Newsletter Issue No. 880

September 19, 2019

PDF version for Premium Members is here.

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Importance of Recovery in your 50s, 60s and Beyond: 9 Tips on Recovery

By Coach John Hughes

In my recent column about my 70th birthday, one of the key lessons I’ve learned is to ride less and recover more.  The results are that the riding I do 1) is more enjoyable because I’m not tired at the start of the ride and 2) produces more improvement because I can do a more challenging ride that’s longer and / or harder than I’m used to doing.  Read more.

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Beginners’ Guide to 2X Shifting

By Jim Langley

If you’ve been a roadie for ages, like me, you probably learned how to shift a double-chainring road bike so long ago that hitting gears is as easy as walking up stairs. But put yourself in the shoes of a complete rookie. I think you can probably imagine how the sight of complicated levers, two chainrings, up to 12 cassette cogs and that contraption with the pulleys, could induce a paralyzing case of gear fear. Beside not being sure how to operate the shifters, you definitely wouldn’t want to risk messing up your new pride and joy with a botched gear change. Read more.

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A Journey to Appreciation

By Stan Purdum

Sometimes bicycle journeys have benefits you don’t expect, as this narrative of a trip with my son Scott 30 years ago indicates. I wrote this shortly after the trip, but I was reminded of it recently during a conversation with him. “I don’t like long bike rides,” said my son, Scott. We were in the first five miles of our long-planned and anticipated bicycle ride across Ohio. At 10 years old, Scott was a very immediate person. His words usually reflected how he was feeling at the moment. Read more.

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Lizard Skins DSP Bar Tape and Cycling Gloves Review

By Brandon Bilyeu

For cyclists, one of Lizard Skins’ main product areas is the handlebar contact point. They offer an extensive selection of bar tape and grips for road and mountain bikes, as well as lots of glove options.  It’s safe to say that they have a tape/glove combo to match any rider’s preference. Read more.

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Anti-Aging 12 Ways You Can Slow the Aging Process

Anti-Aging: 12 Ways You Can Slow the Aging Process by Coach John Hughes incorporates the latest research and most of it is new material not published in his previous eArticles on cycling past 50, 60 and beyond. The book’s chapter on recovery covers how to gauge your total stress load from life, how to balance training and recovery, how to improve your recovery and how to avoid overtraining.

The book explains why intensity training is important and the pros and cons of gauging intensity using rate of perceived exertion, heart rate and power. It includes how to do intensity exercise and different intensity workouts. The book explains how to get the most benefit from your endurance rides. It has sample training plans to increase your annual riding miles and to build up to 25-, 50-, 100- and 200-mile rides. It integrates endurance and intensity training into an annual plan for optimal results.

Learn more.

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Quick Tip: Maintaining Your Momentum on Successive Rollers

Most riders can find a road where little hills come one after another. When you feel good, attacking these humps can be a peak experience — like riding a roller coaster. You fly up one side, blast down the other and use your momentum to conquer the next rise. But if you use improper technique, you can get bogged down. Instead of grinning, you’re grinding. You churn up, coast down to catch your breath, then bang against the next wall. Read more.

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Measuring Cycling Intensity

By Arnie Baker

Intensity is the load or speed of work performed. It is the “how hard” of a cycling workout. Perceived exertion, speed, cadence, heart-rate, power, and torque monitoring all have important roles to play in assessing work intensity. Other measures of intensity, including blood lactate and oxygen consumption, have their place in physiology labs, sport science, and experimentation, but are generally not used in training. Read more.

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Strengthen Bones with Weight Training

By Gabe Mirkin, MD

Your bones weaken progressively after age 30, and between ages 35 and 50, about 28 percent of North American men and women suffer from bone weakening called osteopenia. By age 65, 25 percent of women and six percent of men are at high risk for breaking their hips or spine with minor falls. Just one year of lifting weights can strengthen the bones enough to help protect people from these fractures. Read more.

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Question of the Week

Do you have more than one set of road bike wheels?

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More Cycling Stuff to Read

VeloNews: Training the gut (podcast).
CyclingTips.com: Breaking news: Embarrassingly outdated bike ‘works just fine’, ‘still shreds’
Bicycling: Sad. Zwift Hackers Expose the Next Generation of Cycling Doping
Chicago Tribune: Bicyclists should be shamed into wearing helmets. (But no mention of all those Scooter riders….)

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End Notes

As I’m finishing up this week’s newsletter, I’m sitting at home waiting for a delivery of wheels that I plan to use this weekend at a gravel event. I bought a pair 650b Thesis wheels, because my Giant Revolt 1x gravel bike will let you swap between 700c or 650b wheel. The 650b option allows a wider tire to fit the frame. I’m going to install a fresh set of Rene Herse (formerly Compass Tires) Switchback Hill 48mm slicks, set up tubeless.