I am a 64 year old guy who is 6'5" and weigh 230. I live in Kansas City where we have neither long flat roads like Florida nor long steep ascents like Colorado. Rather, we have short .25 to .5 mile rolling hills. I have been riding for 5 years, and got rapidly hooked on it. I ride with a power meter and have 5 years of data which document my rather rapid increase in power metrics, followed by a peak in my third year of riding followed by a subsequent gradual decline from my peak year. The decline was bugging me, so a year ago, on our way to our place in Colorado, I stopped in Boulder and had an on-bike physiological test at the University of Colorado Sports Performance Lab. The results and feedback from the test and review of my ride files was that I was spending too much time riding in my anaerobic power and heart rate zones and not enough time in my endurance zones. In other words, my aerobic base was low while my anaerobic threshold and ability to tolerate high lactate buildup in the anaerobic zones was high. The CU specialist said I had the physiological profile of a track pursuit specialist with high 3 to 5 minute anaerobic power. This is not the profile for a person who wants to ride 20 mile ascents in Colorado at an average grade of 4 to 6%. The plan developed called for me to ride more at lower power outputs for longer to raise the base and therefore improve total power output. Well, if your are my size, riding where I live, in order to do that you have to crawl up hills in very low gears at a snail's pace. I did not find that type of riding enjoyable. Enter the Trek Crossrip+. I bought it 3 weeks ago and love It! I am riding longer, farther and faster at the same average power. I know this because my pedals are Garmin Vector pedals that measure the power output at the pedal prior to the boost imparted by the bike's Bosch motor. I can now ride in my rolling terrain and keep my max power output below my anaerobic threshold hill after hill after hill. What a joy this new bike is; the technology is awesome. The only downside is the weight of the bike, 43 pounds ( I took off all the attachments and replaced the alloy seat post, cockpit, stem, handlebars, wheels and tires) vs. sub-20 pounds for my other high end road bikes. Wider tires, lower pressure, longer wheelbase, however, make up for the weight. It is a joy to ride, and descending the downhills at 40 mph, I feel much more stable and planted to the road than on my carbon fiber "analog" road bikes. I sill ride my old road bikes one or two days a week, but the bike I find myself gravitating to as first choice every morning is the Crossrip+. I can get a range of about 50 to 60 miles riding solely in Eco mode. This morning, I rode solely in Tour mode for the first time to see range in that mode. At the end of a 27 mile ride at an average speed of 20.2 mph, the remaining range on the Bosch Purion display was 11 miles. Sorry for the long winded response, but, as I hope you can tell, I am sold!
