I want skinnier legs.

Your body will respond to how you ride. You won't be able to train without gaining a bit of muscle mass. What you will lose gradually is the fat around that muscle. You won't be dissapointed when you realise what your legs will look like once you are well trained!
If you don't want big legs in proportion to the rest of you then you picked the wrong sport!
My point of view is that I don't care if my legs are as big as a house, as long as I get faster its fine by me.

Isn't 'cyclist legs' a badge of honour?
My GF loves the fact that I ride heaps.

(cuts down the fat too incidently, cycle more & you won't have the "I'm a little overweight" problem)

Well, even the best cyclists don't have legs as big as mine. Now, I mean big in a bad way. I wouldn't mind having cyclist's legs, as mine have a layer of fat around them and it makes all my pants tight in the legs. Call me vain.

I suspect that they'll slim down as the fat gets worked off.

Some seriously non-expert advice: It would also make sense that just as weightlifting big weightgs adds more bulk than, say, swimming, so I'd go for not pushing hard up hills in high gears but leaning towards spinning.

Utter silliness. You just aren't going to build big[er] legs from cycling, whether it's high cadence/low force or low cadence/high force.

No offense, but by your own admission, it sounds like you have fat legs. When you aren't overweight, you aren't going to have to worry about your legs being a detraction. Also, if you are vain, why have you let yourself become overweight?

By the way, to the point about this sport creating leg-heavy athletes... uh, yeah, but largely because the upper bodies are spindly and waify! Most cyclists legs, if unshaved, look like normal-sized, muscular legs.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Aztec
Utter silliness. You just aren't going to build big[er] legs from cycling, whether it's high cadence/low force or low cadence/high force.

No offense, but by your own admission, it sounds like you have fat legs. When you aren't overweight, you aren't going to have to worry about your legs being a detraction. Also, if you are vain, why have you let yourself become overweight?

By the way, to the point about this sport creating leg-heavy athletes... uh, yeah, but largely because the upper bodies are spindly and waify! Most cyclists legs, if unshaved, look like normal-sized, muscular legs.

No offense taken, Aztec. It's true I have fat legs, but even when I'm slim they're still a bit large. It just seems to me that, like Geonz says, if you're pushing high gears at low speeds, then the resistance is like doing weight training on your legs, which would add muscle bulk. I just don't want to make my legs bulkier than they really are. I guess the best thing to do is just ride lots and hopefully the aerobic activity, along with diet, will get rid of my fat. Thanks.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by wolfgang
No offense taken, Aztec. It's true I have fat legs, but even when I'm slim they're still a bit large. It just seems to me that, like Geonz says, if you're pushing high gears at low speeds, then the resistance is like doing weight training on your legs, which would add muscle bulk. I just don't want to make my legs bulkier than they really are. I guess the best thing to do is just ride lots and hopefully the aerobic activity, along with diet, will get rid of my fat. Thanks.

Don't worry about big gears at low cadence building muscle. It's nothing like weight training. On a bike you are doing thousands of reps instead of 5 to maybe 20 reps. You don't see a lot of lifters doing 1000 rep squats!

You'll be fine.

I have always had big thighs from lifting alot in my early 20's but since I started riding more and less lifting my legs have slimmed down a bit but they are not skinny I think it is genetic in some way.