How far/fast do you ride?

[kaytronika]

I drive to the ride because there's chuff all riding in Liverpool.

 

[jbsteven]

rode and raced in the mid 90's. Put bikes down for 11 years and picked them back up a year ago. I do 3 50-60 mile road rides a week on my mountainbike. I also do about 10-20 miles a week off road.

 

[marin man]

I generally ride about 20 miles and sometimes 30 but tonight I done twelve miles in about 40 mins a bit knackered but beer at the pub before home is like rocket fuel not bad for 14.5 stone' hey.Good night fellow bikers

 

[xerxes]

It depends which pub I'm going to and how late I am.

 

[Dead Rats]

Part of the problem for me is finding routes which are long enough to really work hard on. Short of going around in circles on the same old routes its proving difficult and a bit boring.

I think I'm capable of 15 miles or perhaps even more but I hate riding on the road! On only my third ride out, a guy sprayed fizzy pop at me from inside a car...grr. I did get my revenge for cyclists though

Is there any reliable way of measuring calories burned during a ride?

If I knew that, I could perhaps tailor my diet to burn more calories than I take in, and hopefully slim down.

I have a very cheap wirless cycle computer (might have even been Aldi) into which you input your age, weight and wheel diameter and your calories burnt is worked out from that on screen. I don't really give a toss as I am borderline hyper thyroid so (in a way luckily) I don't put weight on - even now at 36 and I drink a bit too.

So yes, there is!

Incidentally, my mate Sammy and me on our irregular commutess have been spat on, bottled (at a distance), crashed into, offered 'facial reconstruction' and showered with milkshakes from Maccy D's! What was your revenge method? The old 'kick in the wing'? Or something more :twisted: ?

Al

 

[hamster]

Helmet Cams work well for such people .

Look on the CTC forum for people who have used them to get the cops to bring about (successful) prosecutions...

 

[Andy R]

Is there any reliable way of measuring calories burned during a ride?

If I knew that, I could perhaps tailor my diet to burn more calories than I take in, and hopefully slim down.

I have a Garmin Edge 305 GPS and that does give a readout of the calories burnt - I don't know how accurate it is but at least it takes into account altitude gain/loss as well as speed, distance, weight etc.

However, the reason that I gave up racing about 10 years ago was that I found that it was killing my enthusiasm for "proper" riding and that my technical skills (such as they are :roll: ) took a back seat to pace and speed over a typical XC course. I just wasn't good (or young) enough, I suppose, to combine and balance the two.

Now I just ride for fun, like we all did to start with, and apart from when I'm in Greece I only ride a rigid singlespeed. That has nothing to do with anything, I know, but something about it has just flicked some little switch somewhere inside me and I'm like a big kid again (a 58 year old kid, maybe, but a kid nevertheless....)

I was out on Tuesday for a ride of about 30 miles with my mate Mart (who I hadn't seen for a couple of months) and halfway round he said to me "What the f**k are you on today? - you've certainly upped your game". It was just one of those memorable rides where everything was just perfect - weather, trails, views, company......

So a typical ride for me is about 2-3 hrs (sometimes longer) and, especially when the weather is beautiful, I can't get enough of it - maybe it's because I'm aware that I don't have that long left to ride the way I like to ride - although when I'm riding I feel like I felt 20 years ago (even better maybe?) every injury takes longer to recover from, my reactions probably aren't as sharp, all that stuff :cry:

However, old fart or not, I can think of nothing better than ragging a nice bike down some rocky, dusty singletrack. Mart said that the image of me doing that last Tuesday is something that he'll always remember (he was trying to keep up with me.... )

There are worse things that a man could be remembered for, I suppose.....

 

[paininthe]

I use a Garmin forerunner 101 to record my rides, not for any particular fitness reason, but it helps 50+ and "slightly" overweight.

What you see here is first 16mls road and canal path, the last 8mls is woodland and hardpack around TempleNewsam Leeds.

I average 12mph hard pack but the woods and hills around Templenewsam drag it down to 10mph overall.

Ride home from work Church Fenton to Halton 13mls, on road and hardpack through Parlington Estate is 13mls and just on the hour.

Aspiring to 16mph average.

Another nice thing about the Garmin, you can put it on Memory Map

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[dyna-ti]

I use my bike to go most places.visiting mates,off into town,general day out
average distance is i suppose between 10 and 30 miles per day and i do that about 5 days a week.
I still think im 20 and horse it around the place,i usually stand up

 

[MartinYorkshire]

I am trying to take all this in

That Garmin screenshot shows calories burned. How does it calculate this? Is it based on heart rate, or just a best guess?

1100 calories for 24 miles means Im screwed I think. lol