So just last week I got my first road bike, its a vintage Univega Gran Rally. Now I use to work out 3x a week and did some mild cardio 3x a week as well, well it wasn't really mild cardio per say it's called HIIT, high intensity interval training and a keto diet along with that got me from 185 to 165lbs. Well I started slacking and I went back up to 165 and I really HATE running.

Shortly after my first ride on my Univega...I am now ADDICTED! I found my cardio gateway! This is where you guys come in:

Coupled with:
- Strength training 3x a week
- Calorie deficit diet, I'm going witha tradition 40/40/20 diet
- 3-6x a week cycling on my road bike.


For a good cardio workout on a bike, how long should I ride? My first two rides have been over 7 miles, the last one I did yesterday was 9.77 miles. So for some weight loss about how many miles should one try to ride every week or every time I go out on my bike?

20 minute minimum. also you don't lose weight or burn fat while riding. your metabolism burns the fat over time and you lose fat weight slowly. riding (or anything) increases your metabolism.

This is a very difficult question to answer, because how many calories you'll burn, and how hard you'll be working, varies with the intensity of the session and that will be influenced by terrain, wind etc as well as how hard you push and how heavy you are.

However, I can give you some idea. I'm a big rider at around 200lbs. If I put out about 200 watts I will burn around 11 or 12 calories per minute. On my own, on a flat road, with little or no wind, at 200 watts I will be travelling at about 20mph. So at that level of effort, I'll go through around 700 calories per hour, with my heart rate somewhere in the 140s.

But that's just me. Your numbers will be different, and flat roads with little or no wind may be hard to come by

Essentially, you can't ride hard enough to lose significant weight in just 10 miles. If you want your cycling to contribute towards weight loss, you need to ride for longer. And doing so will build your aerobic fitness, of course.

so if I plan to ride 3-5x a week, each ride has to be longer than 10 miles in order for it to help witih the weight loss, along with my stregnth training and calorie deficit diet?

Of course, any exercise will help somewhat with weight loss, and if you are controlling your diet, you'll see benefits. The point I was trying to make was that riding, even at intensities that most people would find quite taxing, burns fewer calories than one might imagine. In the example I quoted above, in riding at 20mph I burn about 25% fewer calories per hour than I would by jogging at only 6mph.

However, partly because of the low-impact nature of cycling I have no problem riding for four or five times as long as I could jog. How you choose to invest your time depends on how much of it you have, and on what activity you prefer.

You might benefit from The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing by Philip Maffetone. Especially with the type of diet you are doing. GL.

Keep your heart rate at about 65% of max and keep it there while you do your cardio. If your heart rate is to high you will start to use muscle as energy. Same theory as cardio in the gym. Basically you have to burn 3500 calories or eat 3500 less to lose one pound.

You most certainly do. At an average rate of 1 ounce per hour (0.5 g/min).

It does not matter (much). If your heart rate is at ~65..75% of max, you burn fat while riding. If your heart rate is higher, you burn less fat and more carbs and some muscle, and later your body requisitions carbs and protein from the diet during recovery. In the end, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

The guy says he is strength training so that why I posted 65% because I didn't figure he would want to lose muscle. He would lose more weight and so would I if we kept our heart rate at 75-90% but I don't want to lose muscle and if he is strength training I wouldn't think he would either.

I see. I don't think it's a huge deal though, and it may be more important that training at the highest possible heart rate is needed to raise the level of aerobic fitness (VO2max), which would let you burn more calories in future.