Hi Fig! Welcome to the passion.

I started out in March 2007 at 280 riding a cheap Schwinn that I bought at Target. At first I had a hard time riding around the block (about a mile at the time), but I did it pretty much every weekday. On weekends my girlfriend and I went to a local MUP and rode about three miles out and three miles back. In about three weeks we had increased that to ten miles out and ten miles back, but I was still having trouble managing the hills on my one mile "around the block". By October of 2007 we put the bikes away for the winter. In March 2008 I bought a Trek 7300 hybrid and instead of riding around the block, I rode around the neighborhood, doing about an hour a day. I decided to train for a century, and by August 2008 I was riding 60 miles on the MUP every weekend, and still doing an hour a day weekdays. I guess that kind of answers number 1.

2. I was pretty consistent...like I said, about an hour a day, and slowly increasing my weekend miles. What's generally accepted wisdom is to take a day off about once a week to give your body a chance to recover. You don't build muscle by working out; your body builds muscle by recovering from a workout.

3. Yep - ride what's comfortable and gives you joy. This is supposed to be FUN!

BTW - where do you live that it snows two feet in August? I want to avoid that part of the world