Road VS MTB

Max_Man

Been mixing it up this last few weeks trying to loose some weight.

Anyone got any thoughts on which would be the best for weight loss?. With my roadie I can do a lot bigger distances but with the MTB I feel I have worked a lot harder after I have finished.

I guess mixing it up is for the best?

DaveyL

I don't think either one is better than the other. Just keep racking up the miles and keep an eye on what you eat!

I have started using the MTB again and it is a serious workout. It's made me realise I need to do a lot more short, sharp intervals.

Bronzie

I'd probably say on a time for time basis, MTB was a slighly harder workout than the road bike, but then again of course it all depends on how much effort you are putting in. If you want to make the road bike harder, just go faster.

Mettan

Max_Man wrote:

With my roadie I can do a lot bigger distances but with the MTB I feel I have worked a lot harder after I have finished.

Another option might be to incorporate more Hills into your Road riding - I've found Hilly routes to give me the most extreme (Road bike) workouts. Just another option.

320DMsport

I wonder which burns more calories? suppose your out for longer sometimes on a road bike but i can be out for 5 hours on the MTB.

I would think MTB is a more of a total body workout, specialy when you live in the lakes and some of the routes can be abit hike with a bike, so climbing up with a 28lb MTB on your back works a few muscles.

Mind i've lost a stone over the last 9 months mostly through doing longer slow road rides on my MTB, they weight hasn't come off as much now i'm mostly off road.

bobpzero

well a slow 4-6hr ride on a roadie bike i thought would burn well. dont forget the fruit & veg & the coffee.

azzerb

There are no escapes in road riding, however, in mountain biking you can be a lot quicker just my improving technique, so less calories burned up. (Yes i understand you can reduce energy used in cycling by better aero position for a given speed, but who really stays at the same speed when you can go faster? :P)

Garry H

If losing weight is your objective, you need to pick something that you can sustain for a long period at a steady pace. This is how you lose fat, which I asume is your objective.

Don't confuse perceived effort with the ability to lose weight. As far as I understand, but I'm willing to be corrected, fat is burned at a lower hr/energy useage. You will therefore burn more fat by keeping your hr inside this threshold. If you are above the threshold, your body moves onto a different energy source, eg carbohydrates. A long (relatively) slow ride (Or run, or swim, or walk etc) is more beneficial to fat loss than a shorter, faster ride.

drumsmasher

I agree with the last message, that fat burning is best done at around 70% heart rate over a long distance, which definately points towards longer road rides. However, as a mountain biker myself who is just starting out roadie ing?? I would definately say that mountain biking is harder as a total body workout. If you are really pushing then you burn more calories quicker on a mountain bike. However!!! You tend to ride a lot longer on a road bike. Confused????? I'd say the answer is to just pedal as hard, and long as you can!!
Losing weight is consuming less calories than you burn! Simple???

bahzob

As mentioned above losing weight boils down to simple matter or eating less calories than used (as combination of your basic metabolism and activity).

"Fat burning" is a confusing term in this context.

I believe (happy to be corrected) it refers to the way your body gets the energy it needs to perform exercise. There is a balance between energy converted from fat and energy converted from carbohydrate (stored as glycogen or taken in during exercise). At low intensity fat is the major source of energy. As intensity increases then the proportion changes so you reach the point where its all carbs. (Past this point it becomes anaerobic which uses another, very short term energy source, not of relevance for weight loss except that if interested in losing weight dont exercise in this zone.)

Any training session will deplete reserves of glycogen and fat by a combined amount equal to energy(calories) consumed during exercise. Post training the body will replenish glycogen as a priority and then convert any excess calories to fat.

What this means in terms of training is that to lose weight you want to burn as many calories as possible. It doesnt matter what" zone" they are burned in except in constraints imposed by your lifestyle/condition.

If you have unlimited time to exercise and weight loss is your goal then best would be to spend hours and hours in a low intensity zone because as a total this will burn up more calories than an hour or two at higher intensities which you cant sustain for hours. Ditto if you are in poor condition there is no point training at a level that will leave you knackered after a few minutes as that wont have burned up many calories. (However warning, training at these low intensities watch what you eat or you will put in what you take out).

If time is limited best (for weight loss) is to train at highest level you can sustain for time available. However at all costs avoid going to the max and hitting anaerobic levels. This has practically no benefit in terms of weight loss but will most likely curtail your session.

All above is only true if exercising for weight loss.

If training for performance situation may be different. Here your zones (at some point) need to match your performance situation. So if want to be a sprinter you do need to go anaerobic. And if you want to be endurance rider (say events longer than 2-3 hours) then you may want to spend time in the "fat burning" zone.

(Its "may" because this is, again I believe, happy to be corrected a topic of discussion. There is a view that spending time in "fat burning" zone and taking in zero calories helps body learn to burn fat. Not sure if this is proven or not).

Sorry for long post but I was confused myself when started trying to lose weight 3 years back. Think I understand it now but if not sure someone will post to say otherwise.

Back to OP answer is then do whatever consumes most calories which probably boils down to what feels like hardest that can be continued for longest.

Finally. If at all geek like (even if not) and weight loss is serious target then Fitday program highly recommended. It helps you track what you eat and what you burn on a daily basis. Getting a real handle on both is only way to lose weight and keep it lost.
(FWIW it reckons BMX/Mountain biking burns about 9 cals/minute which is about same as riding a bike at 13-14mph)

JonEdwards

For me (MTBer who dabbles in road), road is by far the more cardio-vascularly challenging - no retreat, no surrender, up or down.

MTBing, you don't do that much pedaling on the way down, but it is much more of an upper body work out (I've done 4 minute DH courses that have left me more knackered than a 5 hour XC ride). I've also never needed to put anything like near the pure brute leg strength into a road climb that I have into some MTB climbs.

Speed on an MTB is also very skill related. - I'm not as fit now as I was 10 years ago, but I'm a HELL of a lot faster.

So for fat loss, I'd say long steady road rides is probably the way forward...

Tubster

I have been riding exclusively on the mountain bike for last 3 years after quitting racing. My arms and shoulders have built up, I have developed a good core strength and can keep a high cadence. The down side is my weight has gone up and I have lost some of the power I had from the road riding.
I am now back on the road bike in an effort to get the power and speed back and shed the weight. On reflection I wish a had managed to keep a balance between the two as there are benefits to both but I find the best sustained effort and weight loss comes from steady road miles with a few killer climbs to really make me sweat.

deal

I would say road, I tend to spend longer on the road bike and ride more often

on the mtb i tend to waste time driving to trail centres and the rides tend to be shorter but more intense requiring greater recovery time (and cleaning/maintenance time)

Stuck on a Giant

I've just done 12 days road touring, at a fairly steady pace, and I've lost a good few pounds that way - as others have said, it's the long steady rides that burn fat.
I think that MTBing can help with explosive power - that extra surge needed to get over a small rise/through mud etc and obviously also bike handling skills. I find it easier to do the longer rides on the road, and I think that's what gives the fitness gains. It's easier to ride for even just 30 minutes, or longer, at a steady pace/effort on a road bike but on the MTB I find the varied terrain requires a varied effort that personally isn't so good for me for endurance type fitness.
My summary:
Weight loss = slow road rides
Endurance/fitness = faster road rides or long XC style MTBing
Explosive Power = MTBing

Rich Hcp

I like eitherr, its cycling after all 8)