At 190#'s and 54 I’m in the grey zone, not quite heavy enough to race clyde but way heavier than most skinny guys racing 50 plus. Looking at the results I think clyde is a bit easier. But 10 more pounds, I already feel like I’m hauling **a lot of weight around. And we’re talking Florida for God’s sake! Going to Breckenridge to die in the Breck Epic in August too so factor in the “gaining it for the winter race season and then losing it again” issue.
Maybe I should just say the hell with it, stay at 190#'s, ride my 33# canyon spectral, and just bang it out in sport 50+. Make up for the lack of body weight with a heavy bike.
Dexa is 11% body fat so can’t easily cut 20#'s plus don’t want to look like Chris Froome. (nothing against Mr. Froome, I’m just not willing to go that far)
Oh the first world dilemma! Any comments you have would be most appreciate
I used to be at top 5 level CAT 1 mtb racer in the geezer class…I was 5-11…160 lbs…FTP 308. I had to have both my knees replaced in the last two years…now I’m 180 lbs, FTP 238 at 55 years old. USA Cycling let me downgrade to CAT 2 and I raced this past season but struggled. I’m trying to lose about 12 pounds and get my FTP up around 280 so I can be competitive again. I’d say try and lose some weight and stay in Sport…its better for your health in the long run going into your later years…
100% this. You’re already winning by still racing bikes in your 50s. Sounds like you’re a good healthy weight already, don’t sacrifice that by trying to get either too lean or piling on unnecessary pounds for the sake of making an arbitrary weight class. Whatever age or weight category you are there is unfortunately nearly always going to be somebody faster (usually lots of them!), but that just makes it even sweeter on the occasions when you can get on the podium.
Whoa! Was that injury or arthritis or something else? You seem pretty young to have new knees. How about riding? Are you able to ride like before or “is it different now”?
I had surgery on both in my 20’s to remove cartilidge tears…then I took up triathlon in my early 40’s…all the running plus bad genetics and I just wore out the cartilidge. They are 100% now, I forget I had them replaced sometimes. The latest hardware is supposed to last 35+ years so I should be good.
Well this is certainly off topic but I got it for trail riding with friends a year ago and I fell in love with the marshmallow ride. I mean, I’m in my 50’s for chrissakes and I’m a delicate flower! And amazingly the trails here are more technical than the trails I rode near chicago. No climbing…but a decent amount of rooty, rocky stuff. Plus we have actual jump lines here and sometimes I exceed 60cm of flight.
I swapped wheels and tires, added a few goodies, and it’s sitting at 30#‘s (in XL) ready to ride with the garmin, bottle cage, a tiny multitool, pedals, a seat, sealant in the tires…you know, actually ready to go. And comparing lap times with my buddy’s XC marathon bike (Fezzari Signal Peak) with heart rate and power…we are having trouble proving the big bike is slower. And his bike with carbon wheels, carbon bars, carbon crank, XT drive and brakes is 28.5#’! The Fezzari feels way (way!) faster but it isn’t showing up in the data (yet). FWIW The Fezzari bobs more when pedaling than the Spectral…surprisingly.
Finally, riding in the first lap the singletrack was fast and you know how it is, you’re in a line, busting along, and you’re hitting stuff hard. You can’t slice and dice because you’re trying to hang on a wheel. Well hell with the bike bike I just monster trucked my way along. Not a lot of cognitive load!
I’m not opposed to changing bikes but I’m just really liking the spectral at the moment!
Good to know about the pedal bobbing. Comfortable and a couple pounds is no big deal if you can keep riding especially if the efficiency of the platform is good.
Well that’s a good question and, at least in this series, 50+ sport races are a bit longer, which I prefer. And they run earlier in the day…which works out for Mrs. Joe better too.
If you are doing breck epic i’d try and race clydes. i did it last year with a buddy that could have qualified as a clyde but raced normal masters class and got smoked, but would’ve top-stepped podiumed almost every day, and won the GC, had he regied as a 200#+'r…there’s nothing like standing on those tall-ass boxes and having your name called out at BE every afternoon, vs. licking your wounds, and getting smoked by skinny-fast-acclimatized locals for 6 days,
I raced the 50+'r’s and trust me, the field no joke. BTW 11% Dexa is really good!
I went this year to ride but managed to catch covid on the trip out. 10 days of quarantine at 9500 feet kinda sucked, let me tell you! But I was able to get some pictures, if you rode this year 2022 I’m sure I have at least a few pics buried somewhere in here…they are in chronological order in each album FWIW.
Why would you want to intentionally gain weight and possibly slow yourself down just to race in an “easier” or “slower” class? Why not take up the challenge and lessons learned from racing with faster people?
Well that’s a good question. I mean…if I could gain some muscle mass, that’s never (never?) a bad thing for a guy in his 50’s. And it’s just not a fair fight going toe to toe with a 150 pound guy. Although we are talking Florida here…so maybe it actually is a fair fight.
Of course I could always try to increase muscle mass and just stay in age class. 10#'s of muscle isn’t going to happen anyway. But 2-3 pounds…plus some creatine, sodium, and glycogen and a guy could possibly…ha ha!
You know, I was 5th out of 11 in sport 50+, my time in expert B I would have been 4th out of 7 and they raced the same course, same distance.
My time in “base 50+” (one level above novice) and in clydesdale would have won (they both raced 2/3rds the distance)
And in novice my lap times would have put me somewhere between 4th and 6th out of 13, they raced 1/3rd of the sport/expert distance.
My time in expert A 50+ would have been 5th of 6th.
