Frankenstein

I love your angle! I'm a compulsive shopper so that sort of goal doesn't work well for me.

dexter9326

Didn't know if I wanted to post here or not - but I have to face facts. I'm 55 and weigh 262. I started riding 2 summers ago and really liked it. I'm afraid that I don't or can't equal the speed and distances of many riders here - something that's been discouraging. But I keep plugging away. Last year I could not startriding until mid summer as I tore up my knee skiing. This year - the warmer weather has allowed me to get out a few times - but again it's usually 10 miles or less. Guess I have some work to do.

I'm currently riding a 1994 Schwinn Crosscut as my main bike. I also picked up a 1990 Schwinn Crosscut with the flat bar setup that I ride occasionally. Nice to see that I have some company with the weight loss issue. At least we're out there trying, huh?

RaggaD

Hey Guys and Gals,

Already introduced myself in another thread but thought I would post here too. I'm currently about 280 and I'm 6ft.1 or so. Really would like to get to right around 225. Just bought my first bike, a Fuji Crosstown and have successfully ridden back and forth to work for a week. It's about 5 miles each way and I am really enjoying the ride. Will start to build up to longer recreational rides on the weekend. Now I just need to start watching what I eat more so I can see some weight come off!

Tom Stormcrowe

Welcome, Ragga! Great to meet ya!

Tom Stormcrowe

Dexter, let me give you a wee bit of advice. It's about non-scalar victories.

We respect a rider just for getting out there, and it doesn't matter to us if you ride a Century or a mile. We don't compete with each other.......we compete with prior incarnations of ourselves, in a quest to improve all the time. My personal best is nearly 170 miles ina single day, but am now more or less reset to zero, since I was hospitalized last month with severe persistent Atrial Fibrillation and anemia, which turned into a cancer scare.

Oddly, the A Fib may have saved me, because it resulted in the drs finding some benign, but precancerous masses in my ascending colon. I lost that section of colon, and the biopsy and lymph nodes that were harvested are clean, happily, but another six months.......who know?

goldfinch

The encouragement on weight issues is very helpful, as is on developing riding skills. I get discouraged at times because a new person will come along and on their first or second ride they are riding faster than I ride after a year and close 2500 miles. But then I get on the bike and I love to ride. And I see that I did lose all the weight I needed to lose. And slowly, I am getting stronger and even just a tiny bit faster. I was 56 when I started. Now at 57 I feel better than I did at 40. If I can even remember back to being 40.

tergal

Welcome to the mass's ( err no pun ) ,as Tom said you are only competing with you self.

If you have the time start up a record of your rides you will see some interesting changes in yourself .

Just have things like date, Distance, avg speed and a small section you can put in how you felt at the end.

I make these notes on my calendar in the kitchen the first few rides are embarrassing, but the change is not .

And biggest thing don't get discouraged if you go backwards it happens to all of us, just pick up and start again oh that and have fun .

krobinson103

188cm (I used to be 191 but age seems to shrinking me!) and 93.8kg as of this morning. Thats a lot less than the 101.5kg I was 2 1/2 months ago, but still 8kg short of my goal. I've always been hovering around 90kg and getting under that takes a heroic effort of exercise and diet. I think its my body telling me that I'm not really meant to be that skinny., but I'd like to try and be under 90kg again before I turn 40 (next year). I think the last time I was there was my last year at high school when I was body building, wrestling, and doing Karate all at the same time.

dexter9326

Thanks for the advice. It's much appreciated.

cjbohl

265lbs and only 5'9" only been ridding since oct2011. Just got a my 1st new bike Novara Randonee. If I lose weight that is good but my goal is to stay young forever or at least active...lol

Doohickie

From the pub crawl Sunday night



And from tonight's ride

Suprdav95

I'm new around here. I'm 6'0" 252ish pounds. I started riding again about three weeks ago after being off of my bike for about 20 some odd years. I'm 34 years old and a have two small children. About two months ago, I weighed in at 266 pounds. My blood pressure has been high and my blood sugars have been borderline. I decided to make some changes, so the day after Easter, I started walking and riding my trusty old mountain bike. Well, the tires and tubes on the trusty old mountain bike were kind of dry rotted and only gave me about a week of riding pleasure.Fast forward a couple of weeks. I had a very very tiny budget for a new bike and so I bought a GMC Denali. I'm looking forward to riding more and upgrading to a newer "name brand" bike in a year or so. I hope I just don't get laughed off of the road after being seen on a Denali.In the three weeks that I've been riding, I can feel less stress, my legs are getting stronger, I'm inching toward 10 miles a day, and my weight is dropping.I'm proud to be a Clydesdale, although I want to be a slight bit trimmer Clydesdale.I'll go back into the corner with my Denali now.

Doohickie

Awesome progress in just a short time! Keep it up.

rearviewbeer

Just turned 40, weighed in at 230 this morning, 6' 4". Riding a Mercier Orion Al - about 60lbs more than last time I rode (albeit 23 years ago). Only looking to lose 5-10lbs at this point.

Charlie_R

Does it really matter what other riders think about your ride? At least you are out there on a bike!

Here's a few pics of my ride, for what it's worth....this is actually a series of pics of the build.

https://s1094.photobucket.com/albums/...ures/?start=20

There are people that think I'm strange, and folks that think it's cool. I don't care one way or the other, I'm out there to ride, and try to at least maintain what health I have. About 12 miles a day on it, 5 days a week.

JeePakXJ

Well im 6'3" 273lb. I started getting into biking about 2 months ago to lose some weight, Id like to be around 225-230. Im also starting to bike to my first shift at work for extra exercise and to save gas money. Right now i have a factory Trek 7.2FX (except i added a frame mounted pump, bike lock and a bigger seat...those tiny little nut splitters hurt too much.. lol maybe once i loose some weight ill put the original back on)

ChrisM2097

I'm about the same build as you (6'2" @ 270lb), and have the Trek 7.5FX. The original saddle (Bontrager, I believe) is extremely uncomfortable. It's not the size of the saddle that makes one more comfortable, it's the design. I've found the Serfas RX saddles to be the most comfortable for me. You may find that the bigger saddle will only be comfortable on short rides, but will quickly become unbearable on longer rides.

JeePakXJ

Ill look into that one, thanks. Im still confused on the tire size jargon ive seen here, but according to my sidewall i have a 700x35c, it looks pretty wide for long distance road use, what size do you use?

ChrisM2097

I use 700x28. 700 is the rim size (diameter). the other number is the width of the tire. 35 is definitely on the large side, but it provides for a more comfortable ride, as it absorbs the imperfections in the road.

Flying Foot Doc

Just found this thread on the forum, kind of like Bike-Anon. Hi, I'm Andy, I'm too fat & I bike. Started out a year ago on my 1st new road bike ever at 213, got down to 195, ballooned back to 207 over New Years and just haven't gotten back under 200 yet. I started out riding with a goal of 1000 miles for the year and got there with a 55 mile GranFondo in Miami in November as my longest ride ever. So far this year mileage has been irregular but with a PB of 60 miles at the Clean Air Ride in Inverness Fla. I have a goal of getting back to 190 and riding a Century by the time I'm 65. I'm 63 now, 6'2" and 204 this morning

OhioCyclone

Hey everyone I am new to the forum, and thought this thread was a good place to get involved. I am 25 and fall in at 6'4" and 275 lbs. My current ride is a 2011 Blue 58cm Surly Long Haul Trucker. i started riding leisurely two years ago as a way to stay active, and meet people, and of course I have fallen in love with it. I have been using riding to get in better shape. Considering that I started at almost 300 I feel like I am doing pretty well. My goal is to reach 235 by new years eve. This was my weight pre-college, and i miss it dearly, haha. But excessive but necessary partying coupled with a few knee surgeries, will turn into a bad situation rather quickly. I hopefully will have more encouraging news to post soon.

OhioCyclone

35 - 37 mm is on the larger side. I have been using 700x37 on my Surly ( stock on the complete bike from the factory) since I purchased it, and I will be using 37 again. Chris is right when he said it is a more comfortable ride. It also helps prevent damage to your wheel set, especially if you plan to rid eon some gnarly surfaces. I tend to ride in more of a touring fashion, and the surfaces range from smooth fresh pavement, to patchwork b roads, and even some gravel c roads. I am still debating wether I want to drop down to 32. The biggest benefit is less rolling resistance, and this is only really significant when going in and out of troughs--like maintaining speed transitioning from down hill to uphill again.

As for saddles, that is unfortunately the hardest thing to fine tune. I have gone with the brooks B-17 touring saddle. It is more of an upright position saddle, so if the drop difference from saddle to bar is more than 3-4 inches, you might make the boys a little angry. But it is wide enough in the back to fit the sit bones, and skinny enough in the front to not cause chafing of the legs. I had a bigger padded sit, and found that it actually hurt my sit bones after about 20+miles...the tough, painful looking, but oh so comfortable brooks leather saddle and padded shorts works wonders for me.

sjscorpiomark

Hello everyone I am new here and really appreciate reading the stories of big guys and gals getting out there and riding.

A story about me and my reason for researching here(sorry it got a little longer than I planned).

I am 44, 6' 275 LBS and really need to loose some weight and get in shape. High blood pressure, smoker for 28 years, borderline diabetic and due to a genetic issue on blood thinners for life. 20 years ago used to ride 20-30 miles 3-4 times a week, ran a 5 mile loop every morning and I weighed 175-180 and then got divorced, had a bout of depression and ate to 'feel better' and sat in front of the computer/tv pretty much all my free time.

Fast forward to spring 2008, weighed 300lbs was on blood pressure meds and at my physical the doctor said better loose some weight and quit smoking now or your heading for a heart attack. I decided to buy some better camera gear and go out and photograph. Got reasonably good Exercise lost a little weight still at 280 Lbs or so I could not walk far enough off the road carrying my gear to get the shots I wanted. kept at it all summer until August 2008 when I was getting ready for bed and I got dizzy, then nausea set in then my right arm went numb. I told my daughter to call 911 and then my entire right side went numb and I was vomiting. the parametics arrived 10-15 minutes later and asked me questions but I was unable to make words come out, I could think of what I wanted to say but i would just mumble some incoherint sounds. I had a stroke, luckily 2 days later I had regained mobility in my right side and was able to leave the hospital on the 4th day. I continued walking and photographing and could walk a mile without sitting down but was still little winded. down to 250 or so then I injured my knee and over 6 months ballooned back to 280 that was in the fall of 2010. I fell into a complacent mindset that I am doing fine, I am taking my meds so all is well, March 2012 when I was sitting down at my desk and I had a shooting pain in the middle of my upper back, then I got a tight feeling in my chest and called 911. A heart attack...

So here I am a 44 yr old thats already had a stroke and heart attack both thankfully with no permenant damage other than a slight short term memory deficit. I have to change my life NOW. I have stopped smoking. I am in the shopping phase for my first return bike and have pretty much settled on either a Cannondale CX3 or a Trek 7.5 fx. I am planning on taking off the stock wheels and having a set of 36 spokers built up and slap some 700 28 or 30 rubber on there but have not locked down a builder/brand on that yet. if anyone has suggestions please let me know.

This idea I have about beginning training. Work with a nutritionist to work on a decent food plan ( not horrible now but need to tweak it I am sure ). Buy a trainer and run intervals in-doors in the evenings while preparing dinner or laundry or whatever to increase my cardio endurance which is pathetic right now (walked up 5 flights of stairs due to elevator being out at the office just about killed me). Get on and do 10-15 minutes whatever I can manage at a reasonable cadence 60-70 RPM then return to chores then do another 5-10 minutes at 90-100RPM and do chores repeat. I will also do rides on the Saturday working on distance and not pace. Take Sunday as a full recovery day. Once I built up the endurance and strength to make it, I am hoping about a month from starting, commute to from work home a couple times a week while doing intervals on the off days. google maps says door to door is 15.3 miles, mostly flat though there are a 10 overpasses and 3 are pretty steep and tall. luckily I can take the train in and ride home until I get the stamina to do a round trip commute.

Thanks for bearing with me through that long introduction,
Mark

goldfinch

Welcome Mark and thank you for your story. I see that you bought the Trek 7.5 FX. That is a great bike. Riding helped me lose weight. Not so much from burning calories, but from the desire to be able to ride more and have that good feeling that comes from improving fitness.

CraigB

Mark, I would add one important ingredient in your training program. Have fun. Don't start out pushing yourself so hard that you lose the enjoyment factor of riding. If it becomes something you dread you'll be hard pressed to keep at it. So indulge yourself a little and work into it slowly.