Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 podcast, season 3, episode 13,. Zwift Meetup Rides and I'm your host, tom Butler. I'm starting out with some sad news this week. Last week, we talked about Kelly's dad, Norm, being in the hospital. We thought that he had rallied and was doing better, but last week he passed away. I want to acknowledge Norm because he had a massive impact on me. He always embraced me as part of his family. Norm spent a number of years before retirement as the chief of pathology and laboratory medicine at a VA hospital. However, he was one of the most humble people you could ever meet. He loved his family deeply and his wise words will certainly be missed. He was 88 years old and he never stopped learning about all kinds of things, especially how the body works, and almost everything you hear about health on the podcast was partly influenced by conversations with Norm. His presence will continue to be missed for the rest of our lives.

Tom Butler: 1:16

The new year has started out with the continuation of a problem from last year. I have not yet lifted weights this year, two weeks in, and I have zero upper body workouts, so it is time for me to ramp up my habit building efforts. I want to once more point to two resources that I think provide excellent insight on how to change habits. One is how to Change by Katherine Milkman, and the other is Atomic Habits by James Clear is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Using insights from these two books, I'm going to be increasing my efforts to create a system that pushes me to do upper body workouts. As I mentioned last episode, I have to see upper body strength as integral to my identity as a cyclist. I am working on an interview for an upcoming podcast that will help imprint in my mind the concept that cyclists have to have upper body strength. Every turn, you see comments that for cyclists to perform at their very best, they need upper body and core strength. However, the reasons for this seem to me to have to do with being able to counter when massive force is being applied to pedals, for example, when climbing. However, I'm just not applying massive force to the pedals. Even when I'm climbing, I am grinding up hills without really mashing on the pedals. So I question whether or not I would actually see a benefit from having more upper body strength and I think this is key If I found myself suffering less up a hill as I increased upper body strength. I believe that would definitely push me into the gym.

Tom Butler: 2:49

Suffering when climbing is one of the key motivators for me. I hate stopping while going up a hill on a group ride. At the end of February is the chilly hilly ride. The ride is 33 miles with some legitimate hills to climb. I will be thinking about this ride almost every day between now and when it happens. I will be thinking specifically how I don't want to step off the bike on any of the hills, and that is a huge motivator for me to go on hilly rides until then. But none of that motivational energy gets transmitted to getting into the gym to do upper body workouts.

Tom Butler: 3:19

I think I might need to find some way of putting my upper body strength on public display the same way that my performance uphills is displayed on group rides. That might be a key to having it in my mind more often when I think about doing something that tests my upper body strength. It seems like it is very easy to hurt myself With cycling. I don't worry about doing damage to my body, but upper body lifting seems much more risky. I've had shoulder problems in the past that I feel I could aggravate by pushing myself too hard, and I also worry about back pain. I'm definitely going to need to get some input on how to do this safely. I could schedule an upper body test. I could just schedule an upper body test in three months. I report here on the podcast about how it went, but I think I will try to do something more public. Of course, I'll keep you posted on anything I come up with and if any of you have ideas about this, let me know.

Tom Butler: 4:19

I have to admit the one factor that is a barrier is that I don't like the atmosphere at the gym. I feel very out of place. When I am out on the bike with people my age, I feel very comfortable. The three-day Cascade Bicycle Club event that Kelly and I did last year was a perfect example, but the gym feels like I'm in a foreign land. So I'm going to do something about this. I don't know exactly what yet, but stay tuned. Whatever happens, I'm really motivated that I can share, on the next episode, that I did my goal of two days of upper body workouts.

Tom Butler: 5:02

I feel extremely fortunate to have met everyone who has connected with me because of the podcast. It is truly a pleasure whenever I hear from someone who has listened, and this week is a great example. Bruce Manninger reached out to me after I talked about my interest in Zwift and shared that he does a meetup with some friends on Zwift. He agreed to come on the podcast and share what they do. Here is the great conversation we had about Zwift and also about Bruce's cycling journey. I want to welcome Bruce Mattinger to the Cycling Over 60 podcast. Thanks for joining me, bruce.

Bruce Madinger: 5:33

Well, this is exciting. I'm looking forward to sharing quite a bit. I'm Bruce Mattinger from Fishers, indiana.

Tom Butler: 5:39

Thank you, A great part of the country.

Bruce Madinger: 5:42

Yes.

Tom Butler: 5:43

I want to thank you for being a listener, first off, and then also thanks for coming on and talking about your cycling journey. We're going to start here, like I start a lot of times. Tell me about your early cycling memories.

Bruce Madinger: 5:58

Well, my earliest memory is when I was very young, probably around first or second grade. I was learning how to ride a bicycle and I remember my sister pushed me down the front yard hill on a blue bike and I remember that's how I learned to ride. She just kept pushing me down until I got to the bottom of the hill without falling, so that was kind of a fun memory. Also, as a child growing up, I would say I was a free-range child. We played in the creek, I rode my bicycle. I can remember riding miles around our house to all different kinds of places. That was a great experience growing up, quite different than our kids, for instance.

Tom Butler: 6:43

Was that in the Fisher Indiana area? Still yes?

Bruce Madinger: 6:47

We grew up at that time on the north side of Indianapolis, and so I've been a lifelong resident of Indianapolis. That was on 46th Street. Later in life we were up near 71st Street, and now we live further north in Fishers.

Bruce Madinger: 7:01

Gotcha Okay in Fishers when I was 13, I received a Huffy 10-speed for Christmas. I have a photo somewhere of me using the bike for the first time in about two feet of snow on the driveway and my dad's there kind of helping me with it. You know, making sure all's good. And that was a Huffy 10-speed with caliper brakes and it was really great. I would ride it all the time down to my friend's house that was about a mile away and ride it around the area?

Tom Butler: 7:31

Did you know that you were going to get that bike, or was that a surprise?

Bruce Madinger: 7:35

I don't think I knew I was going to get that bike and it was a surprise. And I tell you what I really liked it. That's the first bike that I owned that I received. That was new to me.

Tom Butler: 7:47

That's a tough time of year in that area to get a new bike because, like you said, it's snowy outside and everything and you want to jump on it. It's not the best riding conditions outside.

Bruce Madinger: 7:56

Well, I can't remember too much. Yes, you're right, it's not the best riding conditions, but you know the snow goes away every once in a while during the winter time and I could get out and ride around. So it was, it was. I had a lot of fun with that bike. In fact after college that was the bike I used to start getting into longer bike rides with another friend of mine, maybe up towards the 30, 40 miles.

Tom Butler: 8:22

As you grew older, you know getting into college and things like that. What was your biking experiences then?

Bruce Madinger: 8:29

Two things that are interesting. One in college I never rode a bicycle. It surprised me, it just didn't happen. I was at a small school in Ada, Ohio, which is Ohio Northern University, and it's flat, it's open, it's whatever. You can walk anywhere in town easily and that's what I did.

Bruce Madinger: 8:50

In my junior year I went to Europe and I studied in Basel, switzerland, and Bregenz, austria. And the interesting thing there is bicycles were very prevalent but I never rode a bicycle. But once I borrowed a bicycle for one day and rode up to the French border, I believe it was, and back, but beyond that I never rode a bicycle. Public transit was everywhere and that's what I used.

Tom Butler: 9:18

So, looking back at that, do you think you wish you would have experienced more places?

Bruce Madinger: 9:32

It seems like there's quite a bit of cycling that you didn't experience by not getting on a bike as much. It would have been a different experience. I honestly don't know, because I did a lot of traveling, again by train everywhere, and I visited a lot of places. But now that when my wife and I travel, we stop at different kinds of restaurants than I did, probably in college days. In college days, when I was in Europe traveling on the trains, I had a bag. It was provided to me by the Schweizer Bundesveran and it was where I stored cheese, yogurt, salami and a knife and bread. That's what I ate.

Tom Butler: 10:10

That's awesome Think.

Bruce Madinger: 10:11

Rick Steves, and that's what I did.

Tom Butler: 10:15

Awesome. So you know it's common for people that as they get out and start working and everything that you lose the time, I guess, to put into cycling what happened with you as you got older.

Bruce Madinger: 10:29

Well, we were talking about that at dinner and we had two children. I was married, we just didn't do bicycling, it just didn't happen. The two children occupied our time. And it was later on, in fact I did some thinking about it and it was January 1, 2001. I was sledding with the kids on a hill and I don't know how I hit the one tree, but I did, and I broke my pelvic bone Off to the hospital.

Bruce Madinger: 10:59

I go Two months later. I'm finally back at work, basically able to walk and be in good shape, and I decided at that time that was January 1. And so two months would be January, february, early March. I'm going to go get a bicycle and I'm going to go out and start riding again. And by June of that year I had my bicycle.

Bruce Madinger: 11:21

I bought a Raleigh C40 comfort bike, not knowing what I wanted Right, and started riding, riding seven, eight, 900 miles a year. Then my son was in Boy Scouts and the whole family had bicycles by then, because we went out and bought them and he decided we wanted a bicycling merit badge and so one of the rules on it, or one of the accomplishments, would be a 50 mile ride. Well, my daughter, my son and I went on that ride with the scouts for 50 miles and it was all day and we just thought it would never end, with all the wind and the cool weather and everything. But that's one of the early things I can think about, and that bike ride, that ride just seemed to go forever. Now I can go out in that same area and do 50 miles, start, you know, early morning and be done by lunch, and not think another thing of it, eat a couple bars and drink some water.

Tom Butler: 12:22

Did your kids keep up with cycling or not really Absolutely.

Bruce Madinger: 12:27

Absolutely. In fact, my son has done triathlons. My daughter has also done triathlons with a bike. She used to commute to work on her bicycle about 10 miles. She teaches at a university, now lives on campus. She teaches at a university, now lives on campus, so she walks. But she has her bicycle and she rides. So we all ride. My wife and I do rides together through the city or on trails.

Tom Butler: 12:55

And we also had a trip in Europe on a bike. So talk about the local scene there. How would you talk about different rides in the area and kind of how Indianapolis is and all that is from a cycling perspective?

Bruce Madinger: 13:07

So I early on joined Central Indiana Bicycle Association, which is the major bicycle club here in Indianapolis. They sponsor rides and have different rides around, and they have rides every weekend and during the week. I would participate in longer rides on the weekends with them from time to time, and they also support a ride called the Hilly 100, which is a two-day event riding about 50 miles per day in Southern Indiana near Bloomington, and so I've participated in that two times. They also have other rides that are fun to join and I did meet a good group of people doing those rides.

Tom Butler: 13:48

There's a tri-state ride. What states are the states in the tri-state ride?

Bruce Madinger: 13:55

Right. So since we had the bicycles in 2009, I bought a Cannondale road bike We've done some trail rides and some long rides as a family. One of the rides we did was the Tri-State and it left from basically called Hammond, indiana, through downtown Chicago, along the waterfront, you know, lakefront all the way through downtown Lincoln Park and back up and ended at Racine, wisconsin. So that was Tri-States Indiana, illinois and Wisconsin and we did that as a family all four of us. Yes.

Tom Butler: 14:29

It's been a number of years ago now. Does that ride still go on?

Bruce Madinger: 14:34

Yes, I believe it does. It was sponsored by the same group that does the two different rides across Illinois and some other activities in Illinois, a for-profit organization.

Tom Butler: 14:49

I imagine it's changed quite a bit since 2009. I would think that there's some bike infrastructure there that maybe wasn't there. I haven't been back in that area. I grew up in that area and I haven't been back in that area. I grew up in that area and I haven't been back there in a long time. But that's one of those things I want to do. I want to figure out some way to bike around Lake Michigan, because that would take me back to some earlier days For bike routes around Lake Michigan.

Bruce Madinger: 15:20

Adventure Cycling has those routes.

Tom Butler: 15:22

Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 15:23

Okay, and one feature of it is, if you don't want to do the whole lake, you can cut across on the car ferry that's still operated from well, from Michigan to Wisconsin, and I don't want to quote the cities because I'll get them wrong.

Tom Butler: 15:36

So that's probably farther north, I'm guessing. Correct, yeah, yeah.

Bruce Madinger: 15:52

So if you want to just do the north part up through the UP and back down, you don't have to do the south part. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a couple miles were on trails along Lake Michigan shoreline early on the shoreline the whole way to Lincoln. Park all the way through downtown.

Tom Butler: 16:12

Yeah, again, I imagine that that infrastructure has only expanded.

Bruce Madinger: 16:18

Right, and then from there it basically went over to what was a high-speed interurban line that went from Chicago to Milwaukee and followed that route up into Wisconsin. And then I can't really remember much about Wisconsin, but we were never on highways which was good.

Tom Butler: 16:37

Yeah, Well, that's on my list of things to do so. And then you mentioned some other rides that you and your wife have done. Are there any that you would highlight as like things that you thought were just awesome rides?

Bruce Madinger: 16:54

Well, talking about long distance rides, I've done the rain ride. That's the ride across Indiana. It's about 164 miles long and I've done that five times too many. So I've done it with a family. My son wanted to ride across the state of Indiana. He thought that was the greatest thing to do. That was a goal of his when he was in high school. We found that ride and the first year we didn't quite make it. We made 100 miles. The next year we made all 164 miles.

Tom Butler: 17:28

Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 17:29

And then we've had family members join us and we've done it as a team. We call ourselves Crank it Up.

Tom Butler: 17:36

Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 17:36

And our team Crank it Up, rode that trip two times and then my son and his wife and I wrote it once, the last time.

Tom Butler: 17:46

That's so fun. That's awesome.

Bruce Madinger: 17:48

And then we've also ridden up in Wisconsin along the Trail of the 400. That was in Sparta, wisconsin. We radiated out there on several trails with a family member that lives in St Paul, minnesota. The Trail of the 400 is in my railroad background is the fastest train between Chicago and Minneapolis-St Paul was on the Northwestern and it completed that route in 400 minutes. It's one of the fastest trains at that time in the world.

Tom Butler: 18:22

Wow, how would you describe that environment, the wilderness, the kind of that ride? What are you experiencing as far as the environment is concerned?

Bruce Madinger: 18:36

Well, we love the rail trails that are out in the countryside because usually you're in woods that are quite scenic. You come around into small towns, you can stop for lunch at a small restaurant and you can move on. That trail just happened to have a long tunnel in it and that was kind of fun, because you know when else would you do that? Just great riding. My wife really enjoys doing trail rides. Number two you don't have steep grades. Steepest grade for a railroad is what Two, two and a half percent, so that's pretty easy to accomplish.

Tom Butler: 19:11

Northern Wisconsin has a lot of lakes. I don't know if that trail goes through that kind of area. No, okay, okay.

Bruce Madinger: 19:19

It's not the lake area of Wisconsin. This is a little higher land and my daughter teaches geology. She could tell you exactly what it is, but there's something about the ice age that dropped a lot of dirt there.

Bruce Madinger: 19:35

And that's why it's higher land at that place, but I may be wrong on that. Speaking of a trail ride, that I thought was fantastic Later, after the kids went to college and were out of the house, so to say, we've done some one-week rides. One of them was the Gap, that's, the Cumberland Gap and the C&O from Pittsburgh to Washington DC, and the amazing part of that ride was when we were up in central Pennsylvania, up in the wooded area. The forest was wide, open, large trees and you could see all around. It was just phenomenal compared to most forests that we see these days. It didn't have the undergrowth in it because of the tall trees and probably because of deer.

Bruce Madinger: 20:26

They eat most of the undergrowth anymore in lots of forests. But that was absolutely phenomenal. We rode with some relatives out of Pennsylvania and that was a one-week ride and stayed at bed breakfasts along the way. Just a great opportunity.

Tom Butler: 20:42

I hear Pennsylvania can kind of be hilly.

Bruce Madinger: 20:52

But this was all rail trails. Okay, again, no more than two and a half percent. And the interesting thing, as you're going towards um the east, we rode from pittsburgh to washington dc. There was one area that was about five or six miles constant downhill at about 2% and you could just fly. It was fun. On those rides I take my Canyon road light bike, which is more of a fitness bike with a little larger tires, probably 35 millimeter tires on it, and it seems to do pretty well on trails.

Tom Butler: 21:23

Now is that a flat bar bike and it seems to do pretty well on trails. Now is that a flat bar bike.

Bruce Madinger: 21:25

Yes, a flat bar bike, Bought it quote, mail order, I guess nowadays on the internet and had it delivered by FedEx one day and two hours later I had it all assembled, up and running on the driveway.

Tom Butler: 21:36

Nice.

Bruce Madinger: 21:37

My son and I were in Germany at one time, in Koblenz, and right there is the headquarters of Canyon, right there on the square. I remember seeing it and that's probably why I bought the bike, okay, years later. Two other major one week trails I've gone on, actually three or four other ones is the Ohio to Erie trail, so that's from Cincinnati to Cleveland, and we did that in about five days with a group of riders from here in central Indiana, and then also the Katy Trail. I did that with the same group, basically from Clinton, missouri to St Louis area, and the last summer rode the Great Ohio Bike Adventure, which is a one-week ride. Call it. 350, 400 miles of riding every day, camping and then going around. Highlight of all the one-week rides was a rag ride, the anniversary, the 50th anniversary ride across Iowa, and that was quite a mob scene. I'm not sure that's my style Moving every night, camping, and the heat and humidity was quite intense.

Tom Butler: 23:23

Now, do you think that that's RAGBRAI is something that everybody needs to experience because it's such a unique experience, or not necessarily?

Bruce Madinger: 23:34

I think it's a great experience. This doesn't sound very nice, but I'm one and done. I got that check mark and I'm one and done on that ride. It was a great opportunity. I went with an outfitter. The negative was I didn't go with anyone I knew, so I had some camaraderie, but not a whole lot, and the most challenging thing about the whole ride was finding food.

Tom Butler: 24:00

I know that sounds weird. Well, no.

Bruce Madinger: 24:02

But I went in the 50-year anniversary and there were literally, I'm thinking, 30,000, 40,000 riders.

Tom Butler: 24:10

Yeah.

Bruce Madinger: 24:11

And lines were long. I didn't do the food right at the first. It was a lot of walking when you got to a campsite to get food and it was challenging. It was one of the more challenging things I've done.

Tom Butler: 24:28

Well, I think about some of those towns must be you know what? 3,000 people, 2,000 people that you roll through and then you've got 40,000 people rolling through there. That's wild.

Bruce Madinger: 24:40

Yeah, and I mean you're buying food from vendors. The food was good I kind of got grilled cheese sandwiches a lot because that vendor was easy to find and other food and get a beer and sit in a tent for lunch, but it was challenging. I mean, the number of riders is just phenomenal. I think if I had gone with a team, as they call them, and ridden with a group that I was a little better organized about food, it would have been a substantially different experience.

Tom Butler: 25:13

So it sounds like the moral of the story is, you know, find somebody who's like really experienced at RAGBRAI and really pick their brain. As far as you know, how do you make this work?

Bruce Madinger: 25:25

as far as food is concerned, or go with somebody that's already done it and has insight. A friend of mine does it, has done it quite a bit and he goes with a team of four or five people and his experience totally different than mine.

Bruce Madinger: 25:37

they didn't camp, most of the time okay and uh, different than anyway. So great experience. I've done a lot of camp. I've done backpacking, I've done uh hiking. I've done canoeing up in the boundary waters a couple times. Just a different way to do an experience. I have nothing negative to say about it. It's just the second time would have been better, but I got my check mark.

Tom Butler: 26:05

Gotcha Right, and the 50th anniversary ride is not a bad time to get your check mark.

Bruce Madinger: 26:11

I got the jersey that has the big L on it and real proud of it, and I ride it from time to time. I wear it from time to time when I'm around town and people know what it is, yes, nice. Then the highlight of our one-week trips was when we went with some family members to Austria for a week of riding in the Salzkammergut area. Salzkammergut is the area south of Salzburg, the Finger Lake system. So a friend of mine said he wanted to do a big adventure ride. What should we do next? I look it up. We go out to drink a couple beers at lunch and I said let's do this ride from St Moritz, switzerland, to Innsbruck along the Inn River. Great idea. He says I can't go away from my wife for more than a week. She just won't let it happen. Fine, so I just keep looking on this website and I finally find a website called Eurobike. They sponsored a ride, a five-day ride, from one hotel in that region where you ride along the lakes and rivers, so you don't have that much climbing to do. It's not mountain biking, it's mostly along paths, along lakes and rivers.

Bruce Madinger: 27:31

Phenomenal, we stayed in a small town. Phenomenal. We stayed in a small town, gosen and stayed at a small hotel, the nicest people. By the end of the week they were sad to see us leave, just ate most of our meals breakfast and dinner at their little restaurant. My wife said every turn was another photo. Literally every turn was just absolutely gorgeous along the lakes.

Bruce Madinger: 27:58

That is an area that has a lot of history beautiful lakes, mountains Anywhere you have lakes, mountains and money is typically a very beautiful area and that's one of them. One day we had the opportunity to take a bike taxi up the mountain and then we rode up to the next level higher, pushed our bikes much of the way, walked up two more lakes and we were at a hiking hut at about 6,000 feet and had lunch and then walked back. Just a great opportunity. So if you do skiing and you're familiar with ski huts, this is for hikers, and in Europe they have little sausage sandwiches or sausages available with salad and everything and a beverage, and then you walk back and it's just a grand time.

Bruce Madinger: 28:52

Another memory was, we were along Wolfgang say, and we were looking for a restaurant. We found one on the waterfront and we sat down at a table. And here comes one of the boats up the up the lake, right by our table, with all the tourists on it, and we just had a grand time on that trip so I am on the eurobike website right now and I'm looking at a so click on destinations austria okay, well, I've got.

Tom Butler: 29:23

I can't pronounce the salzburg, that's good enough really that says, based in one hotel, famous lakes and suites, is you think that's the route?

Bruce Madinger: 29:35

I don't think that's the route. That is the route. Oh, okay, okay, that is it.

Tom Butler: 29:39

I will put a link to this ride in the show notes so that if people are curious about it they can find it there.

Bruce Madinger: 29:46

Absolutely. I'll tell you what. If anybody calls me man, I can't speak highly enough of the experience we had. We were provided bicycles, we were provided bicycles. We were provided the room. We did not opt for the board, but you might as well, because it would have worked better anyway, it doesn't matter. And then they provided tickets for the train and the taxi. So one day you took the train one direction and rode back. Another day you took the train one direction and rode back. Another day you took the train another direction and rode back. Then you did some loops and one day we went up the mountain with the car, taxi or the bicycles. Just worked out great. Nice, my wife said, best vacation ever.

Tom Butler: 30:30

That is awesome.

Bruce Madinger: 30:32

Then we were riding down the mountain and we were on a highway. This is the only time we were really on a highway on this trip. To get back from the high place, we had lunch at the hood, we came down the mountain and there was only one highway and it was two lane and there was traffic and there were four cyclists. So I said what we're going to do. We're going to split up to two groups. My wife was going to be in front of me and I was going to be behind her and I told Karen I said you ride left of the white line, do not try to stay on the white line, take the lane, don't be afraid to use the lane. And I was right behind her.

Bruce Madinger: 31:11

And then, about halfway down the mountain, you could just hear the air brakes of a big semi behind us and I said I shout up to Karen. I said don't worry about it, he knows what to do. By golly, when it freed up he passed us All's good. A couple of cars passed us, very respectful, zero problems, no feeling like you're getting run off the road. I was amazed.

Bruce Madinger: 31:35

At the bottom of the mountain. Karen said you know, I didn't know what to do. I was afraid of my brakes because I didn't want to wreck or anything. I just let her rip. And then she just started flying down that mountain and we got down to the bottom and all was good nice, nice.

Tom Butler: 31:53

Well, bruce, I asked you to come on today for kind of a specific topic and, as people who listen to the podcast know, I have gotten more into doing Zwift rides and I understand that you are pretty involved with Zwift and I'd like you to talk about what you're doing on Zwift, zwift, and I'd like you to talk about what you're doing on Zwift Right.

Bruce Madinger: 32:16

The history of it is I run a group called Virtual Advanced Cycle Training. We borrowed that from the YMCA. We used to go to a class there that did some really intense hour and a half cycling spin classes. Well, the gentleman that ran that kind of decided he didn't have time to run it so we did it on our own. A friend of mine and I worked on developing a strategy on Swift called meetups and do a group ride and overlaid. The meetup is a workout. So what it's evolved to now that we're all retired.

Bruce Madinger: 32:55

We meet at 930 on Swift. We all join the meetup. We're rubber band, so we stay together and we all select the same workout and so we all do the same ride for about an hour. Usually they're an hour long. We do about 15 miles. Everybody's effort is based on their own FTP. Then we run a zoom call next to it and usually there's about six or seven of us and we are on the call and we can talk and see each other.

Bruce Madinger: 33:26

So it works out really great. The benefit is we meet twice a week and it really causes us to be focused, do a workout, achieve a goal and stay focused in these winter months when outside riding is basically not feasible. Today we have nine inches of snow on the ground and so it's worked out really well. It's a group of us on Zwift doing a joint ride, called a meetup. I set that up, make invitations to everybody in our group. They join it. We all start at the same spot on the road. We always stay together and we do a common workout and we vary the workout from endurance on Wednesdays to HIIT workouts on Fridays typically, and it really helps focus our effort in staying active on Zwift.

Tom Butler: 34:26

I'm kind of curious. You said that this grew out of a YMCA class that you were doing and it was led by an instructor. Do you feel, like the workouts that you find on Zwift, that they are able to accomplish what the instructor was trying to accomplish?

Bruce Madinger: 34:48

I'm going to say generally speaking yes, now you have to remember we're five or six, seven years older than we were then. We have found that an hour works. Here's the beauty of the Swift ride. We have several folks that use electric bikes exclusively and are older than I am. They can do the ride and there's no shame I mean, nobody knows what everybody else is doing.

Bruce Madinger: 35:16

So to say, and everybody's working, and if you put your effort to it and let the system do what it's supposed to do, it is truly a good workout, comparable to than we did at the class. They got better towards the end, but on Swift you have your heart rate, your cadence, your watts. I mean it's all driven by watts per kilogram, but that's a class driven by watts. Watts is what determines most of the workouts, right? And so we've also done some workouts now that have cadence suggestions on them, and one of the gentlemen feels that his cadence has improved doing that cadence work on Swift. So so I'm going to say it's very comparable, a little different setup. The YMCA class was in the evening and my class that I do is at 9.30. Now We've transitioned into it during the day.

Tom Butler: 36:31

Okay, you talked about it being based on watts, the Zwift workout. They will move the power demand, you know, based on a preset level in the workout on Zwift, and then you know, so they're kind of giving you a heads up. You know you're going to go into a higher intensity, into a higher intensity and that's linked to FTP, which you know, for people that don't look at these things, that's functional threshold power and so it seems like there's different ways within Zwift to set that FTP, Is that?

Bruce Madinger: 37:11

right. Correct. The way to find your FTP is to do an FTP test and we do the 45 minute traditional one. In fact we're going to be doing it this Friday coming up and we'll do it as a group and it's a 20 minute segment where you just ride as hard as you can and you do a little bit of warm-up beforehand. You got to get your heart rate up. My strategy in that test is to do my current FTP is about 195, and I will go into that writing at about 195 and really monitor my heart rate and keep my heart rate way up in the red zone for the 20 minutes.

Tom Butler: 37:56

Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 37:59

And then that will set my FTP Gotcha, and then you have ways to adjust your FTP if you don't like it, aka you don't want to work as hard.

Tom Butler: 38:07

When you say that adjust your FTP, does that actually get logged someplace in Zwift? Yes, absolutely Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 38:19

Even if you don't do an FTP test, it will calculate an FTP for you automatically.

Tom Butler: 38:22

Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 38:23

And so all the workouts are based on, let's just say, five minutes of warmup. They overlay a zone system one to five. Uh, it's pretty easy to figure out. And then the workouts are just you step up to a high wattage, then you step down for a while for rest. You know, active recovery, back up rest, active recovery, things like that right right they have approximately, if they have.

Bruce Madinger: 38:57

They have 200 workouts available. Technically, you can build your own workout if you want they. Also, what I think is interesting I've never done one, but they have a series of workouts to accomplish different goals, like they have one series of workouts to accomplish to increase your FTP, which is basically how much power you can generate. They have another workout. I believe they have one for racing and things like that. So there's a racing league on Swift, all kinds of things. You can enter races. I don't do real well on races anymore. I'm in the last 10%, so I don't do races. I don't do real well on races anymore.

Bruce Madinger: 39:37

I'm in the last 10%, so I don't do races, but I certainly do group rides, and right now I'm doing Tour de Swift, which is seven rides over seven weeks on different routes. That are different amounts of effort or work amounts of effort or work.

Tom Butler: 40:01

Gotcha, you're doing a lot of cycling, so for you to come in and do an FTP test, that's probably a fine thing. I would just say to people, if you're like just getting back on a bike or you know you've been out of shape for a while and you're deciding to just try to get in shape, probably 20 minutes as hard as you can is not the best thing to do without like getting some clearance from a physician or something like that. So I'll just put that out there as a recommendation that you know, get some clearance to ride hard before you do an FTP test.

Bruce Madinger: 40:33

Absolutely.

Tom Butler: 40:34

Talk a little bit more about some rides together might be good for rubber banding and some might not be. What's the different kind of rides that they do?

Bruce Madinger: 40:48

Okay, so the rubber banding I'm talking about is the one that is in a meetup, right? So a meetup is a very specific one where somebody sets up the ride and we ride four or five, eight, 10, 100 together and you stay together no matter how much effort you put out. And, for instance, let's just say somebody drops out for a minute because of something a chain goes bad or something they can drop way back and within about two minutes they'll be back up in the group. They'll just accelerate them in. They'll stay together irrespective of the effort or the watts you are generating. In a group ride that is on. If you're on swift and you just join a ride, they typically put a fence before and after the ride that you can't go further forward than that or further back than that and stay in a certain area. But a lot of the group rides that you just see advertised on Swift on the homepage landing page are very large events. Okay, so you have hundreds of people.

Bruce Madinger: 41:56

Yesterday I wrote on the first of the tour to Swift. There were, right at, 1,045 riders in my group. I don't know where I finished versus the whole group, but usually I finish at about 80 percentile. I'm down, way down. I did really well yesterday, but it was flat. That's where I excel.

Tom Butler: 42:22

So you know, sometimes I could envision doing a Zwift ride with people. You know, some people would want to do it in a more mellow way and some people would want to be more aggressive. Some people might even want to, within our group, go for sprints or something like that. Do you see that as possible within a group right situation? Maybe not a meetup, that's has that's rubber banded, but in some other times is. Is there a way to do a ride where people could go for sprint, go for the sprint or go for the, the first one up the top of a climb, or something like that?

Bruce Madinger: 43:05

right. So I've done some group rides that are not rubber banded and then you don't stay together because some people are stronger than others and you can do I believe you can do sprints and get King of Mountains and things like that in that group but you won't stay together because if I don't put out as much power as you put out, I would be way behind you.

Tom Butler: 43:28

So talk a little bit more about the community aspect of it.

Bruce Madinger: 43:31

You say that you get five or six people on a ride I think Is that right in our group have gone on the one week rides with me, so we know each other somewhat well through cycling and and and then we have polite conversation typically and uh razz each other. A little bit about sports, of course, okay, and you know chit chat about the weather, but then when the work gets hard and we're all there sweating, it's amazing the conversation kind of dies down.

Tom Butler: 44:18

Right, right Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 44:20

And then, during the recovery period, we pick it back up.

Tom Butler: 44:23

Okay, I like it. That sounds great and it sounds like these are people that are local, but they wouldn't have to be.

Bruce Madinger: 44:34

Right, and the furthest one we've had join us is a gal out in the Seattle area and she joins us from time to time and it's awfully early in the morning for her, but Tish gets up and joins us and we have fun with that also.

Tom Butler: 44:49

Well, I'm going to join in. I you know it feels early, but again, at the same time it's. It'll be a good way to get up and get some things moving. I like to do rides in the afternoon because it helps me with my afternoon blood sugar, but I normally do a ride to burn off breakfast. So I'll just have to eat an early breakfast and burn it off on with you guys. Yeah, so my routine then is I'll just have to eat an early breakfast and burn it off with you guys.

Bruce Madinger: 45:16

Yeah, so my routine then is I'll eat a bowl of some of that crazy oatmeal stuff from Costco Kodiak.

Tom Butler: 45:24

Okay, I'll eat a bowl of that.

Bruce Madinger: 45:26

It starts at 930, so I'll eat it somewhere between 8 and 830. Gotcha, just because it's easy Drink some coffee, read the papers and all that and then get it up and running, and nine o'clock I start getting things organized and 9 30 we leave the line. The good news is there's no shame in what you do. There's uh, it's whatever you want to put into it, and with swift you can increase and decrease your effort level even while you're riding.

Tom Butler: 45:56

Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 45:57

So yeah, if it ain't your morning, make it easy, I've had those. If you're feeling good, you can up it.

Tom Butler: 46:06

Well, I'm going to admit something here. You don't have to tell this to everybody on the ride, but I'm going to admit something here where I'm going to take down my FTP for this session, just so that I can experience it as something new and I don't have to worry about the intensity. So you'll probably see me not struggling as much as I should be.

Bruce Madinger: 46:26

And so when you have this swift screen up and you're doing it only from the screen and not your phone, below the workout box that has all the efforts, there'll be an up and down arrow and that's where plus a minus sign, that's where you can increase or decrease your effort. So I'm with you Lower your FTP going in. You can always increase it up about another 10, 12%.

Tom Butler: 46:52

Or you can lower it 10 or 12%. Yeah.

Bruce Madinger: 46:55

And frankly, nobody will know. Right, that's right.

Tom Butler: 46:58

That's right. That's the nice thing about it. I'll just pretend like I can't breathe and I'm struggling. So are you open to having this grow? Can we invite people to join with you?

Bruce Madinger: 47:14

Well, the issue becomes the Zoom doesn't work with a lot of people, okay. Okay, in all honesty, I'm not against people being on the ride. The other problem is the invite issue. Okay, and communicating what we're riding. Okay, the meetups are much more complicated than group rides.

Tom Butler: 47:38

Okay.

Bruce Madinger: 47:39

Because in a group ride you're in a group and you just show up and it's all predetermined.

Tom Butler: 47:47

Yeah, in the meetup.

Bruce Madinger: 47:50

You have to select the workout and get all that functionality going.

Tom Butler: 47:57

Gotcha, okay. Well, I started working out the process of doing group rides. I think I'll probably try to get back to that, for cycling over 60 is to have some group rides to have some group rides. That's what I would do is group rides because they're much easier to organize and join gotcha.

Bruce Madinger: 48:23

Uh, there's basically a starting area that you pop into, I think, on the group rides, yeah and we have one fellow that does it from the firehouse and, uh, I mean, if he doesn't have it on mute and the and the alarm goes off. I mean everybody knows it and we know what's happening next. My life is gone right, but uh you if he's on.

Tom Butler: 48:42

The other thing is then some people want to have music on and that doesn't work and I will mute them if they don't mute themselves yeah, gotcha okay, so talk about the future of your cycling.

Bruce Madinger: 48:55

Well, I'm 70 years old. I feel really great about cycling. I do some rides. This summer I'm planning to do the Great Ohio Bike Adventure again. It's in Northwest Ohio. Three nights camping at Port Clinton, which is right on Lake Erie, ought to be beautiful. So I do those kinds of rides. My wife and I do rides during the summer on trails around here, either the Cardinal Greenway or down through downtown Indianapolis. That's about a 40 mile round trip. The other thing that my wife and I do when we are in Europe, traveling we do that quite a bit. This last summer we were going to Giverny where the painter lived, and at the train station you could rent bikes. We went to the place to rent bikes and three or four other people were renting bikes at the same time. We did a group ride basically for the whole day, ate lunch with them, got back to the train. It was just one of those things that really worked.

Tom Butler: 49:56

That's fun.

Bruce Madinger: 49:57

Yeah, just four of us. So we do a lot of that type of riding and I do a lot of the trail riding around here in Indianapolis or out in the countryside.

Tom Butler: 50:07

It sounds like Zwift is a really nice tool for the future of your cycling as well.

Bruce Madinger: 50:15

Absolutely. I really enjoy it. I use it when the weather is too extreme in the summer, if the temperatures are above 85 heat and humidity index whatever they call that heat index. I just have a tough time riding because I get dehydrated and I should use my Camelback more, but it's just not as much fun. I'll do swift indoors then and I'll do swift in the autumn. I've been doing indoor riding since late September, early October.

Tom Butler: 50:48

You mentioned a sledding accident. That was an injury. Have you had any injury cycling?

Bruce Madinger: 50:58

The good news is and I'm knocking on wood I have never fallen over while moving on my bicycle. So the two caveats are I fell over three times when I was learning two times learning how to use clips and I fell over one time just absolutely standing still and these kids saw and they just started laughing at the park. That's life. That is life. Second time was I don't know what was going on. Third time I was in a group ride and I always go to my left to plant my foot. We started going across the street and then everybody stopped. I couldn't go left. The person on my left was right there. I rolled over into a ditch. I couldn't go left. Person on my left was right there. I rolled over into a ditch. I wasn't rolling, bike was right up and I was upside down like a turtle, got back on my bike and was ready to roll. Next day I was sore. But that's those only two accidents I've had. My greatest challenge in cycling is hydration.

Tom Butler: 51:55

And I sweat a lot.

Bruce Madinger: 51:57

And if it gets hot and humid I just don't ride as much anymore.

Tom Butler: 52:02

How about bike purchases in the future? Do you see anything coming along in that realm?

Bruce Madinger: 52:08

Well, talking with some friends at church that cycle and we've talked about buying bikes. Let's see here it's cheaper to lose weight than to buy a lighter bike. Right, right.

Tom Butler: 52:23

So if I lose five pounds.

Bruce Madinger: 52:25

That's like buying a new bike.

Tom Butler: 52:26

Right right.

Bruce Madinger: 52:28

So I think my goal should be to lose five pounds.

Tom Butler: 52:31

Gotcha okay.

Bruce Madinger: 52:32

Instead of buying a $5,000 bike. I, at this point, have zero interest in getting an e-bike, and I think it's all about another friend and I are in the exact same opinion. It's our thinking that we ride together quite a bit when we ride outdoors and we can do what we do very well, so why go with an e-bike? Now, we may not go as fast as other groups, but we do what we want to do and we can go on a 60 mile bike ride and the two of us are okay with it, even though we stop for lunch and things like that.

Tom Butler: 53:14

Yeah, I can see the logic there for sure. Well, bruce, thank you so much for coming on. I was so glad that you reached out to me and talked about what you're doing on Zwift, because I am interested in Zwift as a tool and staying with it. Thanks for coming on and talking about it.

Bruce Madinger: 53:31

My pleasure and I look forward to more podcasts from you to learn more about cycling and oneself. Yeah, and I look forward to more podcasts from you to learn more about cycling and oneself.

Tom Butler: 53:38

Yeah, and I look forward to tomorrow morning.

Bruce Madinger: 53:42

It will be a challenge, we're up for it and we'll have fun.

Tom Butler: 53:45

Nice, all right, take care now.

Bruce Madinger: 53:48

My pleasure, all the best.

Tom Butler: 54:02

I did manage to get online to join Bruce and crew for their Zwift ride. I really enjoyed the ride together, and particularly them as a group. I really want to praise Bruce for being an excellent group leader. Despite me being new to the process, he got me into the ride with 30 seconds to spare. Bruce did such a great job explaining the workout and just providing things that kept the conversation going. It was actually a bit intimidating because he did so well. By the end I felt even more committed to getting Cycling Over 60s with rides going. I think I will use the group ride function rather than doing a meetup, but we'll just have to see what works. It's a new year and new Strava stats. As always, I am loving the images of rides being shared on Strava. I'm seeing some riding conditions that look impressive and challenging. I am just consistently inspired by everyone who posts on the Cycling Over 60 Strava Club. If you're on Strava, please consider joining us there. I hope everyone is set for a great year of cycling and remember age is just a gear change.