Originally Posted by
MRT2
While I generally agree with you, on this I disagree. A high cadence when cycling will make the exercise more aerobic, but not less efficient, but more. mashing away at a high gear is less efficient because you will tire your legs out after a short time.
The number I have seen is 3500 calories per pound of fat. And I agree that you probably burn close to 3500 calories cycling 100 miles. I would say 10 mph is quite a slow pace and even a moderately fit cyclist can go a little faster, like 11 to 13 mph, or maybe 12 mph as an average, so OP would have to ride 8 1/2 hours to burn 1 lb of fat, assuming he doesn't eat a single extra calorie before, during or after cycling, which is not realistic.
Hence my original point. you can't really lose weight just cycling. I have cycled for years, and found almost no correlation between cycling and weight loss.
For various reasons, I've always been stronger than aerobically fit. I could ride faster at a slower cadence and keep it up. That's the way we road when were kids on the massive Schwinn single speeds. After I quite smoking in 86 and tried to get serious about riding a lot, 100 to 200 miles a week, I deliberately tried to increase what I felt my natural cadence to be and found that I could keep between 75 and 85 without running out of air, so to speak, and so that's what I've tried to do. Not outrageously fast, but not mashing either. It seemed to me that it increased my aerobic ability but not my muscle strength. Didn't make me any faster, just seemed to make it possible to maintain for longer periods. Of course, I'm not an expert on any of this stuff and my thoughts are based pretty much on the health and exercise literature that I was reading at the time -- I was in graduate school for electrical engineering and not any sports type thing. Anyway, since then, I've always tried to keep it above 75 and very nonscientific comparison of my riding style to that of others who pass me on the streets and bike paths is that I pedal faster than most.
So, as for cadence, the other day
I ran across this which appears to support the idea that increasing cadence for recreational riders probably results in lower efficiency. But, they may be referring to cadences in excess of what I am speaking of. As I said, I'm no experto on the sports medicine/exercise efficiency stuff.
As for losing weight, cycling helps me a lot, but not nearly as much as cutting way back on alcohol consumption. Two bottles of decent beer might be 350-400 kcal (Art Car IPA is 200 kcal/bottle). For me, alcohol also execerbates bad eating habits.
I'm almost 69 and can't maintain the speeds I used to, of course, but 10mph is easy to maintain, even after being off the bike for a month or two. After a couple weeks of 100 to 150 miles I can get up to 12-13 average on a 20- 25 mile ride. Not blazing, but not too bad considering what we're dealing with.