New to riding

doobie919

Just started riding seriously this week, as a new years resolution and i've been tricking out my bike. So far on the flats i'm averaging abou 15 mph, with a max of about 20 when I push myself as hard as I can. This is averaged over a 10 mile loop that I do everyday now.

What ways do I have to get in better shape than the obvious train more? Any eating reccomendations or something along those lines?

Maybe weight loss pills will be what I need seeing as i'm 19, weigh about 180lbs and i'm only 5'9. JOKING.

brownbosh

Weight loss pills and gastric bands are fr lasy pussies! Ive lost 4 stone in the last 12 months and you have already identified what you need to do. 10 miles will improve general wellbeing but can hardly be classified as real training. You need to build up slowly. When you can manage rides in excess of 2 hours the weight will fall off. As a sub note after my weight loss im still 223 pounds (but fairly lean) so your actual weight is not high at all.

garetjax

I would stop pushing up to 20 mile an hour and instead slowly, carefully increase your ride from 10 mile to 20 mile ( build up to doing it twice) keeping at 15-18mph.
This will train your body to burn fat and lose weight.

Alex_Simmons/RST

garetjax wrote:

I would stop pushing up to 20 mile an hour and instead slowly, carefully increase your ride from 10 mile to 20 mile ( build up to doing it twice) keeping at 15-18mph.
This will train your body to burn fat and lose weight.

While increasing the volume and intensity gradually over time is a good way to improve fitness, you don't need to train your body to burn fat. It already knows how to do that. All you need to do is enough riding with sufficient intensity.

doobie919

Thanks for the replies guys.

Looks like i'm gonna work on getting a better time for my 10 mile loop. I've been averaging my speed and my speed seems to stay in between 13 and 15 mph as of right now, and this is all on a flat set of roads. So i'm gonna work on getting my speed up a bit higher, i just have to work through the burning legs and persevere.

mclarent

Depends what your goals as to how intense you should ride, not quite clear from your posts. If you are looking for weight loss over performance (which many people are), then you want to working aerobically, i.e. lower heart rate, no lactic acid build up and therefore no burning sensation. As a gym instructor I know used to say "if you can feel the burn you're not burning fat"...

I'm guessing you want a bit of both fat burning and performance, so sticking an organised training plan together will help. All depends on how much time / effort you want to put in, but try including a mixture of longer (1-2 hour) medium intensity rides (and try to be disciplined, always tough!) combined with shorter, higher intensity workouts (e.g. check out the 2*20s post in this forum).

BigG67

The distance isn't all that bad. The guys I ride with all started on a 13ml loop around our houses and we still do it when time's tight. You'll soon build up the 3 - 4 hour ride that to me is the magic distance....really gets you into a zone and out of the house/work (physically and mentally) ....oh AND that merits a cafe stop

But see if you can find one with a bit of a hill, one day you'll need to ride them and getting used to the variation in the effort vs speed vs gradient equation is worth it from the start. :shock:

Alex_Simmons/RST

mclarent wrote:

Depends what your goals as to how intense you should ride, not quite clear from your posts. If you are looking for weight loss over performance (which many people are), then you want to working aerobically, i.e. lower heart rate, no lactic acid build up and therefore no burning sensation. As a gym instructor I know used to say "if you can feel the burn you're not burning fat"...

I'm guessing you want a bit of both fat burning and performance, so sticking an organised training plan together will help. All depends on how much time / effort you want to put in, but try including a mixture of longer (1-2 hour) medium intensity rides (and try to be disciplined, always tough!) combined with shorter, higher intensity workouts (e.g. check out the 2*20s post in this forum).

Just a minor point of clarification:
It would be impossible to use anything but aerobic metabolism for an effort lasting more than a few minutes. Our anaerobic work capacity is very limited (e.g. how long can you swim hard while under water holding your breath?).