sbeason said:
I'm what you call a true
NEWBIE I haven't ridden a bike in years at least 20 and I need all the information I can get. You see I'm trying to lose weight. I would like to know about how long would one ride on a bike to lose weight and how many miles would be a good start? When you talk about riding for an hour is that riding for an hour without stopping for breaks? If I rode 5-10 min without stopping do you think that would help? I need to lose 50lbs. I know my butt and
other things will hurt so I'm prepared for that. Any Help would be appreciated.
Thanks
I just recently started literally from ground 0 myself, not having ridden a bike in around 15-20 years (since I was a kid on my K-Mart 10-speed). I'm only around 34 miles in total since I started, so I can tell you a few things I learned from this unique perspective:
1. If you can, find something resembling a circuit. This way, when you're whipped you can make it home in very little time. The trick is to not associate biking with pain just yet, because this makes motivation hard.
2. Use your gears, and use them often. If your legs are screaming, shift to an easier gear and pedal faster. This will take the pressure off of your legs and move it to your lungs. If you are panting like a fiend, switch to a harder gear and pedal slower while taking some deep breaths (try to inhale on a 3 count and exhale on a 2 count if you can).
3. I would recommend getting a bicycle computer with Cadence. They're really cheap (Cateye Astale 8 is only around 26 bucks at PerformancBike.com) and they're really easy to install. Once you do this, monitor your cadence while you ride. Find a cadence that is comfortable for you to maintain without straining your legs or lungs too much (too slow will strain your legs, too fast will strain your lungs). Mine is 75, so if I get pedaling too fast, like 85 or so, I switch to a harder gear. If I'm pushing too slow, like 65, I switch to an easier gear. Sometimes hills (and for people like us, rolls in the road are hills) are hard to judge. I have one hill I swear looks downhill when it's actually a slight uphill. When you hit this, use your cadence meter to figure out when to shift gears. As time goes buy, according to the very knowledgable people here, you'll start hitting higher cadences. You eventually want to be in the 90-100 range, but if you try that at first like I did you'll need an artificial lung before long. Plus, I like to use BikeJournal.com to keep track of my rides to see if I'm improving.
4. For some reason, after 3.5 miles I'm really winded and tired. However, one day I just decided to go farther, and found that it wasn't any harder. It actually was a little easier, and I went an additional 2 miles farther. Without putting yourself in too much distress, check one day to see if you have a second wind in you. You might surprise yourself.
5. Once you've ridden a few times, experiment with your big chain ring. You might find that it's actually easier in the long run than the small one. Then again, you might not.
6. When going up a hill, don't downshift too terribly soon. Instead, try to focus on spinning your pedals smoothly, especially pulling with your foot coming up and keeping up the smooth pressure when passing the top and bottom. It's a good skill overall, and going uphill is the best time to practice it. You'll find that maintaining your speed on a higher gear is sometimes easier than shifting to a lower gear too soon. But once the momentum is gone, shift.
7. Ask these guys in this forum tons of questions. They're really knowledgable and friendly.
8. I recommend BikeJournal.Com for keeping track of your rides. You can enter all of your vital stats there. Sometimes it helps to see that you're improving, or at least piling up miles. Today I rode and though I did terrible, but I checked and it was my fastest average speed ever for the same route I always ride, so you can't always go by how you feel during or afterwords. This is, by the way, the other advantage of getting the bike computer.
