Mr. Cavell asks himself and the reader as he lays the groundwork for the cerebral cornucopia to come,

There's a slightly philosophical almost New-Age final chapter about 'mindfulness' which also didn't quite work for me. In stark contrast, data was intrinsically dull when I was growing up. It was stored on mainframe computers in bunkers and sat in abstract to the real, vivid and actual world. ‘Data’ is even drab as a word.Pluses of the book are Mr. Cavell knows bicycling and what it takes to both race or just ride as we get older. This is shown repeatedly as he talks about his experience and brings in knowledge from experts in the field (sports medicine and doctors in general). There’s also his own personal knowledge base as a bike fitter who’s done it at upper levels. This is stuff to be respected and readers should pay attention to what’s discussed. Interesting discussion points included the myth of power when you pulling up with your legs while pedaling, use of power meters, what type of riding you should do regularly, and the use of indoor trainers (for the record I feel Mr. Cavell is light in this information and needs to reassess things given the different types of trainers and the use of virtual training aides). These items were driving me to a 4-5 star rating for this book, I have to say it they’ve influenced my riding and training. I enjoyed reading this book and recommend it to all the cycling lovers and people seeking inspiration through sports. Bone mineral loss is also speeding up. “Cyclists in their 50s who have only ever cycled may be slightly osteopenic (the precursor to osteoporosis),” warns Cavell. If you’ve read this far, let me tell you, before I get into the weeds, this is a brilliant book. I am a skeptical person, a cynic, but I can tell you honestly that The MidLife Cyclist changed my behavior on the bike (and off), and even improved my relationship with cycling (read: less burn out efforts, more fun). What I want after all is fun. I want health too, and I want longevity. I want to be able to do the things I enjoy doing as long as I possibly can.

This seems to be suggesting a polarised training approach although he doesn't name it as such, which generally works on a 3 zone model rather than the more regular 7 zone model but whichever is used I agree with much of what is said with the odd caveat. A Midlife Cyclist is written by Rachel Ann Cullen. The book is about Rachel’s cycling journey to heal a broken mind and find joy. In this way, the revolution of midlife cyclists is performance pioneers. A statistically significant subset of the population, and the first of its kind in history, to make a conscious choice to push the envelope of performance and aging without any precedent of the predicted victor.He makes the point that people like me (65 y+ triathletes) are the first large cohort of oldies doing excessive exercise and that over the next couple of decades, we will learn more about the benefits and disadvantages and consequently be able to design better strategies to avoid the latter and optimise the former. Let's hope so! For most recreational cyclists, this is the time to enjoy rides for the sheer pleasure. But it is worth broadening your activities. First, the bad news. As we grow older, in addition to our declining senses (eyes, ears) we must also contend with reducing muscle fibre, hormones and bone density. Not everything goes down: our blood pressure, cholesterol levels and body weight, for example, move right on up. But our heartbeat max takes a drop and, as if all this wasn’t bad enough, our very cells just don’t work as well as they used to. Atrophy.