Hey mikabike. Keep up the good work. What does "Its just not cricket" mean? I can guess from the context but howd you pick that up, where does it come from (Britain obviously) but why?

Any new news Mike??

You can't kick a man in the beans dear, it's just not cricket - Austin Powers


:)

Austin Powers

Edit: Beat me to it by seconds, mika!

I update my blog with my progress mostly. It feels weird adding onto a forum message all the time. Hehe. Especially minor updates.

I worked my legs on the stairs for 20 minutes yesterday doing 5 flights. I was sore from it today so I took a bike ride between thunderstorms and got in .80 of a mile and upped my average mph to almost 9 now. My blogs got the details.

I also bought some smaller clothes and they fit me great, even loose a little. I went riding in my new smaller blue jeans and they were loose enough not to bind me in any way. So I'm officially down a size or more with a months effort.

Aint that a great feeling!!!!!! I am living it and doing it with you Mike. Believe me, your not alone in this battle.

Ya Mike hows it goin?!?!

BTW I'm with ya..I have about 50 to lose and so far I'm down 12!!!!!

FIGHT THE FAT!!!!! :p

Update from Mikabike's blog. You'll find more improvements in it.

Hey I'm curious, is 17-18mph fast? I don't really know how fast bikes are meant to go or what everybody else is doing. I'm sure I could crack 20 if I had more room but there is a 90degree left hand at the end of the slight decline I did the speed on so I have to hit the brakes quickly to keep control.

I might go ride on the road in the next few weeks but I just don't want to deal with that right now. I had plenty of bad experiences road riding when my bike was my car. I don't like riding with cars around. But I may not be able to get more speed doing apartment laps.

BTW, would anybody be interested in an short video of one of the laps? So you can see what I'm doing? It wouldn't be hard for me to tape my camcorder to the handlebars.

My friends with MTB-based hybrids feel pretty darned fast when they cruise at 16 mph, I think they hit close to 20 when they pedal really hard, and faster than that only on or coming off a downhill.

On a mountain bike, that's pretty fast, especially on relatively flat ground. On a comfort bike I could get rolling up close to 25 on flat ground, and it had slightly taller gearing and much smoother tires. A road bike is a whole different story, but that's apples and oranges.

On bike video is generally well appreciated by folks here on the forums. :)

I bought a handlebar camera mount for $30 on the web. It should be here in a few days. That will be fun. It will work better in the long run than tape will. Plus it makes it easy to swivel camera back towards rider to see their face while riding. For different shots.

I'll put a vid up when I get it and get set up.

What are your guys average mph on short rides? I'm interested in what normal average and max mph's everybody else is getting.

Short rides...I dunno, I would probably average something over 15 on a 10 mile ride. I tend to ride longer distances, 30+ miles, and average a little over 12-13 by myself over rolling terrain. With family, we average 11-12 over rolling terrain. I could maintain 20 for 2 miles, but I'd be feeling it.

Again, apples to oranges when you are riding a mountain bike. I would expect to be about 2 MPH slower.

Don't focus on speed. Keep it SLOW and RELAXED. Focus on distance.

Hah, I love your avatar. :)

The problem for me is that my weight is far forward when I ride and it puts a lot of pressure on my hands. So I can't ride for very far before they start cramping and eventually I have to stop riding or risk loosing control of the handlebars. I don't see this problem going away any time soon until more weight comes off. I also don't think gloves will do a lot to help it because the pressure will be there regardless how how it spreads out.

The most I've been able to ride is about a mile and a half and I was nearly falling off the bike due to hand cramps. So if I ride faster I can ride farther in the same amount of time. That's why I'm going for speed right now.

I've already got my bike about as set up as it's going to get, now I have to change myself to fit the bike not the other way around.

The only thing I can think of is to wear a backpack and put some weights in it to counter blance, but I don't want to add any weight right now, it's hard enough riding as it is. :)

Okay, then don't worry about it. Just cycle every day. When you can, add distance. Keep in mind that your body is adapting to the strain every day.

Eat at Subway, keep this up, and in a year you'll be framing those pants and chucking that Jarred ****er off TV.

Mike, I think 17mph is pretty respectable.

There's a big hill near my house that gets steeper and steeper near the top. One day I conquered the summit, I nearly died and almost had to get off the bike and walk the rest of the way up. But on the way down I hit 42mph without pedalling. Fun stuff.

About your hands cramping, make sure you don't have a death grip on the bars when you're out there. Make sure your grip is relaxed. Wiggling your fingers from time to time helps with this. Since your time on bike is limited by your hands, I can see why you are increasing intensity. But I do agree that your goal should be to increase your time on the bike. It might just take a while for your hands to adapt, and of course it will get easier as your weight comes down.

Can you supplement your outdoor rides with time on your stationary?

It's my right hand, around the thumb that gets the brunt of it. It probably doesn't help that my thumb was sprained by being bent back around and touching my wrist during an accident 3 years ago. It's still pretty sensitive to strain. It's the cramping that gets to me though, you can't ignore cramping like you can pain. Pain is in the mind, but cramping will make your muscles stop responding, bad when those muscles are steering. :)

One way of imagining what it's like, weight wise, is imagine pedalling a motorcycle. A small vtwin weighs about 500lbs, and that would give you an idea of how hard it is for me riding a bike. Even though my distance is low I am getting a tremendous workout and really pushing myself to my limits.

I wish I had an altimeter to know how steep the incline is on that part of my lap but I can tell you that had I not been on the bike I wouldn't have known it was an incline at all. It's a slow gradual decline, then a left hand turn, then a long (.2 mile) gradual ascent back to my starting point. If I wanted to I could coast the first half of the lap all the way (I did at first) but now I'm pumping my legs for the whole ride which is why my average mph has almost doubled.

I'll put a video up when my handlebar camera mount comes in.

Keep it up Mike! Looking forward to the video :)

Update from my blog

Distance 1.61
Avg 8.2
Max 13.6
Hands so cramped, right foot so cramped I can't stand on it. Legs tired but comfortable. Steady breathing but never out of breath. No wheezing.

I moved the shifter and brake levers in towards the stem about an inch on both sides to give my hands a little more room on the grips. This worked because I was able to do 4 laps this morning instead of three. The extra room let me better spread the weight over my entire hand instead of concentrating it on the thumb area. This let me go another .4 before I had to call it quits. Interesting, this time my right foot also cramped up, I assume from the pressure of pedaling. It's so cramped I can't hardly stand on it. Getting the bike in was an adventure.

I couldn't ride during the week due to heat (broken ac not withstanding) lack of sleep, and work schedule. But I sure made up for it this morning. That's my first four lap ride ever. I did not stop once or try to push myself. I just kept a nice and steady cadence and kept out of the taller gears.

My weight is at 560 again but that is 560 with food in my belly and plenty of water. The 559 before was lower but I had starved myself to do it so my stomach and what not was devoid of food. You could say that was a 'temporary' weight as the first time I drank water it would have gone up. Now you can say that 560 is my normal weight because I don't have to deprive myself of food and water to reach it. I have 10 days to drop 10lbs to hit my 550 goal. I don't think this will be a problem.

My birthday is the 28th and we shall see how it goes.

Nice to hear your improvements.
Consistency is the key. Keep riding everyday, if you can.

I think you need to take more upright position by switching to sweep back handle bar like chopper style, at least for now to relieve the stress on your hands. If your legs, lungs, heart are ok, then there's no reason to let the hand fatigue stop you.
It's not how hard you ride but how long you ride affects the result most.

I'm going to recommend against the use of a scale more than weekly, and always in the morning... or, not at all. Use inches. Get someone to measure you. The scale lies, so why use it?

it's not just from Austin Powers, BTW. It means not doing the decent thing, not playing by the rules.

Just a thought, but a wrist brace with a good think padding through the thumb area might take a bit of the strain off that right hand of yours. I picked up a pair of bell fingerless gloves with the gel inserts and even those were a world of help supporting my hand and taking some strain off. Good luck to you and your efforts on loosing the weight. I'm not nearly as heavy as you, but have gotten back into cycling in the last few weeks/month to keep my slowly raising weight in check and hopefully drop down some.

That's rad! Keep it up, it takes step by step!. You can do it.