The team at PF&H recently asked me to write about something I’ll freely admit feels slightly absurd: at the grand old youthful age of 50, why hasn’t my cycling performance fallen off the ageing ‘cliff’ after 25 years of continuously racing bikes?
In fact, when I actually looked at my data, I’m going faster now. That’s either the result of very smart training decisions... or the bar I set for myself in my mid 20’s was embarrassingly low. Possibly both.
The evidence I’m going to use here is drawing on 23 years of time trial data taken from exactly the same course - the ‘P311’ as it's formally known in time trialling parlance (or 'The Rumble Strip' as those of us who have suffered it refer to it ‘affectionally’). It’s a road surface which appears to have been designed by someone with a grudge against cyclists and a surface that looks like it’s been blasted by shotguns at the Alamo.
Let’s take a look at the fall in my times on it over the last 23 years.
So how is this possible? I mean, the science of ageing tells us that our VO₂ max declines at roughly 1% per year after the age of 25 in sedentary individuals and somewhere between 0.5-1% in trained athletes. If that’s true, I should be measurably worse. Yet here we are.
The answer, has come down to three key things I’ve learned over time...
1. Focus on key performance indicators (Net performance, not max power)
One of the most significant mindset shifts I’ve made over two decades is understanding what makes a cyclist faster. Back in 2003, I had a tendency to hurl myself at a course in a manner that suggested I was auditioning for Worlds Strongest Man, rathr=er than actually trying to maximise my speed. Hammering out of corners out of the saddle at 1000w+ looks great in the eyes of the squirrel you just passed but it’s a pretty inefficient way to keep your speed past 50kph.
Whatever your sport, it’s fundamentally worth understanding the actual performance indicators that make an athlete fast and then leveraging all of them - no matter how small.
In cycling, aerodynamics accounts for roughly 80% of the resistive forces at typical time trial speeds. Investing in yourself, lowering your drag when going into the wind, as well as knowing how to take corners, saves time. For example, I cut off around 30 seconds over 20 minutes in 2025 and that was entirely based on two small tweaks I made in my aerobar set up. The financial cost of that was zero. Once you consider the details, it changes how you think about nearly everything in a race that matters. Those tweaks keep compounding over 25 years into Rumble Strip runs that keep getting faster.
2. Equipment: function over fad
Don’t get me wrong, I have occasionally gone down the rabbit hole of fad chasing. For example, back in 2003 I had my tri bars sloped radically downwards to replicate what my favourite time triallist of the time was doing. It turned out later to be shown in the wind tunnel to be an aerodynamic horror show… but it made my biceps look fabulous so there was that.
I also tried using one of those huge helmets more akin to something from the film ‘Spaceballs’ in 2024. Even if you ignore the laughter I received on the start line, the amount of time it cost me was so large, it was best measured by a sundial.
My equipment has not remained static across this period. Some purchases were good, others were wasteful and not driven by the science. However, we’re animals, not robots, and sometimes you also have to make changes based on human needs such as comfort and not just those found in a wind tunnel. My posterior has lodged a formal vote in favour of wider tyres (with no referendum), for what it’s worth.
The broader point here is that equipment choices need to be driven by data and your own testing, not by what looks good on your competitors or what the cycle industries various marketing departments are particularly excited about this season.
Contrary to what the industry would have you believe, the aerodynamic difference between a well-designed bike frame and its contemporaries are now so small that it’s often not worth the upgrade if you fit it well.
Where the gains remain meaningful is in the details: tyre selection, position optimisation, clothing and the discipline to not change three things at once so you actually know what made the difference.
3. Seeking out the right experts
I personally believe that the best commodity we have is not money, it’s knowledge. The weakness though is that it’s remarkably easy to mistake familiarity or experience for expertise.
The best CEOs I’ve read about or met readily admit what they don’t know... and then hire the best people around them to cover it. At key times, I’ve sought out coaches, engineers, bike-fitters or other riders to help shape my performance.
It’s no coincidence that jumps in my performance on the Rumble Strip (e.g. 2017, 2022 and 2025) all came after I’d spent time talking to the right people with the right ideas. I also try to pay this forward to others too - it’s only fair that someone else avoids the indignation of being the only competitor wearing a totally silver wetsuit in shark infested waters in 2006 (true) or having a pink barbie bell on your handlebars to help you get over a bad bike crash (also true).
Asking for help is so often framed as admitting defeat but in my view, seeking expertise is a sign of strength. Ignoring it because your ego is in the way is just too damn expensive.
The longer the runway, the more time to stick the landing
The graph tells one story. The full story behind it though is longer, more expensive, occasionally humbling, and considerably more embarrassing. So if it carries on this trajectory, I should make the Olympics by the time I’m 75 - at which point I’ll write a follow-up article explaining exactly how I managed it, assuming my shot eyesight and knees allow me to type.
