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- Today we're talking to Peter Abraham about bicycling, how to ride strong at 50+ program. Let's get to it. Alright, Peter, you ready? - Yeah, ready. - You ready, ready. All right, let's do this. Peter, when did you start riding? - Oh gosh. Well, I started riding bikes as a kid, like many people, but I started racing bikes and getting seriously into it in high school. I was working at a liquor store in my town stocking shelves and these two guys came in really all kitted up. Well, they spent 20 minutes talking to me. It turned out one of 'em was Greg LeMond, the greatest American cyclist ever. Before he was going to Europe, he was training and I had just started racing and that really like launched a lifelong love affair with bikes for me, I would say. - Greg LeMond came into the liquor store you were working at? - Yes, yes. In the middle of nowhere out in the country in California with a Belgian guy named Noël Dejonckheere. I said to Noël, I said, oh my gosh, I race bikes. He was like, oh, maybe you know my friend Greg LeMond. I was like, oh my God. - That's amazing. - Yeah. - Did Greg stop and talk to you for five hours and tell you stories? - A hundred percent, That was before his first season in Europe, but yeah, he was so gracious and nice and you know, then I kept racing in high school and then raced in college for a few years and I have probably fallen in and out of love with bikes like five times in my life, but I'm currently riding a lot for the last like six, seven years. - How has your riding changed as you've gotten older? - Gosh, that's a good question. I would say I am, let's see, how has my riding changed? I would say number one, I've really come to understand the value of consistency for fitness. So like I've really, like I have was Zwift set up in the garage and I really try and just get something done, let's say five or six days a week. And then I've really come to understand the value of strength training. So I do that two or three days a week and I've come to understand the value of nutrition. You know, when I was like really into racing bikes when I was much younger, all these things were like, you know, total unknowns, honestly like strength training for a cyclist. Why would you do that? Nutrition? I don't know, you just eat a bunch of pasta. Like nobody really cared about that stuff and now there's so much information that is widely available so you really can get fitter and faster and you know, have a better time using all these other things. - And when you do Zwift, are you doing workouts, group rides, races or? - I do a little of everything lately. I'm doing the Tour de Zwift, which every like hour, there's one every hour and there are three different races, short, medium, and long. No matter which one you jump into, there's like 500 to a thousand others Zwifters in that group. So you can always find a group at whatever pace you're going at, whether it's easy or super hard, you can always find a group to ride with. And I do find it actually motivational, like it really does help me go a little harder to be with another group of people even though it's all virtual who are also trying to go hard. So I like it. I like Zwift. - Yeah, I do a lot of Zwift too. It's pretty great, especially in the winter when it's cold, but you don't have that problem where you are. So what do you think cyclists can learn from our new "How to ride strong after 50 program?" - You know, what I'm hoping to just get across is just a number of basics for people, right? Like just the basics of training, some strength training work. You know, spend a minute on indoor training in Zwift, talk about nutrition a little bit. Like just try and give people like the one-on-one on staying fit. As you get older, obviously things change when you get past 50, like one of the things I've noticed is losing weight becomes like way more difficult and you just have a smaller margin for error on a lot of things you do as you get older. And that's okay, but you just gotta like be aware of this. At the same time you know, it's so fun to ride bikes and I think like I've just read the book "Strength to Strength," which talks about how we think differently later in our careers and both at work and personally like, and what happens is once you get past 50 you have this thing called pattern recognition. Like you can really like kind of see a situation and kind of figure it out. And that applies to bikes too, like how you're doing training. Like you can just figure it out much more quickly. So I'm getting great joy out of training on my bike right now. - Well I would hope so. I get a lot of joy outta riding my bike and training too. I'm 52 by the way, so I'm in the same boat, so. Yeah, I feel it. So what was something you learned from how to ride Strong after 50? - I was just talking to friends in London this morning on a call who are like super passionate cyclists and we were just in violent agreement about the intoxication, if you will, the power of getting fit. And I really feel that now more than ever, like it just feels so good to get fit even though like I'm of course not as fast as I was in my twenties, but still I feel the enjoyment and the empowerment of getting fit and getting faster and getting stronger. Like that's just a really intoxicating feeling that I'm way more aware of now I think than I was younger. And I think at any level in your life you can enjoy getting fit and I think that's one of the main things for me. - You know, for me one of the things I recognize is like I appreciate, appreciate it when I feel faster because it's so much harder to achieve that extra speed than it used to be. It used to be like, oh I just ride a couple times, I get faster. Now it's like man, I really gotta work for it. - Yeah, that's right. - I feel faster, Oof. Man, I'm really glad I did that. But yeah, it feels so much better. So what do you think are some of the benefits of cycling as a 50+ person? - Well, you know, like I think cycling appeals to very specific personality types and I would say how cycling appeals to people different from say, let's say running or yoga is number one, it appeals to people who like endorphins 'cause fitness is part of it. Number two, it appeals to people who like adrenaline 'cause it's a little bit fast and a little bit dangerous. Number three, gear is a part of it. You can't separate the fact that gear is a really important part of cycling. And lastly, I think for many people, not everyone, but community is a big part of it. Like getting coffee after the ride, going on group rides, seeing friends, going to races, that kind of thing. So I think when you have those personality type, it's like a dating app match. If you go to a cycling event and you meet somebody at the cycling event and you're like, God, I just feel at home here and I immediately click with these people. That's why 'cause you automatically have these personality traits in common. So I've really come to understand the beauty of that and I kind of celebrate that, you know? - Yeah, we're surrounded by our people, right? - Yeah, that's right. - It's like we have this thing in common, so no matter who they are, we know we have something in common. Yeah, that's incredible. - Here's an example. Like this weekend I'm going to the all clubs event, which is like kind of a national gathering of the black cycling community. It's in LA every January and this will be my third year in a row that I've gone and you walk into this room, everybody's like different ethnicity, different background. Most of these people just got on bikes during the pandemic. They look different, they're a different age, they come from a different point of view. They didn't grow up like obsessed with the Tour de France, like maybe I did, they just got on bikes. But man, they are passionate about bikes and you walk into this room and you're like, immediately you're like, wow, I feel welcome here. These are my people. And like in five minutes you're arguing about tire size and Strava posts, all the same things that cyclists talk about. - How fast the group rides are. - That's right. - I Thought this was gonna be a slow group ride, you know? All that stuff. So what's your favorite thing about riding as a 50+ cyclist? - You know, I think like my favorite thing is going out with a group of friends and having a really good ride. Having coffee after. Like I would say the community and group part of it is really fun. Like I do gravel races all over in US in Europe. My favorite part of the gravel race is the shakeout ride the day before, which is super social, right? Not that fast. Really fun. Have a coffee after, that's like, I would say my favorite, you know, part of a gravel race weekend even more so than the actual race. So I really like the community component is important to me. - And what's your favorite gravel race? Or what's a memorable one you've done? - You know, like I would say my favorite is SBT GRVL in Colorado, which I've done maybe three or four times. And just the gravel is beautiful there. - Champagne gravel, they call it. - Champagne gravel. It's just the right size town. You see everybody around all weekend. Like usually the weather's pretty good. You might get a rainstorm, but it's not cold. Anyway, that's my favorite gravel race. - I can understand why. I live down in Durango so yeah, I've been up to Steamboat a few times. It is quite a magical little town. So we talked about some of your favorite things about riding as a 50+ cyclist. Let's talk a little bit about some of your least favorite things. - You know, I would say crashing probably, I would say number one. And you know, if you ride a lot, like it's not a question of if you're gonna crash, sooner or later you're gonna hit the deck. Hopefully you don't get injured. But it's a reality. A year and a half ago I got a pretty bad concussion from a mountain bike crash. That's number one. I think the other thing with bikes is not really a problem for me, but it takes time. Like versus going out for a run or getting on Zwift ,like to go for an outdoor ride, like you gotta gear up. There's like downhill sections and stoplights and things where you're not working out. So like a ride takes a long time, you know, it takes more time than like, you know, running or swimming. So that is something that I've just had to kind of learn to deal with. Yeah, it can be a big time commitment, you know, especially, I lived in LA for 11 years, so you know, one of the things was like, oh, we're going for a mountain bike ride. We gotta pile everything in the car. We drive to the trailhead and then you ride and then you gotta, you know, so yeah, you need the luxury of time to do this sport for sure. Which can be challenging. And I feel you on the injuries, boy, I've been through it myself, you know? And but yeah, you're right about how it makes it more, you know, the adrenaline rush. It's thrilling and yeah, you gotta be careful, you know, safety's a big part of it, but it's always worth it I think. - That's right. So what's your next big trip? Next big ride, next big race? What you got coming up? - That's a good question. I mean, I think I'll go to the Bicycle leadership conference in Tucson in March so I can ride up and down Mount Lemon, which is such a great climb. - Mount Lemon is an amazing climb. Have you done it before? - Yeah, I've done it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so good. - And I'm sure I'll probably do Big Sugar Gravel in Bentonville, Arkansas in October. I like that event and I love going to Bentonville. I love riding there, both mountain and gravel. - So you're gonna do just Big Sugar or will you do Little Sugar too? - I'll probably just do Big Sugar. - Okay. - That's a really good race. It's really hard 'cause the hills are short and steep and it's like hill, hill, hill hill over and over. - Yeah, just all the little punches up, down, up, down, up, down. Yeah. - But I love also going to Bentonville and just gather. I have a lot of friends who live there and a lot of community comes there to ride. I'm fascinated by it there and I love riding there. - Great food too. They've got good food there. - And great food. And I may get a trip into Europe this year at some point for work and then I'll ride when I'm in Europe, which is really interesting. Each country has its own sort of bike personality, right? Whether it's France or Spain or UK and it is really interesting to go riding and connect with cyclists in these different countries. - Yeah, my wife and I have got a trip planned to the Pyrenees at the end of June. We're gonna go ride Hautacam and you know, Lourdes Ardennes in that area down there. We're staying in a little town called Villelongue and that's been my motivation to like lose weight and train is like, because she'll kill me on the climb. She's so fast. - I just rode in the Pyrenees for the first time in June on the French side. And I found it fascinating, like there are like no cars there. Like literally it's like 10,000 miles of bike lanes, bike trails. And then even when you rarely did see a car, it would like give you like 10 feet of space and go really slow. And there were all these signs on the roads, like this bike route and that bike route. I was like, man, this is a place where bikes are really respected. Which obviously you rarely feel here in the US. So like I thought that was amazing and yeah, the Pyrenees is its own unique kind of area within France and within Europe and the climbs are incredible obviously. You'll love it. - Yeah, my wife went last year and she had such a great time that I was like, I'm going, you know, you convinced me I'm going. So I'm really looking forward to it. Well Peter, thank you so much for your time. This has been awesome to meet you and connect with you and talk nerd out about some bike stuff for a while. So thank you so much. - You're welcome.

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