Simple fact is between your 20s and late 40s you’ve have dropped about 20% VO2 max, lost a lot of muscle mass etc. Off the couch VO2 max numbers for a 20 year old can be as high or higher than your trained VO2 max in your late 40s.
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Do a better job picking your parents! 
One of my housemates in college studied engineering math all the time and he got Cs, while I barely studied and got As. He was always frustrated by that. On the other hand I would work out in the gym 3 times a week and could barely put on muscle, he never worked out and had muscles on his muscles. I was frustrated by that. 
One of the guys on Wed night worlds is 58, ftp around 230W / 3.6W/kg, and does group rides for 6-9 hours/week. Every year he snags a few crit and road podiums. He does almost no intervals, and doesn’t follow any formal progressive training plans. On the other hand I’m a couple years older and on Wed night the big young guns with 330+ watt FTPs open it up into the wind on a flat flat flat course, and I get dropped after 10 minutes with my 270W ftp. But that 58 year old with 230W ftp hangs with the 20 and 30 year old fast guys for 40+ minutes - aero for the win at his 168cm / 64kg (plus he has a better top-end than I do).
Wed worlds remind me what I learned in college - do a better job picking your parents 
And my weaknesses aren’t the same as others, therefore a good plan (e.g. TR plans) to develop generalized fitness for specific types of events may not be enough. And after 45 recovery becomes a bigger deal… At 60 I’ve got the aerobic capacity of an off-the-couch 22 year old, which for my age is considered Excellent vo2max, but a dedicated 20 something can likely go from off-the-coach to training 8 hours/week like me and in 3-6 months will drop me in the first 10 minutes.
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Sounds like my best bud back in Washington which is 51 that I ride with when I am there. He either rides or has ridden 20+ hours a week on avg for last 4 years and does this exclusively on Zwift with coco, solo during the summer or with me while I am there.
In short he does not follow a training plan but just has the engine to smash most everyone I know. I know he does do harder parts of his rides to essentially make them tempo/sweet spot but does 90% of everything else in Z1/Z2.
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Some people were gifted at birth, the rest of us have to work our asses off!
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For sure.
For less than 2 hour rides I am fine usually with him and can beat him handily on sprints as my 30 sec to 1 min power is decent. If he wanted to put the hammer down for 1-2 hours well it would be tough to hang with him but that is what 5 years of base like that does for you. Still working as this is my 2nd in the last 3 with any type of hours to speak of.
As a 54 year old, it’s tough to hang with the 20 somethings. As others have said, more sweetspot/base may help, as well as fueling sufficiently. Good luck (and maybe find some 40 and 50 year olds to ride with 
)
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This is most definitely not a universal truth at all.
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Secret training - not everyone posts their rides on Strava!
Other things to look out for:
- How close are you to the wheel in front?
- Are you surging?
- Related to surging - how is your cornering?
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I’m not sure I believe that but I’ve been coming to the conclusion that maybe the average masters rider might be faster on 3-4 days per week of riding rather than 6 or 7. I’ve been that 6 or 7 days rider for the last 4 years and I think I’m often too tired. 45min to 1 hour “recovery” rides just aren’t recovery.
I’ve ridden with a couple riders this past year. On rides 3x per week, swims and lifts weights and maintains a solid 275 watt FTP. Another masters rider, 60 years old, is a monster and he rides 3 times per week. I do more training, follow a plan, do the intervals, and I’m usually on the back foot. I think these guys are just always fresher than I am.
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What destroys me (and happened twice, one this year, and last year) is on a extra difficult route we use to do every summer. A ride to the highest mountain in Spain (in the península), Veleta peak. It’s a 70 kms mtb ride, 2.100 gain altitude, 34 kms are an almost continue climb (many people turns back on last kilometers because they can’t do it after the long climb). These last 4 kms I always struggle a lot and see how my friends go faster than me. For me it’s a torture these last kms.
I do about 4.800 kms on 6 months, and many of my friends just made 1300 kms, 2400kms…No structured training…
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I’m in the opposite position as you. I live in Japan and I’m 10–20 kg heavier than my team mates. I weigh 73–75 kg, for reference. (Yes, I have at least one male team mate who is in the <= 55 kg Strava category.) That means I can keep up and blow up most riders here, I simply have more absolute power and that’s what counts on the flats. On the climbs, where W/kg counts most, the situation is much better for most Japanese riders, it evens out.
I’d keep the following in mind:
- Look for a group that is a good fit. In my team we have a very fast woman. Before taking up cycling, she ran a 3-hour marathon according to a team mate. In her first bike race, a hill climb TT, she podiumed. I’d peg her at 3.5–4 W/kg, which roughly corresponds to 4.5–5 W/kg for guys, i. e. excellent. But in terms of absolute power she cannot hang with the fast guys, and it is difficult for her to find suitable riding mates. The slow people are too slow, she destroys them on the climbs, but she doesn’t have the absolute power to stay with faster male athletes.
- Choose courses that emphasize your strengths, i. e. hillier courses might be better for your group rides.
- Work to improve your FTP with an eye on endurance. Something like the Century plan or Climbing Road Race plan might be good fits.
- If you have been stagnating, consider changing up something in your training. This does not mean your previous training was badly structured or a bad fit, sometimes your body just needs a change in stimulus to progress further.
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My friend is quite strong he doesn’t post at all on strava and he only appears to ride twice a week with us but we speculate that he must do more, perhaps turbo work. He’s also appears strong because he rides clever and saves his efforts.
As a 47 year old that is SO not my experience. You have a small drop off for sure and your recovery takes longer but I’ve never seen someone in there 20’s who’s trained for say a couple of years being even close to a 7 hour a week mid 40’s person.
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What was your vo2 max when 22, and what is it now?
No idea but I ride my bike as fast, I know that and that is a pretty important metric!
found this, if you take weight out of it (which obvs. doesn’t make much difference on the flat, there’s not too much drop between 20 and 40.
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To be honest, I think your friends might just be stronger than you. You’re pretty much in the middle with your FTP, your weight is slightly lower, so your W/kg is a bit better than average. But a lot of people just have more power, and I’d think especially younger people.
There is a significant drop off depending on how you read the graph. You need the actual numbers, reading errors off that graph could give totally the wrong impression.
“In the general population, VO2max tends to decline by about 10% per decade after the age of 30. Athletes who continue to compete and train hard can reduce the drop by about half, to 5% per decade after the age of 30. The reason VO2max declines with age is that our maximal heart rates go down as well.”
Personally, mine dropped about 5% from 28yrs to 46 yrs old and has dropped another 4% in the last 3 yrs now 49yrs. So 9% in two decades, that is about inline with the info I quoted.
I’m tempted to try and get back to my mid 40s level by the time I turn 50, might be impossible but worth a go (not maxed my VO2 this year.)
Although an interesting topic imo, it may or may not be relevant to the discussion as I posted on the Pro Training thread VO2max isnt always a good indication of performance, however there are going to be times when it might be a significant factor.
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That’s a huge drop in my eyes
A Very Unscientific Guess by me as I’ve not got the VO2max records back as far as my 20s but I suspect that my VO2max number hasn’t dropped significantly from then but my ‘off the couch’ VO2 max of my 20s is probably on a par or perhaps higher than what I have to work hard to maintain as a nearly 47yo.
FWIW I wouldn’t trust what data I do have from 2017 onwards (estimated by garmin). According to it I have a circa 6-9% higher now number over winter compared to now and an almost identical number now (summer) when I’m mostly riding outdoors 