Occassionally, I see posts that are a bit self-deprecating by folks regarding their age imposed cycling limitations.

So, I started thinkin' Is there a limitation on ability based solely on age?

So, the final Rain (Ride Across INdiana) Results were recently posted. There were 900+ finishers. This was a 160 mile RIDE, not a RACE, but many race against the clock and order of finish is tracked by the organizers although the finish line is closed at sunset (14 hours after the start).

So, I ran this scatter graph plotting finish time vs. age:



Interestingly, the average age of the first 10 finishers is 42 yrs AND the last 10 finishers is 42 yrs! The overall median is 46 yrs old (a surprise to me)!

So, based on this, while I acknowledge that many other factors can influence riding speed and ability (equipment, fitness level, road conditions, drafting, start time, sag time, etc), it would appear to me that age does not limit cycling speed and ability...and those of us beyond middle age need to stop beating ourselves up as we grow wiser...

Fine Print:
The data is as presented except I removed:
- a few finishers with blank ages
- a person with an age of 1
- a person with an age of 108 (I believe a typo since if someone did this at 108, I'm confident that the national news would have been there...)