Originally Posted by Devoidarex
If I was a lotto winner, and had 24 hours a day to do as I please, this would be a great plan. However, my free time is limited, which is why I asked the original question.
Perhaps on my days off, I can ride and ride and ride. However, during work days, this isn't an option. This is why I'm trying to get a ballpark answer as to how long I should expect to put into a ride (or keep my HR in the target zone) in order to get a decent benefit from it.
If the answer is, say, an hour, then I can aim for that. If my HR is too low, I can always ride faster. Unfortunately, riding longer isn't necessarily an option for me.
The more you ride the more you burn(one mile=35cal 2miles=70cal).
The more you eat the more you absorb(one slice of bread=100cal 2 slices=200cal).
The difference will come out as a change in weight over the long term.
Fat and carbs are both burned at all times. Fat is the main fuel for staying warm (shivering excepted, thats carbs) and is generally the main fuel up through moderately intense excersize. Carbs tend to dominate at higher exersize intensities. The longer a workout lasts the more the fat burn goes up and the carb burn goes down, even with carb intake(sugar water), there is no cutoff.
The specific numbers, percentages, and intensities, for fat verses carb burn, vary from person to person so much it is not possible to give you a narrow target range without a lot of lab testing.
Total calorie burn rate is always equal to exorsize intensity.
It takes a certain amount of energy to move the bike from point A to point B with a given wind speed/drag. Energy is measured in calories, thus it takes a certain number of calories to move the bike from point A to point B at a given speed(wind drag). It does not matter if it is your first mile of the day or your 100th mile of the day, that mile takes the same amount of energy.
I'm wildly guessing that you ride 12-15 MPH so would burn 420-650 calories per hour with a MTB on a smooth packed gravel or paved surface.