gundogblue

Im riding to lose weight, on Feb 16 of this year I had lapband surgury, I was 318lbs, now Im 248lbs, I have a Treck Navigator 2.0. I ride 11 miles five days a week, when I first started riding it would take me 55 mins to ride 11 miles, now I do it in 41 mins. My question is should I continue riding 11 miles a day, and keep trying to go faster, or should I increase my milage to about 13 miles a day, I imagine it would take me about 50 mins to complete the 13 miles, and try to get my time down from there? Also I have never ridden a nice road bike, at this stage of the game do you think it would help my ridding if I got a good road bike, or should I continue ridding my Treck for the remainder of this year, and start next year with a road bike? I would appriciate any advise from you more experiance riders.
Thanks,
Paul

Machka 

In general, gradually increase your distance for the next few months. If you're after losing more weight or keeping the weight off you should be aiming for 60-90 minutes of exercise a day. And, in a few weeks, pick one day a week and work on speed.

spooner

Attached is the training schedule I"m using for the MS150. I suggest you try something similar.

It varies intensity (easy days, pace days, brisk days) as well as the length of the ride. Each week increases the mileage from the previous week with one long ride per week.

The first long ride might be difficult but give it a try. You can go slower than this schedule but this strategy I think would be effective for you.

I"m not sure if the Trek Navigator is the best bike for longer rides. If you like Trek the 7.2 might be a good purchase once you feel ready for those longer rides.

https://www.trekbikes.com/women/wsd_p..._path/72fxwsd/

Pat

First, congratulations on your weight loss. Losing 70 lbs in that short of time is a bit much. I have heard a rule of thumb that with appropriate lifestyle change, one can lose a lb per week. The problem with drastic measures is that once many people hit their target weight, they go right back to their old lifestyle and gain it all back. I am not assuming that you will, but it is something to guard against.

I would suggest that you keep riding at least the same amount of time as you increase in speed. Now, physically speaking you should be able to ride faster and longer as your fitness improves. Practically speaking, I don't know if your schedule permits it or if you even want to spend that amount of time on a bike. However, you probably could ride for 90 minutes and do about 20 miles per day at your current fitness level.

Keep up the good work. Good luck to you.

spooner

The OP mentioned lapband surgery. With this surgery (and gastric bypass) sudden large weight losses are not only common but expected.

tFUnK

keeping intensity level the same, i think you can accomplish more if you did 15-20 miles, 3-4 days per week.

from experience, longer rides are much more enjoyable on a road bike rather than a mountain bike/hybrid/city bike. if you can see yourself doing 20-30+ mile rides on a regular basis, then a road bike would be a good investment.

gundogblue

I want to very much thank you all for the very good advise, spooner, thanks for the trainning schedule, I printed it up but I think I need a little more time before I can accomplish that, maybe another month. I just got back from my daily ride but today I bumped the milage up to 13 miles in 48 mins and I feel really good tomorrow Im gonna try 15 miles and see how I feel, if all goes well I'll stay there for about a month, then Im gonna try and implement spooners training schedule. I want a nice road bike but I'll wait until I can do 20-30 miles a day, when I get to that level of fitness I'll probebly appriciate the road bike even more, and it gives me something to shoot for.
Thanks again I really apriciate all your input, it really helps a rookie like me.
Paul

Smallguy

Congrats on the weight loss

I usually try to increase my mileage around 10-15% a month... just listen to your body if your sore let it rest don't suck it up

Sundays tend to be my log ride days.... not all rides need to be the same length... you can vary intensity as well

ie you can ride casually for an hour or do 30 mins of hard intervals and

ericm979

More riding burns more calories. Ride more. You don't need to "train" or do hard/easy rides, unless you enjoy it. Training for a cycling goal (half century, century, etc) is different.
Increasing time no more than 10% a week is pretty comfortable for most people.

Shepp30 

OP

If you're like many of us you'll find the what ever you decide; long leisurely rides or shorter quicker ones that it might boil down to how much time you have to ride daily. I started with about 5 miles, then 10 miles, then 15 now I pretty much ride 20 miles per ride which takes me between (depending on wind and route) 1hr 15 mins or 1hr 35mins. I really can't make much more time then that for 4 or 5 nights per week.

However I do vary intensity, having ridden 20 a day for a couple months I feel the need to step up to 25 or 30 miles but I simply don't have time...so I now hammer on half of my rides. I think I'm still making good gains health and ability wise, just by varying the intensity. Once per month I do try to ride a high milage ride, for me, of 40 to 80 miles on Saturday or Sunday.

Thought I would give my take on the subject and I suspect most avid cyclists that work and have family responsibilities run into the time issue as the milage gets easier and easier and it will if you continue to ride.

I have a couple of road bikes, a hybrid and a hybridized mountain bike. My routes are mostly rolling to hilly, so I ride the hybrid most of the time, the hybridized MTB second or as a back up and ride the road bikes when I get a opportunity to ride flat roads or paved paths - the road geared bikes punish my legs on my regular routes.