Metrics: back on the bike 6 years later

A light bike doesn't replace good fitness.

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yosshaa
Posts: 24
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:00 am
Location: scottsdale az

by yosshaa

Hi All,
My name is Dan, I'm about 185 pounds, 5'11'' on a good day.
After tearing my ACL in 2009 I decided to try road biking, I did a few tours and a few races, rode for about 2 years then moved on to other things boxing shortly after workouts, recently krav maga, or for a few years in between there not much short of hiking and camping.

The last three months I have been back on the bike and fell in love with it again.
I have always used a garmin for tracking. same heart rate monitor, though now I use an edge 25
Rig: is mainly the same 2009 Scott Addict size 54 currently 16.6 pounds with pedals and cages. I have Reynolds assaults now, back then I rolled the mavic rsys (the carbon spoke wheels/aluminum hoops, not aero.

I took 20 training rides from 2011 and 19 from the past 3 months... they were all training rides, some group, some solo, same or very similar courses.

here is the averaged data from 27 year old me and 34 year old me.

Image


Crazy how similar the numbers are, huh? average heart rate and max have gone down about 8 beats, one for every year older I guess. I am happy to say The big difference is the length and amount of riding I am doing now... Happy to be back in the saddle!
Last edited by yosshaa on Thu Jul 06, 2017 5:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

yosshaa
Posts: 24
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:00 am
Location: scottsdale az

by yosshaa

Fixed the chart...


In any case, I just want to sell my Addict and get an Aero road bike.

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TheKaiser
Posts: 653
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2013 3:29 pm

by TheKaiser

yosshaa wrote:I took 20 training rides from 2011 and 19 from the past 3 months... they were all training rides, some group, some solo, same or very similar courses.

here is the averaged data from 27 year old me and 34 year old me.

Image


Crazy how similar the numbers are, huh? average heart rate and max have gone down about 8 beats, one for every year older I guess. I am happy to say The big difference is the length and amount of riding I am doing now... Happy to be back in the saddle!


Congratulations on being back in the saddle. Yeah, if you look at detraining studies, the measured drop in fitness happens really quickly. For instance, I remember seeing studies saying that with 6mo off, you are pretty much back to an untrained baseline. Somewhat contradicting that though, is all the real world experience I've had/witnessed, where a formerly fast rider takes years off, and jumps back on the bike with a far higher than "normal" ability. I chalk that up to the neurological/CNS effects and cycling smarts being retained, so your legs still know how to spin, your mind still knows how to suffer, you still know how to select a proper gear, and pace yourself on a climb, etc...none of which a newb of equivalent theoretical "fitness" would have. If, on top of that, you've kept your legs and aerobic system in shape through the other activities you mentioned, then I guess that leaves you with very little performance loss vs. 27yr old you.

It would be interesting to see your power profile then vs. now but I am assuming you don't have a meter or you would have provided that data. For your purposes though, you are going just as fast as before, so it's all good, and with those aero improvements you'll likely be even faster.

yosshaa
Posts: 24
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:00 am
Location: scottsdale az

by yosshaa

One year later happy to say I'm still in the saddle, I upgraded rides to a Canyon Endurance SLX aero disc. My cadence and average speed is all up, I'm way faster than 27 year old me and having fun. I'm on pace for almost 6,000 miles this year.

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