It would be more constructive if you were to share how you got to those very fine results. Like the thread that you started on Wattage, this is simply a bit of bragging – posting numbers that speak very well for your genetics and training, but not offering insights as to how you’ve managed balancing volume, intensity, and rest to get there. So yes, you’re just self-validating in public, in which case…
It appears to be based at least in part on some of the author’s classic long-term studies of Olympians.
ETA: Here, I tracked down the original reference for you.
67 at 61 is quite impressive - I guess that’s why you’re one of the best cyclists in the world in your age group?
Im not familiar with that acronym, but it turns out my Watch tells me based on my walking: 42.
Should I ask for a wheelchair or apply for the Olympics? 
Fair comment. Sorry if I went over the top.
Genetics help but for aging athletes mindset is just as important.
Received wisdom is that as you get older then you get less fit and need more recovery. This may be true if you compare a 25 year old with an 85 year old but the actual hard scientific data that it is true at 40 v 45 or 50 or 55 is actually very scant. Very few people do sufficient training to reach the limit of their genetic potential, Doing so takes decades. There is every reason to suppose that if you train with purpose you can improve enough over a year to offset any marginal effects that adding another candle to your cake causes.
What is not at doubt is that if you tell people they will lose fitness and tell them to train less and recover more they are will lose fitness. It is a self fulfilling prophecy,
I’ve found one simple rule. The harder I train the better I get. Age so far has nothing to do with it.
I brag about my numbers because I am proud of my numbers. I got them through hard work. But I also do so to try to be heard against a prevailing mindset that is actually based on very little evidence and does real harm.
The other key point I would say is not just ride a bike. I am feeling better than at any time since I was in my mid 20s and that is due to spending some time on mobility and strength training. I cant say for sure this has made me a better rider but it has for sure made it easier to dig the garden.
Hope that helps. I am more than happy to discuss this further and, hopefully, hear good news stories from others that have got better with every passing year.
Agreed on all the above, but especially this. My weight has yo-yo’d in proportion to my strength training and rowing on the ergometer. When I just do the bike ad cut calories, my W/kg and relative Vo2 max get high, but I suck at everything else in life.
The one race I was able to do last year was a mountain summit finish, and I did all right after cutting down to 71 kilos (from 77). But moving house in July kicked my ass.
I’m back at 76kg now, and that extra torso, core, and leg muscle really helps with being generally functional at 54 and not just being a skinny cyclist (rowing adds some mass in your thighs since the extension is at a different angle than the bike, and develops some fibers you don’t use while pedalling).
So far, I’ve slowed the decline – I’m doing the same times on my interval hill that I was 8 years ago – but it will, of course, happen. Agreed with you on the points that if you 1) maintain as much volume as you can respond positively to, 2) maintain some intensity, and 3) do things that maintain overall muscle mass and function, you’ll still go fairly well as you age (whatever the celing for “well” is that your genes have set).
I’d second this.
About 3 years ago I started training again after a very long layoff. First year was all “high-octane” stuff. Second year was all TR stuff — with no rest. During that time I had an standard ECG stress test and a nuclear stress test. Both conducted after a ~3 month block of no-rest ~10hr/week training. Both tests showed my heart to be “diseased”*. After a year of rest and lo-octane riding, I had a ‘gold standard’ ECG test which revealed my heart to be 99% perfectly healthy.
Train it, stress it, but also remember to rest it. You’re heart isn’t going to tell you something is wrong until it’s too late.
*(to be fair, some of the tests results were due to ‘false positive’ readings/interpretations, but not all of them)
Looking up more on this topic I found this article which is very good
Of particular interest are two findings from two different studies many years apart. Extracts are below.
They seem to back up what I have found, that VO2max and other fitness attributes are as much if not more related to training load rather than just age.
My hope is that as apps like Zwift become more mainstream we will see this pattern more and more often,
Study 1.
In 1987, a year after Dill’s death, Dr Michael Pollock and co-investigators at the Mt Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, reported an astonishing finding which lent further credence to the idea that very strenuous exercise was a VO2max preserver: well-trained, competitive endurance athletes with an average initial age of 52 were able to totally maintain VO2max values over a 10-year period
Study 2
At the fairly inactive end of Rogers’ athletic group, the losses in VO2max were greater. Two athletes who cut training volume by 30% or more experienced VO2max losses of about 1% per year. By contrast, a 55-year-old, national-class athlete, who completely maintained the quantity and quality of his training, preserved all of his VO2max – and actually improved his competitive performances – over the entire study period! Such perfect preservation of aerobic capacity by very hard-working veterans was, of course, the same finding made by Pollock in his 10-year study.
Agreed. While it is nice to be able to beat youngsters at Zwift the biggest improvement to the quality of my life recently has been getting my joints to work properly again and build up some strength to keep them that way. So I have given up on my dreams of having the BMI of a true climber, I would rather feel good 24 hours a day not just on the few times I get to climb real mountains.
Id third this. I get the occasional heart spike so have seen a specialist a couple of times to get the OK which luckily I have.
Very much better to be safe than sorry.
post_deleted
I never trust Garmin’s’ VO2 max calculation. If I do solely indoor interval training it goes up, I had it up to 75 in last years lock down; if I do hard TT’s or outdoor intervals it will go up slightly or stay the same; a bad TT will see it go down by 1 and a very relaxed social session it always goes down significantly. Lol, now we are in summer I am going out more and it is sitting at 63.
In WKO5 my VO2max is 63, and i’m 24. Don’t know how that would stand up to lab testing though