I did a thing this year. I got back into motorcycle racing. In my 50’s.
Yep I turned 50 last year, and sure call it a mid-life crisis but I was keen to get a 450 motocross bike and get back into some racing. Now I raced a fair bit of motocross, enduro and Supermoto from 1992 to about 2004 and it taught me a lot about riding. I never achieved any real greatness in racing though. The fear of getting hurt often held me back.
Supermoto Slides
One of the last big races I did was the World Championship round of Supermoto at Broadford in 2002. I was racing an XR650R (Michael Byrnes old Thumper Nats bike) and was stacked up against some of the best racers in Australia and international riders that were doing the full world championship. My qualifying went OK but not sensational, I ended up finding myself on the front row of the grid for the start of the last chance qualifier with a heap of big names beside and behind me.
On the warm up lap I recall coming down into the 3rd gear “schoolhouse” corner at Broadford with two french guys in front of me. As we hit the braking zone the guy in front squeezed the brakes, dropped it down a couple of gears, tipped into the corner and let his back end drift out wide until his inside foot was scraping on the ground while still on the peg, then while pitched sideways leaving blackies on the tar he took his left hand off the bars and gave a V for victory sign to the crowd as we drifted into the corner!
I pulled up alongside him and just shook my head feeling out of my depth being here lined up on the front row of the grid for a World Championship race. Sure it was the last chance qualifier but I could feel the 20 or so other guys behind breathing down my neck eager as anything to score world championship points. How did I finish the race? Well I got a pretty decent start and was running in around 4th or 5th through the first couple of corners, then I completely muffed it coming into “crash” corner and drifted out wide into the dirt which let seemingly half the field by! It was only the top three finishers of this LCQ that would be granted entry into the final so sadly I missed out on the chance of scoring any world championship points. Still, it was unforgettable experience and I learned a lot.
That is the neat thing about racing. You learn so much. You learn about bike setup, strategy, organisation, riding skills and fitness. It is that last point of fitness that I have really enjoyed rediscovering as I have gotten back into racing.
For a 50 year old I’m still reasonably fit. I saw a doctor recently for a routine medical check up and got a clean bill of health with my health noted as “excellent”. I recall a previous check up rating my fitness as “elite”. Now I don’t know about that but I’ll take it. I do take pleasure from my Garmin Fenix watch telling me my fitness age is a few below my actual age. Good motivation.
I do enjoy doing lots of MTB riding, the occasional run and doing some weights at the gym. One thing I have really noticed in my late forties is that if I don’t move my body it begins to protest. Too much sitting at a computer and I get stiff hips and a sore right shoulder from overworking the mouse. So for the past 18 months I joined a local gym and I’ve been doing pilates fairly regularly and I’ve really enjoyed it. Pilates absolutely helps loosen my body up and get some flexibility back and improved my core strength which I love. Yoga sessions are a great option but to be honest I find it really depends on the instructor as to how much I get out of a session.
Coming into 2023 and summer holidays I knew it was going to be hard to get to gym regularly and the pilates instructor was leaving which meant the pilates classes weren’t as regular so I cancelled my gym membership. I had a plan though. I wasn’t just going to do nothing. One thing about going to gym that was challenging was the time it took to drive across town. To me that was dead time so I wanted to do more workouts at home to save on time and allow me to sneak in a workout even if I only had 30 mins to spare.
I already had a really basic set of weights and some TRX straps and some resistance bands at home I could work with. To help me get some structure about my training I wanted to find a program that I could follow. I have been following Ben Greenwood (@offroadperfomancecoach) who has some great content on his Instagram feed. Ben offers a full structured training program to follow for moto riders. To be honest I haven’t signed up for his paid program but I do really appreciate the content he puts out on socials. It makes a lot of sense.
Fitbod
What I did discover which I have really clicked with is an app called “Fitbod”. This appeared as an ad in my feed and looked good so I gave it a try. I liked it so much I ticked the box for a monthly subscription after a few workouts. The thing I love about Fitbod is it uses AI to build a structured training program for you to not only suit your fitness goals, current health status and age but the really neat thing is you can tell it what workout equipment you have available to you. So when I was on holidays in January I had access to a full gym at the resorts we were staying at – Fitbod built my workouts accordingly with weights and treadmills etc. part of the suggested program each day. It will also suggests the weights and number of reps you should be pushing to suit you. Likewise when I got home and have minimal equipment to work with it I can choose “home” as the gym and the app will give me more bodyweight exercises to utilise the equipment I have at my disposal. Neat!
I have also found it addictive and often as soon as I have finished a workout I will be looking ahead to tomorrow to see what it has in store for me!
Smart Training
I also appreciate the importance of keeping a base level of cardio fitness going so I bought myself a birthday present for my 50th last year and got a gravel bike and indoor smart trainer. If you don’t know what the hell a “gravel bike” is well think of it as the bicycle version of an adventure bike. It is essentially a road bike frame with slightly wider tyres and disc brakes to handle the mud and gravel of dirt roads. The model I opted for was a Specialized Diverge Sport Carbon with just enough cool stuff to make it interesting without spending the kind of money you buy a brand new motorcycle with. Bicycle prices are nuts for what you get! Where’s the motor??
Getting a smart trainer meant that I could bolt the bike up to it indoors and get a workout in no matter the weather or time of day. Riding a bicycle on the roads seems to be even more dangerous nowadays so being indoors eliminates being taken out by a wayward texter. A “smart trainer” is basically just a bike stand with a flywheel that replaces your rear wheel. Turn the trainer on and sync up via bluetooth to your phone or iPad and then the resistance provided by the trainer will vary depending on the workout you are doing on screen. It will simulate the load of climbing hills and replicate what you are seeing visually.
The real reason I wanted to utilise a trainer was to follow a structured plan. There are some fantastic apps out there now to provide structure and to help reduce the boredom of cycling indoors. Zwift being the biggest and most well known. To be honest I haven’t been completely sucked into this indoor training world yet. I do love the fact that I can jump on the bike, pedal my guts out and and get a sweat up for an hour all while catching up on Supercross or MotoGP races with a big screen in front of me!
I do also have an e-MTB (a Specialized Turbo Levo) that I use to hit up the local MTB tracks and for some bigger adventures out in the forests. If anyone ever says you don’t get a workout from e-bikes don’t believe them! I find with a motor assisting you don’t get the heart rate spikes into the max zone but it is easier to sustain
Heart Rate To The Max!
In all the research I’ve been doing lately (mostly on YouTube when I should be getting to sleep!) channels like GCN talk a lot about the value of Zone 2 training as being great for a solid base level. If you don’t know what Zone 2 is it basically means for me a heart rate of between 126 – 137 – or 60-70% of max heart rate.
Speaking of heart rate this has been the most fascinating thing for me in my rediscovery of racing. The often accepted way of determining your maximum heart rate is the formula of 220 minus your age – so for a 50 year old like me that means 170. Cool. Now I can calculate out that my Zone 2 should be between 126 – 137. Easy, I can do that. Zone 2 heart rate in more simplistic terms is termed as “steady” or you should be able to still carry on a conversation while in this zone.
Here’s the kicker though. That maximum heart rate is bull crap! Well it is for me anyway. My new found maximum is 196 bpm! At age 50! That’s 26 bpm above the calculation. That doesn’t calculate….
For reference my height is 178cm (5ft 10″) and around 78kg.
When I did my first motocross race meeting again a couple of weeks ago, while kitting up I strapped on my Garmin Heart Rate monitor on my chest underneath my body armour. I’ve been using a Gamin Fenix 5 watch for about 5 years now and I love it for keeping track of all my health stats. The watch can track your heart rate in your wrist via infra red sensors on the back of it but wearing a heart rate chest strap instead is way more accurate. With the Garmin HRM-Pro it has a data logging capability which means I didn’t have to wear the Fenix watch on my wrist to track heart rate during the race. I can sync the data after exercise.
My max heart rate peaked up to 196 bpm and held an average of 163 bpm in one of the races! I recorded over 10 minutes in Zone 5 Maximum. Hell I even recorded a heart rate of over 150 bpm just sitting on the start line for the race! I obviously need to teach myself to calm down, or cut back on the coffee!!!
Transmoto
On the weekend just gone I also did an 8 Hours Transmoto enduro race at Stroud. I teamed up in the Pairs category with a local mate Matt which meant we would do alternate laps of the 15km course, swapping over every lap which meant about 25-30 minutes on the bike. A longer duration so surely the intensity of heart rate would have to be lower? Again I strapped on the Garmin to record the heart rate activity. The track was super dusty right from the get go that meant visibility in places was down to like two metres and just seeing your front guard was a challenge! We spent most of the lap in 2nd gear with plenty of tight stuff and the dusty conditions meant the ruts were hidden and slippery.
So I recorded a total of 4 laps. My maximum heart rate was indeed lower at “just” 165 or 186 bpm depending on which lap you look at, while my average stayed in the red Zone 5 with an average of 145 bpm. Looking at the “Time in Heart Rate Zones” chart fascinates me with many minutes in the red Maximum or orange Threshold zones.
So the rough and ready guide of max heart rate tells me my heart rate should peak out at 170. I’m exceeding that by 25 bpm and can sustain it around or above 170 for over 10 minutes. I’m thankful that I have a body that is healthy and functioning well like this at 50.
Beat Yesterday
Where is my true limit?
That is what I am most intrigued with. What could my body achieve with consistent effort and focus?
The other really interesting thing is I wasn’t completely gassed when I got home that night. Nor was I particularly sore the next day. I remember times after a race weekend in my twenties when I basically couldn’t walk the next day because I was so sore. Descending a set of stairs at work was a perilous exercise in semi-controlled falling! I didn’t experience that now though. Some of my prep must have been paying off.
The biggest weaknesses I noticed on the bike were:
- Lack of strength in my arms and shoulders to pull my upper body forward when accelerating hard out of corners.
- Using leg strength (mostly quads/thighs) to keep pressure down on the footpegs while seated to get good drive out of rough and choppy ruts.
- Lacking core strength (abs, hips, shoulders) to find a good balance in deep ruts on the MX track.
- Lacking stamina towards the end of the day to hold my inside leg up when railing a corner.
- Above all else how can I improve my bodies cardio or “aerobic” ability to process oxygen as fuel for my muscles and get rid of the waste product.
- My mind and skills are willing to go faster, I need to train my body to keep up!
- My starts on the MX track were not good. I used to be a great starter with regular holeshots which is a great feeling. The bike is new to me and has a ton of power so I need to dedicate time to practicing my technique for a good launch. Also it has launch control and traction settings so I need to get dialled in with those.
The biggest strengths I noticed:
- My ability to select lines was awesome. On the MX track I was taking a lot more inside lines than the riders around me and made me heaps of time. On the enduro track I was good at picking smoother lines and flow through corners so I didn’t have to fight bike constantly. Save my energy for the hours and minutes ahead.
- My form and body position for the most part was OK I think, more time on the bike will help. I know I need to use my feet and legs more for control of the bike.
- In the last two MX races I managed to pluck up the courage and clear the double jump that had been messing with my head and losing me seconds each lap. Riding really is a mental game in so many ways and if you can find ways to convince yourself then you can achieve great things!
- I kept myself safe and off the ground which is important to me at 50. I’m sure my body won’t bounce as well as it used to!
I’ve got a whole calendar of race events mapped out through the year that I will try to fit in where I can around our maschine event commitments. What I’m most excited about is slipping on the Alpinestars leathers and getting back into some supermoto racing. For sure that’s not as physical as MX or enduro so I stand a better chance against the guys half my age.
All in all it’s been fascinating for me to get back into racing. I have to be realistic with myself about what I’m going to be able to achieve results wise but that is the cool thing. There is always someone slower and always someone faster than you. The more important thing is you keep improving your yesterday!
*If you are going to start doing some serious riding then go get checked out at a GP and get some blood tests done. That is a good way to understand your baseline health.
**Throughout this article I have mentioned some products that might help if you are wanting to improve your fitness and are looking into some gear. I purchased all of the products mentioned and don’t get any kickbacks. I merely mention them to help your own research. Here is a list of kit to make it easy:
Apps
Garmin Connect – sync to you Garmin watch and get all kinds of health data
Fitbod – Nicks favourite app to help make progress in the gym