Common sense fitness tips for dirt riders over 40

I was a fat kid, then a medium teenager, thanks to hormones and discovering mountain biking and skateboarding. I moved out on my own pretty young and blew my knee out skating. I gained weight, lost weight, got married, got comfortable and the weight crept up again.

Then I started racing vintage motorcycles off-road. A particularly heavy one, at that. My 1972 Triumph weighed more than 390 pounds from the factory. I found myself going bananas trying to reduce the weight of the bike. I replaced the steel rims with aluminum ones, changed the front end to a lighter Ceriani unit, lopped off everything that did not make the bike go, stop or turn. Went to a battery-less ignition and so on, eventually getting the weight to around 350 pounds.

I was pretty proud that I knocked 40 pounds off the bike, since apparently 10 pounds is about equal to adding one horsepower. Free horsepower without any engine modifications?! How low can we go?

There’s more than one place to lose weight

Then I looked at my size 42 riding pants and XL jersey.

“Damn, I could certainly use a few more horsepower myself,” I had to admit.

I started with easy stuff. Just paying attention to what I was eating and walking more. I love walking with my wife and dog, so that became a great daily habit. I set up my basement with some simple gym stuff, an elliptical machine and some dumbbells. I made sure to “move” at least an hour a day, typically first thing in the morning, to avoid skipping it later if I was too busy or tired.

Weight melted off. I started running, in addition to our walks. I also started riding mountain bikes again with friends from work a couple times per week, which was a nice thing to look forward to. 

There was no “diet” or “fitness program,” just some lifestyle tweaks, and nothing that seemed daunting. I managed to make exercise fun and habitual. I kept the food intake in check. We all know what healthy foods are versus unhealthy. 

I went from around 240 pounds to 170 pounds. I am about five feet, nine inches tall, so it really made a huge difference, not only with how I felt, but also how all of my motorcycles felt. Dropping 70 pounds added seven free horsepower to all of my bikes at once! Not to mention how much better they handled and stopped.

My endurance shot through the roof and recovery times after tough races or rides were shortened by at least a day or so. Between us, the Triumph and I lost 110 pounds and that makes a huge difference when wrestling a motorcycle through the forest. 

I noticed that when riding and racing off-road, my chest, shoulders, arms and legs were really sore. It made sense to start doing some pushups and squats, to work those muscles in preparation for the next ride or race. That was easy to add on to what I was already doing. So now I had a little strength training mixed in with cardio. Not rocket science, just common sense.

The takeaway: You don’t have to be a gym rat to get into better shape

My advice to other middle-aged folks out there pushing the limits on their off-road bikes is to just start small and easy. Skip the cookies and go for a walk. Do a little cardio and strength training. Pick stuff you like to do. If a certain move hurts, it is OK to skip it. I bought a few workout posters online that gave me some good reference material for my basement.

The main thing to consider is that no one ever sticks with stuff they don't like doing, whether it is eating kale or doing burpees. Once you find some good healthy foods and workouts that don't feel like workouts, you will be able to do them most of the time. 

“Most of the time” to me is no less than four days per week, three weeks per month, seven months per year. I take it easy in the winter since I live in New Jersey and we have about three months of crap weather where I spend a lot of time in the garage, servicing all the bikes. I don’t worry if I put on a few pounds because I know how to control it and a few weeks after I get back into the groove, it comes right off.

Some people love to spend a lot of time in the gym and really want to reach a higher level of fitness, and that’s fine. The point of this story is that, even if you’re cruising into middle age, like me, you don’t have to be a gym rat or immerse yourself in CrossFit. A little regular exercise goes a long way.

A lot of us live for our Sundays on the bikes with our friends. Improved fitness means I can ride longer and finish the day feeling better overall, both physically and mentally. That just makes motorcycling even more fun.