Why subscribe?

Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.

Stay up-to-date

Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.

Join the crew

Be part of a community of people who share your interests. Participate in the comments section, or support this work with a subscription.

To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.

# About The Long Ride

*A publication for the next forty years.*

* * *

The Long Ride is a publication for men in their forties, fifties, and

beyond who still lift, still ride, and still expect to be doing both

into their seventies.

It is written for the man who has begun to suspect that the training

advice he absorbed in his twenties is no longer serving the body he

has now. Who is starting to feel the small accumulating signals of a

system that needs to be approached differently. Who wants to keep

training seriously, but not the way the rest of the fitness industry

wants him to.

It is written from the same position. I am forty-three. I have been

riding bikes for twenty-five years and lifting weights for nearly that

long. I have made most of the mistakes I now write against. The

publication is what I wish I had been reading at thirty-five.

* * *

**What it covers.**

The Long Ride is organized around five pillars. *The Lift* — strength

training built around the trunk, the hips, and the posterior chain,

designed to be sustainable across decades. *The Ride* — long, patient,

mostly-zone-two cycling for masters athletes who care about the next

forty years more than the next race. *The Plate* — eating in a window,

cooking your own food, mostly Mediterranean, never optimized. *The

Mind* — the inner work that almost no one in fitness culture takes

seriously, drawn from the lineage of Nuno Cobra and Ayrton Senna,

among others. *The Craft* — the quiet pleasures of a well-built

practice: the bike, the kitchen, the chair in the corner where you sit

each morning.

The five pillars are not separate. They are the same practice

approached from different angles. A man who lifts well, rides well,

eats well, and sits well in the morning is not doing four things. He

is doing one.

* * *

**How it works.**

A free essay arrives every Monday. These are the foundational pieces —

the philosophical center of the publication — and they will always be

free. If all you ever read is the Monday essay, you will receive the

heart of what I am doing here.A free essay arrives every Monday. These are the foundational pieces —

the philosophical center of the publication — and they will always be

free. If all you ever read is the Monday essay, you will receive the

heart of what I am doing here.

For paying subscribers, there is *The Inside Line.* The name is taken

from racing — the line through a corner that produces the fastest

time, available only to drivers who have committed to the apex. It is

also a publishing term: the writing reserved for those who have

committed to the work.

The Inside Line includes a weekly training session log written from my

own week, a Sunday recipe with cooking notes, monthly Mobility Files

for the masters athlete, longer Inner Ride essays on the contemplative

dimension of training, and several limited-run series I publish across

the year — *Base Camp* (twelve weeks of winter strength), *The Climb*

(eight weeks of spring transition), *The Ride File* (monthly long-form

on a single ride or route), and *Forty Days of Cobra* (a forty-day

mental training practice released each January).

The Inside Line is ten dollars a month, ninety-six a year, or two-

hundred-forty for the founding tier, which includes everything plus a

printed annual.

* * *

**What the publication is not.**

It is not a fitness influencer feed. There are no protocols, hacks,

optimization frameworks, or before-and-after photographs. There is no

urgency. There is no pressure to begin anything by a particular date.

The forty years are long. There is no behind here.

It is also not a wellness publication in the contemporary sense. The

inner work is taken seriously, but it is not separated from the

lifting and the riding. The body is half the equipment. The mind is

the other half. Both get trained.

If you are looking for the latest research summarized weekly, this is

not your publication. The advice here is durable. Most of it has been

true for thirty years and will be true for thirty more. I draw on

Pavel Tsatsouline, Phil Maffetone, Stephen Seiler, Nuno Cobra, the

Mediterranean tradition, and a few older sources that have earned

their place. The reading list is short. Most of the books are old.

That is on purpose.

* * *

**A note on the writing.**

The publication is written rather than filmed. There are no videos, no

podcasts, no faces talking to cameras. I prefer the written word and I

prefer the photograph to the moving image. The visual companion to The

Long Ride lives on Instagram, where I publish single photographs from

the practice — the kitchen, the bike, the road, the chair — without

commentary.The publication is written rather than filmed. There are no videos, no

podcasts, no faces talking to cameras. I prefer the written word and I

prefer the photograph to the moving image. The visual companion to The

Long Ride lives on Instagram, where I publish single photographs from

the practice — the kitchen, the bike, the road, the chair — without

commentary.

The voice here is restrained on purpose. The Italian inflection is on

purpose. The slowness is on purpose. The publication is what it is

recommending: a calm, sustained, unhurried thing that rewards

patience.

* * *

If this is the kind of training, eating, and thinking you want to be

doing for the next forty years, you are in the right place.

The long ride is long.

Begin where you are.

— [your name]

*Founder and writer, The Long Ride*

User's avatar

Subscribe to THE LONG RIDE

A publication for men in their forties, fifties, and beyond who want to stay strong, lean, and clear-headed for the next forty years — not the next forty days. The work here is built for duration physically and mentally. Designed to simplify what matters.

People