salreus

I am about 310 and started the spring at 346. Trying to lose weight monitored by weight loss doctor and ride my bike. I rode 150 miles in June, which I think is great considering my first ride was May 20th at 1.8 miles. My longest is 14 miles but could have gone longer by my wifes bike's breaks got messed up. I have a Gary Fisher Napa bike. My question is what a normal amount of riding? I am am doing about 10 miles or less typically over my 19 rides in june. I average about 9.5 mph. I have no idea if i am doing well or should be doing more. Seems like 10 mph is hard for me to do, but I guess it is actually slow? Thoughts?

ill.clyde

well, first off welcome and congrats on the weight loss so far.

As far as how fast you're riding compared to others, at this point, that's not as important for you. What's important is that you're progressing, be it in average speed, distance covered or days ridden. 150 miles in June is fantastic, given your relative newness to this. You should try to extend your longest distance when you can and when you feel ready to ... generally speaking a 10 percent increase is a good measure, so from 14 miles to 15 and a half or even 16, and so on. If you feel like you can do 20 percent, go for it.

And if you can cover those miles faster than you have in the past, even better.

It's really a matter of comparing yourself at this time, to where you were a week ago, or so ... keep at it, and you'll see improvement.

IBOHUNT

My opinion; Speed is not important at this point in your riding career. What is important is saddle time. Get as much as you can as often as you can. Speed and longer distances will come.

salreus

Thanks for the responses. I am deff increasing my saddle time. I actually went 18 miles in one day last friday, 9 in the morning and another 9 at night. I try to do longer rides on the weekend like most when I have more time. When I first started riding and pushing for more speed, my knees started bothering me and I had to take days off to recover. Then I read about increasing my cadence vs mashing and the problem has gone away. Looks like my cadence is around 70 at this point. We have a long weekend and I am hoping to get some good time in this weekend.

Ursa Minor

The beginning is a delicate time. Its easy to overextend and then give up. Please be patient with yourself
and avoid overuse injuries.

Anyway welcome aboard! This lifestyle is absolutely wonderful and I'm so glad you found it.

Charlie

chasm54

Going for a lower gear, higher cadence - on a flat road you should feel you are exerting only light pressure on the pedals - is a good idea, it'll be kind to your knees and give you a better cardio workout.

IBOHUNT knows what he's talking about. Forget about speed. Just keep increasing the length of your rides, and eventually speed will come.

If you've ridden 150 miles in June at an average of just under 10mph, that's about 15 hours on the bike. Make your July target 20 hours - say, three one-hour rides and one of two hours each week. Then in August, shoot for 25 hours.

And congratulations on the weight loss.

bbeasley

Congratulations on your weight loss and welcome to BF. You've got the right advice, just keep riding and the results will come.

Beachgrad05

Welcome to the forum and WOO HOO on the progress so far.

Sounds like you are doing quite nicely. Others have already provided excellent feedback and advice. Keep posting here and I found doing so and getting the wonderful feedback was a big boost and helped me along when I first got going. I consider this forum part of my extended family.

salreus

Going by "every bit counts" I have to modify my stats. I had a birthday party to attend and didn't think I was going to get any more miles in today but I rode for 4 more miles. So my June results are 154.77 miles in 18 hrs. This is on top of my 6 hrs of walking for another 16 miles. I really only walk for 12 min on my work break 2 times a day but I am glad I log the time now. I gave up on paying attn to it because I started riding and knew that was the majority of my working out. But I suspect those 6 extra hours have amounted to a few pounds of weight loss.

linnefaulk

I used to ride years ago and did lots of longer weekend rides. I just started riding again in May. I feel good doing about 6 miles at a go. I would love to ride longer but I need to build up that time in the saddle again.

As long as I still love getting on the bike every day I think I am doing it right.

CommuteCommando

Good job so far. No, those numbers are not going to get you into the Tour de France, but just starting out, at your size 150 miles a month is very good. One thing to note is that there are two things that affect your performance; fitness, and physics. As you ride more, and believe me, 150 miles/mo is a very good start, fitness will improve. As you lose weight you will see further improvements, especially on hills. That has more to do with physics.

10 Wheels

Keep it going....