Cycling strategies of young and older cyclists

• 15 young and 15 older cyclists performed perturbed and unperturbed cycling trials in a safe laboratory set-up.
• We examined the cyclist’s reaction to the lateral perturbation in both the time and frequency domain.
• Increasing age will lead to more use of lateral knee movement as a control strategy.
• Older cyclists need more effort to restore from high-frequent perturbations.

This study concentrates on the cycling strategies of older cyclists (54–62 year olds) in comparison to young cyclists (20–30 year olds). While cycling in a safe laboratory set-up, controlled lateral perturbations are applied to the rear of the bicycle. Three possible strategies to keep balance are analysed for a young and older aged group: steering, lateral trunk movement and outward knee movement. Older subjects appear to rely more on knee movement as a control mechanism than young subjects. Furthermore, the frequency domain analysis revealed that the older adults need more effort to counteract high frequency perturbations. Increased inter-individual variation for the older adults subject group suggests that this group can be seen as a transition group in terms of physical fitness. This explains their increased risk in single-sided bicycle accidents (i.e. accidents involving the cyclist only). Therefore, older cyclists could benefit from improving the stability of cycling at lower speeds.

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