Ride Smart, Stay Healthy: A Midlife Road Map for Cyclists 40+

Phil Cavell is a former bike racer who co-founded Cyclefit in London in 2002 — back when the idea of professional bike fitting was met with more skepticism than interest.

Over the past two decades, Cyclefit has worked with hundreds of professional cyclists and thousands of amateurs, counting Fabian Cancellara, Tom Pidcock, Ben Healy, and Kristen Faulkner among its clients, and helping to establish dynamic cycling biomechanics as a serious discipline.

In 2021, Phil wrote The Midlife Cyclist, a book that held the number one spot on Amazon’s cycling charts in both the UK and US for over a year. His follow-up, The Cycling Addiction: A Radical Rethink of Pain, Passion and Performance, is due out in the summer of 2026.

A former Google executive and serial entrepreneur, Gerardo traded high-stakes Silicon Valley for a life centered on active living. This journey was influenced by Chip’s Modern Elder philosophy and Phil Cavell’s book, The Midlife Cyclist. Today, he’s the founder of Vine Trail Adventures in Napa Valley, where, as a cycling tour designer and guide, he champions cycling as the ultimate tool for longevity and cognitive health.

Part of Gerardo’s mission is to make midlife cycling safe and accessible. Though he prefers his “analog bike,” he is a vocal advocate for how e-bikes act as a “great equalizer,” allowing those in midlife to discover the joy of cycling and maintain peak physical activity.

Beyond personal fitness, Gerardo sees cycling as a catalyst for creating community. As the producer of the Tour de Calistoga and a designer of international group cycling tours, he uses his decades of leadership experience to create events that blend local culture, with the joy of open roads and trails.

“In the tech industry, we talk about ‘upgrading’ systems. In midlife, cycling is the ultimate hardware upgrade for the human body and the software update for the soul.”
– Gerardo Capiel

Derek Gehl is a serial e-commerce entrepreneur, speaker, and author. After spending the first decade of his professional career growing one of world’s first Internet marketing companies to over $30 million in sales, he decided that leading a company of 100 employees in offices in two countries wasn’t for him – so he sold the company to a private equity group and refocused his life on the things he loved most: spending time with his family, pursuing his passions, and building and growing online businesses. In 2024, after doing some consulting for MEA, Derek had his own transformational experience at a Navigating Transitions workshop, which inspired him to join the company as Chief Marketing and Technology Officer and then take on the role as CEO, spearheading our mission to reimagine midlife and build a global pro-aging community that inspires people to thrive in the second half of life.