 2007: 194 pounds. Finished a 102 mile ride at a 19.9mph pace
Dec 31, 2011: 234.4 pounds and decided I was going to get back in shape
Apr 2, 2012: 210 pounds and had ridden for about 2 weeks (first entry I made into my log). 12.4 miles at 15.7 mph. Avg HR 164
Jul 7, 2012: 187 pounds. 60 miles, 19.9 avg, 2,100 feet of elevation, avg HR 153.

I have ridden 10-12 hours a week for the last month and a half and about 6 hours a week before that. I have followed the training plan set out in Base Building for Cyclist by Thomas Chapple and have found it to be tremendously helpful.

As to your second question: Who cares if you are not a great rider and have a great bike. I have a colnago. When I started riding back in March-April again, it was embarrassing in a way because I was so slow. But at the same time, that motivated me to work even harder. Plus, having a bike you are proud of makes you want to get out there and ride it. I would make sure you really want to be a road cyclist before you drop a lot of money on a road bike, but once you have decided that is the thing to do, I think you will be happy you did.

DaveWC

I've been in and out of road cycling since about 1985. For the last 5 years I've been mainly riding a hybrid off and on as exercise rather than as an obsession. Last August I bought a Madone 5.2 (who cares if it's too much bike for me) and started riding daily. Just get a bike and do it. Only spend what you can afford and if you aren't sure you'll like a road bike spend less. I knew I'd like it as I'd done it quite a bit in my 30's. Now that I'm 50 and have more time (work at home, barely) I use that time cycling. I hit over 21 mph for a metric century on weekends and hope to improve on that when I start looking at a power meter. But mainly just ride and enjoy it. Improvement will come with time spent on the bike. And if you really like it this won't be your last bike.

rm -rf

Even if you are slow, nobody will say anything about your bike. Well, maybe if it costs $6,000 or has $2,000 Zipp wheels and you can only go 14 mph / 22 kph. Otherwise, most riders don't know too much about bikes, and can't really tell the really expensive race bikes from normal entry-to-mid level bikes.

I started riding a lot at age 52. Before that, I would ride for a few weeks, then put the bike away for months or years. I love the new 10 speed gearing, the better hand positions, and the new saddles.

I'm old, so I try to have recovery days,and I normally ride just 3 days a week.

Group rides are key for me.
Group rides have kept me interested in riding. They push me harder and farther than I can do on my own rides. Now I have to stay in shape to keep up on the rides, so it's motivation to get out on days I don't really want to go. It's great positive feedback - fast rides get me in shape, and I need to keep in shape to do the rides.

Working at a hard, but sustainable effort, I can pretty easily average 18 mph / 30 kph for 50 or 60 miles (80 to 100 km) in a group (if the route isn't very hilly). It would probably be more like 16-17 mph / 26-28 kph on my own. Sitting in the draft in a group is fun.

For me, and for some other riders posting in BF, I saw quick gains the first month or two, then got slowly better even a year or two later. And starting back up after the winter is easier too.

chasm54

Yes it is perfectly possible. I'm 57. I returned to road biking at 49 after a fifteen-year absence. I can comfortably ride 200km in a day and (less comfortably) 35km in an hour under the right conditions.

Riding every other day is fine. Riding every day is fine, if you're not going too hard. How long you need for recovery depends on the intensity of the effort.

Don't buy a cheap bike just because you think you're not good enough to deserve a better one. On the other hand, don't buy the most expensive bike you can afford just because it's the most expensive. Buy something half-decent and it will be quite a while before it is the bike, rather than your fitness and skills, that is limiting your performance.

Filthy monkey

I am quickly approaching 31 hadn't been in the saddle for a good 8-9 years. Started cycling again back end of last year on a felt hybrid. First ride was horrendous only 10 miles. Go forward 7-8 months I am a proud owner of a carrera virago (love her) and now quite comfortable with 60-70 miles.

I will third or even fourth just get out there and have some fun. See if you like it!

cocar

Yes, you can do it at your age. I'm right about your age and in a similar condidion. I started about 6 months ago. My first ride lasted exactly 3 miles and I thought I was going to die at the end. I was ridiculously slow for quite a while. But then in all kind of came together and I got exponentially faster and stronger quickly. You're going to be slow at first, and parts of you are going to be uncomfortable while you adjust to riding. Keep doing it anyway. I ride 35+ mile rides now regularly and it's no big deal. You'll get there, probably faster than you expect.

Banded Krait

Oh, a young whippersnapper! When I started cycling last year, I was 54 years old and hadn't been on a bike for over 35 years.

These are factors in your favor--you are not overweight and you maintain a healthy diet.

The only limitations are in your mind. You have a lot of factors in your favor. Why don't you sit down, analyze what you want to get out of cycling, and plan accordingly? You mentioned a number of great bikes, and there are many other great bikes out there as well. After you figure out what kind of riding you want to do, you can make a more specific post here in Bike Forums asking what bikes would be good for that goal, or you can start visiting Local Bike Shops (LBS in BF lingo) and getting their input. Do you want to go on shorter, but more spirited rides? Or, would you like to build up to long distance rides like metric centuries (100 km, or roughly 63 miles), or true centuries (100 miles)?

You can't expect miracles overnight. Like any endurance sport, you will have to put in the work to see results. But, as many other posters have noted, you will probably be surprised at your progress.

As others have noted, there are a number of good books about cycling training programs and concepts. You can visit the Training sub-forum and ask questions there and read older discussion threads.

Here's another helpful idea which I got from Bike Forums: Consider getting a trainer. This is a device which converts your bike to a stationary bike and allows you to ride inside. I bought one for myself at Christmas last year because I wanted to maintain my cycling fitness over the winter months. I saw such an increase in my cycling fitness from riding on the trainer over the winter that I am still riding on the trainer a couple of times a week in addition to my outdoors riding. I find that the sessions on the trainer are very concentrated and allow me to do more in a shorter period of time than riding outside because there is no coasting on the trainer or having to stop for stop signs, traffic lights, etc.

Good luck! Cycling is such a great sport for fitness and recreation.

Yaniel

mid-30 is pretty young for a recreational cyclist. It would put you in the "young" age group in most of the fast group rides in Miami. As for improvements, 35kph and 200km rides aren't that mythical. I'd say most cyclists can get there in under a year.

I'm 29 and the least athletic person ever. I get excited if I run a mile in under 13 minutes. And 3 miles consecutively would probably kill me. All the friends I started riding with would ride less than me and with less structure but would become faster than me. That shows you how much I suck at this sport. Yet within a year, 160 km rides were easy, I haven't done 200km, but with the way I feel after 160km, 200 shouldn't be much worse. Solo 35km in an hour rides have happened but they're rare and hard for me, but doable. In a group, 35kph feels like a warm up. Basically, if I was able to do these things in under a year, you'll be able to do them too, probably faster.

Gluteus

+1.

jmX

I sit at a computer all day, and while I wasn't ever fat, I wasn't "active". I'd run here and there, but that was it. Anyway, I'm also mid 30's, 6'1" 158lbs, and started cycling almost 2 years ago to the day. About 60 days after I started cycling, I did 100miles. It's really not that hard once you get over the initial sore butt phase. At a slow enough speeds you can pretty much go forever.

You mentioned average speeds, and over the last 2 years my 3x a week standard route has moved from 17mph for an hour to 21.5mph (35kph) for a 75min ride. Things haven't gotten easier or harder, the speeds just get faster. Back discomfort and saddle sores eventually all disappeared from the picture. I ride about 80/week average over the 2 years I've been riding, or about 4 hours - with random weeks where I might have 130mi or a long mountain ride.

I've stayed away from group rides, but I'm a highly self motivated type of person. If you're not, the group rides may prove to be essential.

Ndw76

In your thirties it should be easy to acheive your cycling goals. It will just take time. Some Sundays I ride with a local club. One of the club members is 65 years old and can ride the pants off all the younger riders.

Parson

Wow, thank you everyone for all of the helpful feedback and advice. It's encouraging to hear that improving will happen more quickly than I thought. I've already got a few books on hold at the library which I'll ride my bike to pick up

As someone suggested, I'll probably post again in a month or two, once I'm more certain about what type of riding I'm likely to enjoy, with more specific questions about bike selection.

Thanks again for all the help.

ultraman6970

Buy any bike you want... if you want to start racing at 30 y/o and made it to pro, realistically speaking you wont get on that bus ever. Besides that just go and ride all you want and even get into racing if you want. But if you have the dream of going pro at your age is something is not going to happen.

Enjoy the sport.

Yaniel

He never mentioned wanting to be pro, or even elite amateur or even wanting to race. He just wants to be able to do 100+ mile rides and ride at a decent clip.

Parson

Ultraman, you just crushed my dream! Teasing of course. The idea of becoming a professional is something I hadn't even thought of until you mentioned it. That is definitely not the reason for me wanting to get into cycling and I realize that would be completely unattainable (statistically) for just about every person whose ever ridden a bike, let alone someone starting in their 30s.

JustinNY

Just ride as hard as you can as often as you can, slam your stem, buy overpriced bottle cages, and always wear your sunglasses on top of your helmet straps

doctor j

I started cycling seriously 5 years ago when I was 58. I was riding a Specialized Hardrock on the road. I changed how I eat and have lost and kept off 65 pounds. I rode the road so much that I bought a Fuji Newest road bike and enjoyed it. A couple of years back, I bought a Cannondale Synapse and love it. I kept the Fuji and still ride it as well.

In you mid 30's, you can accomplish a lot. Go for it.

pgjackson

I don't think that riding your MTB a lot is going to get you all excited about riding a road bike. MTBs are slow. IF you want to go fast get a road bike. It's like night and day. No comparison. How much $$$ are you willing to spend on a bike? Plan to spend about $300 extra on shoes, helmet, shorts, jerseys, floor pump, and assorted gear. The good folks here can definitely point you in the right direction on a new or used road bike. On progress...I started in October 2010 at age 40 with a bad knee. Had knee surgery in December. Two weeks later I was back on the road and 14-15mph was a really good pace and felt fast to me. All of 2012 I worked on getting the miles in. Racked up about 3500 miles and could maintain a 18-19mph pace. The last three months I got serious about training and started doing sprint and hill intervals and am now creeping up on a 21mph average over a 22 mile course. So, at age 42 I am still getting stronger and faster...but there are still a whole lot of 50-60 year olds who can drop me in a heartbeat. But most of all go get a road bike and ride.