The Pinkbike Podcast: Episode 146 - Progression, Regression, and How to Keep Improving
Art by Taj Mihelich
If you asked a hundred people why they ride mountain bikes, I'm sure you'd hear all about nature, being healthy, and having fun outdoors with friends. A lot of us would also add progression to that list, with pushing yourself to new limits, heights, or speeds being a feeling that's hard to beat. But what happens when the progression tails off or your riding starts to go backward? It doesn't matter if it's your first year in the sport and you can only get better, or if your last name is Semenuk or Schurter - you're eventually going to stop improving.
Today's podcast sees Kazimer, Alicia, Matt, and I talking about when and why our riding was progressing the most, aspects of our riding that have gone downhill over the years, and some pointers on how to keep that regression from happening.
THE PINKBIKE PODCAST // EPISODE 146 - PROGRESSION, REGRESSION, AND HOW TO KEEP IMPROVING
September 30th, 2022
Faster, further, higher... until you can't.
Podcast presented by Rimpact
Featuring a rotating cast of the editorial team and other guests, the Pinkbike podcast is a weekly update on all the latest stories from around the world of mountain biking, as well as some frank discussion about tech, racing, and everything in between.
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Must Read This Week
Generally, VO2max decreases gradually with advancing age, and the rate of decline is approximately 10% per decade after the age of 25 years, and more specifically was suggested to be 15% between the ages of 50 and 75 [1, 2, 3].
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27479009
The good news is that training minimizes those VO2 losses. I'm surprised that my body is still adapting to training loads–most important is REST and proper training composition. As I understand Zone 2 should encompass ~80% of training. This is a challenge for the MTB crowd because mountains are not Zone 2. Iñigo San Millán has excellent information on this topic.
gofund.me/1d1663a2
Last name: Wade
But maybe: Wayne/Wade’s not a dude? How DARE you assume a typical male name is for a guy??? Yr a misogynist! Cant stand a gyno…
- I need to keep working
- Injuries could mean time off of bike
- Injuries can prevent future enjoyment or shorten lifetime riding. IE I want to be able to MTB until 75.
I would like to have informative discussion of protective gear and helmets... Ie lots of mountain biking falls result in serious injury, but the majority of people don't really wear gear. This seems strange to me. Because it doesn't work? Too bulky? Not fashionable??
As a former skater, Ive always been driven to slide around on any feature so even at 50+, Im railing more park, going faster & hitting more & bigger features now than ever and it weirdly has me not riding w/ my normal buds & hanging w/ younger riders in parks b/c they like to play & progress.
Sure, Strava is video game & the times can be cool but riding is ultimately about having fun and if you cant have fun - you stagnate. Strava is silicon implants but it was the kick in the ass I needed to find that spark I needed - even if thats only piling on miles or elevation - and am now having more fun than as 20-40 yr old. Point being: being old can be physical, but it seems more like a decision or a frame of mind to me
After he casually dropped in his 2015 result I checked the result on Matt Beer's Roots & Rain, that's an impressive podium, to be sitting atop:
www.rootsandrain.com/event3246/2015-jul-12-cycling-bc-canadian-dh-national-champs-15-sun-peaks-bc/results/#h-elitem
Is it still just a bunch of friends driving or did Levy, Kaz, and Alicia all feel just a little pleased with Matt saying they were riding well? It'd be my ringtone.
On the training side, I signed up for the Strength Factory Mountainbikers Over 40 program, it's been reallly good, but for the fact I've been riding too much, hopefully get back on track this winter. It's been great.
Getting back into mountainbike riding over 40 I'm a little too worried about breaking things, although I do try and push myself - actually trying to get up my local 'impossible climbs' has helped. (they not impossible, I'm just that bad)
Alicia and Kaz, if you stick with what you're planning, sounds like you'll have a great winter!
I'm past 60 and a junky for this sport, and find getting good aerobic condition (rode the white line for 35 years, raced for ten, always had a very good VO2 max), very hard. Not being able to get good zone 2 training is a real problem on MTB, runner friends that still compete at this age say it is absolutely essential to going long and fast, especailly being older. I just did my first ride on a ebike at altitude, and damn it, if the obvious didn't hit me, you can easily get good zone 2 training on a e bike. I was fixated on e bikes being just cheating and now I realize that's all wrong. Both of the Mike's are still young enough to be over training, always going hard, not getting in enough lower heart rate riding, one of them (Kaz) should get the book, there are many, talk to runners and make a disciplined effort this winter and report what they find, I would bet he will be faster. This is not just a occasional day goofing off, a bit more involved. This is the main reason the roadies are more fit than us MTB riders.
youtu.be/ogErvreejfs?t=00m05s
Matt: I don’t understand the question
@mikelevy you were getting the PBA riders on the podcast previously, it'd be great to hear from the ones that have been out racing EWS this year.
You gotta pay to play. For some, it’s to go electric and for others, it’s to pay in sweat.
Trails that I've ridden dozens (possibly 100) times, I now walk the steep sections. It's such that an entire riding area, I essentially avoid. I last rode there in April, and either dodging a baby head rock, or rolling over it and slipping I crashed and broke my elbow. And many crashes in the same area over the years.
And I feel the same as you, I hate that I no longer have the mental fortitude to ride the tough sections, which is why I don't want to ride there anymore. So, I stick to a bit easier trails that I still have fun on. Guess there comes a point where I just have to let some stuff go.
Thanks for sharing.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHA5CIL0fg
Van der Poel might have shoved two teenage girls but you are insinuating he hit small children. Please don't twist the facts. Hitting is not the same as shoving and teenage girls are not small children.
You are right, you shouldn't hit people but that is not the point.
"So basically van der Poel was trying to sleep, Some teenage girls were banging on his door. So he got angry, woke up, opened the door shoved the kids. The police were called and he plead guilty. So now he has a three year ban from Australia and probably needs some, like, therapy or counseling or something. You shouldn't hit small children no matter how annoying they are."
Van der Poel might have shoved two teenage girls but you are insinuating he hit small children. Please don't twist the facts. Hitting is not the same as shoving and teenage girls are not small children.
And you are right, you shouldn't hit people but that is not the point.
I just wanted to say, I love how PB posts articles like this "Mathieu van der Poel Pleads Guilty to Assault After Altercation with Teenage Girls" yet doesn't think, "Hey, maybe we should either not post this, or at least make an effort to moderate the comments."
You guys should have some foresight, how do you think this reflects on PB and the mountain bike community as a whole if somebody who is new to MTBing were to read the comments below this article? If you had a friend who had never mountain biked and were to see this article's comments what do you think they would think? Makes, the whole PB MTB community seem like a bunch of misogynistic, male, dirtbags. 90% of the comments don't even follow PB's comment etiquette. This breaks my heart because I love PB but when this happens nobody does anything to stop it (except some random, few, brave people in the comments) I wonder if PB is something I should support or recommend.
What is the point of posting articles like this? To me, there are zero benefits or use in doing so, because of what people post in the comments.
I hope you might enlighten me on PB's counter-argument,
-Seth
As for the comments, you're right, some of them took a turn for the worse. Moderation did take place, but there's obviously more work to be done.
Also, why didn't you guys post a warning though like you have before saying, "any violent comments will not be tolerated" or something like that? Also, it was not a news article it was a very short couple of sentences to actual news articles. I read in some newer articles that he supposedly chased the girls in his underwear into their rooms.
Also, you have to be very careful in what words you use otherwise you can purposely (or un-purposely) effectively change the facts due to connotations around certain words and facts. It is like a journalist doing a story on how a cyclist was hit and killed by a car speeding because the driver was texting, do think people would feel more or less angry about the death of the cyclist if the writer added that the cyclist never had a helmet, rather than leaving it out. A helmet won't save you if a car hits you while going 60-70 km/h so that fact is negligible and does not contribute to the story.
But why did it take so long for that moderation to happen? Also, when I checked about 5min ago there were comments by a guy about "beating (insert N-word)" are those comments part of the work left to be done? Can't you guy put a software limit that won't allow comments to be posted with certain words like that?
Thanks for replying to my message, I appreciate it.
Yeah, they are a bunch of bullies, I posted a question (without reading past posts so I never knew what they were about) and some guy called me a retard because I had a few spelling errors. So, I pointed out all the spelling and grammatical errors in his reply and told him his insult was dumb and he should move on. So he went and started to flame me and my parents and then everyone on the forum flamed me. He even accused me of using a grammar checker to point out his errors which was super insulting!
I contacted a mod who told me I was overreacting and should just ignore the flaming, which doesn't make sense.