Originally Posted by
Rion
if you wanna lose weight, wouldn't a heavy bike be better? I'm a clydes and when I'm not commuting I'm spinning up hills with my 50lbs bike.
Azesty: losing weight has a lot more to do with diet than exercise. cycling for 15 minutes burns anywhere between 200-600 calories. to put it into perspective, 4 oreos have 220cals. and a bag of chips could easily have 600cals. Meaning that it's much easier to watch what you eat than it is to work it off with exercise.
Running is much more effective at burning calories than bicycling. I just know that 90 minutes a day on the elliptical cardio machines at the gym helped me drop weight like a bad habit whereas 6, 7, sometimes 8 hours a day on tour, hauling 50 lbs of junk up hills did nothing for me. Then again, I was eating a lot to keep up my energy and probably more than I needed. So yes, diet is important but other forms of exercise are probably more effective for weight loss. Besides, I read that bicyclists are more prone to bone loss (deossification) than people who mix up their exercise routine. The idea is that biking is a low impact exercise, thereby letting your bones deteriorate over time. That was the gist of the article. I'm not a scientist so don't quote me! Of course, bike commuters probably get more physical activity than your average cager. =]