This is just one example out of many that shows just how important overall-body strength training is for staying healthy later in life. I've been following this family from Scotland for a while now and it is inspiring.

I follow a on bike program that has me riding 5 days a week that I do after work evenings.
M - off
T - V02 max
W - Z21/2 recovery
T - Z3/4 Edurance
F- off
S & S long days in the saddle Z 2/3

I supplement all this with 3 x week full body, low reps 3x5 but heavy 80-90% 1RM early mornings before work. Takes about 1h including 10min full body warm up / yoga flow and finish with 10min of stretching.
T - heavy squat and bench main lifts
W - heavy dead lifts and pull downs main lifts
T - single leg work and core

This works as it keeps hard days hard and easy days easy for recovery.
What doesnt work is when people jump in 1-2 per week every now and then and complain about being sore and not able to walk or cycle next few days. Even a week without lifting when getting back to it you will be sore.

Upper body weight lifting, core, and leg exercises twice a week. Ride about 120 miles a week, more in the summer, jog about 5 miles a week, commute about 20 miles a week but that’s at a lower intensity than the regular riding. I suppose I could be more scientific about it all but it seems to keep me well balanced and I feel strong and healthy.

Revisting this thread after my post from over a year ago...I kinda fell off the strength training regime in 2025. Generally the same reasons that anyone who doesn't follow through with something has, time, work, don't enjoy it, etc. Also increased volume of riding a bit this year, so it was just harder to find a good place to fit it in. I'm generally faster on the bike this year, although I attribute that to a bigger base and increased durability/repeatability of efforts. My time to exhaustion for a given power metric(sub threshold) has largely stayed the same.

What has changed this year, is the amount of small, annoying injuries I've had to deal with. Mostly hip issues and, occasionally, knee issues. I ended up doing some PT exercises to address the hip. I think that absence of strength training was a major contributor to injuries...it does help keep all the muscles stabilized on the bike. I'm starting to add it back into the program right now. I figure base season is the perfect time to get into it, don't have to worry as much if I have muscle fatigue going into a ride. The goal is then to just transition into maintenance as the race season heats up.

Kinda related, but one thing I've always done is to incorporate a bit of running into my training. I'll usually just do short <1 hour zone 2 runs. Partly just to mix it up and keep me interested in training on the bike. Partly to cross-train and be fit in multiple ways. Besides, a moderate amount of impact/weight bearing exercise is actually good for the joints.

Good for you, sounds right. Taper is more weight, fewer reps, like 4. Perfect time of year to hit the gym.

Here's another option of doing strength training while also mixing it with riding. Isometrics doesn't cause the same muscle damage and soreness. And it's not a good method to build muscle size (hypertrophy), yet at the same time you're building muscle strength and power output -- all this with shorter recovery time.

Great training for Olympic runners and cyclists