Recreational & Family - Dawn patrol

Anyone else given up on evening rides due to the heat and started riding in the pre-dawn hours? I was a confirmed evening cyclist, but a couple of weeks back I switched to early mornings (our days are very long here in the upper Midwest) and love it! So wonderful to get in a 10-15 mile ride before the day starts. :)

Oh I'm gonna hate winter! :p

I do both...make sure that you have your blinky running, even if it's light enough to see. The drivers haven't had enough coffee yet.

I am considering it. These past two weeks, I have gone from 70 miles a week to just 40. I just run out of time by the evening. I am NOT a morning person, and think it might be hard to get going first thing. I am just glad I am conscious enough not to fall down the stairs in the morning. :) I am training for the MS 150 in the fall, so I am running out of time. I really need to get in the miles. So are you a morning person, or did you just adapt to the early morning workout?

I like to ride in the mornings to avoid the heat! I usually start riding between 5:15 a.m. and 5:30 a.m.

Depending on why you are riding, a shorter ride in the morning can be as effective as a longer ride later in the day.

I'm talking weight loss here. Basically if you've eaten, it takes about 20-30 minutes of aerobic exercise to burn through the energy in the food that has been recently eaten, then you go into fat burning mode. If you do an aerobic workout before breakfast, you go into almost immediately, so a 25 - 30 minute workout before breakfast is as effective as a 45+ minute workout after. Just make sure you don't do too much, because your body can only convert so much in a short period of time..

Again, depends on your goals, but I like that pre-breakfast 8-10 mile ride in addition to my longer evening rides. The pounds are falling off.

twahl: Are you recommending cycling without eating anything??

Are you recommending cycling without eating anything??

Maybe it is just my exceptional fat stores, ;) but I have no problem riding without eating as long as the ride is less than two hours. Normally our liver has enough glycogen stored up for about one to two hours. However by mid morning this is reduced to half. If your workout is only around 30- 60 minutes, you should be fine. Just be sure to eat right after.

Most of my rides have been in the morning. I can get in a quick 10-15 miles before work. Usually ride from 6:15 - 7:15 am or so. On weekends, I'll go for 2-3 hours, but still start relatively early.

A majority of my riding is in the morning - get up, hit the path right over here for a half hour or so, then shower up and get ready for the day.

twahl: Are you recommending cycling without eating anything??

Sorry for the delay...yes, but only at a limited time. I thought I was fairly clear on this point but I'll run it by again. Your body can and will switch to a fat burning mode if your do an aerobic workout without having eaten in several hours. it should be a limited time frame because your body can only do so much in a short period, but a 30 minute workout before breakfast will be fine. Hydration should be maintained of course.

It is very difficult to burn fat if you provide your body with all the calories you need before the workout. In a half hour you're unlikely to burn much more than about 300 calories, which you can afford to do. Eat a light breakfast afterward and you keep your body going into the day while having burned some off.

Yep. The rubber meets the road at 4:30 AM Monday-Friday.

I ride in the evenings...7:30-8:30.
Not because it's what I prefer, it's simply the only timeframe that fits.

I am considering it. These past two weeks, I have gone from 70 miles a week to just 40. I just run out of time by the evening. I am NOT a morning person, and think it might be hard to get going first thing. I am just glad I am conscious enough not to fall down the stairs in the morning. :) I am training for the MS 150 in the fall, so I am running out of time. I really need to get in the miles. So are you a morning person, or did you just adapt to the early morning workout?

I am indeed a morning person by nature (the alarm goes off at 4:30) but nonetheless it took more than a little adapting to the morning routine. I just had to force myself to get up and get out and bypass the coffeemaker, so without it I still can totally relate with the dangers of stairs that time of morning LOL. I'm training for a century in Door County, Wisconsin myself in early September (that starts at 7:30 a.m.) and I've found that early-morning riding is a lot more humid, usually, but it beats the sun beating down on you at 5 p.m. I did a 100K ride in June that started at 8 a.m. and it felt like mid-day by that point so I really got off to a quick start. :) I know what you mean by running out of time by the evening, so morning rides make me feel like I've already accomplished a lot before that first cup of java.

Got the blinky going as well. Those mornings are getting darker already.:(

I like to atart riding between 4-5am weekends. Got the road to myself mostly. There are a lot of deer and skunks, out and about to avoid in the early hours, but better than cars. Im used to getting up early, since I get up at 1am to ride to work during the week, and I wake up without an alarm. I just automaticly wake up 12:45-1am, and jump out of bed, no problem. In the evenings is when I dont want to go anywhere, and im exhausted by 4pm. On weekends, I wake up about 2:30-3am, and end up waiting hours to start riding. Gotta wait for the drunk drivers to go home.