raria

Hi,

Does anyone have insight (not spectulation!) into whether doing short fast rides is better than long slower rides.

The scenario is I've crept up from 175 to 180 pounds and want to get rid of it quickly before the weather becomes too cold to ride.

I can drive 1 hour (total commute) to a safe bike path) where I can do a 90 minute ride at 18mph OR
I can ride from my door and door a 2.5 hour ride at 13mph.

The ride time difference is that the former has no stop lights, cars etc but of course the later does.

So which should I do?

MattTheHat 

I don't know, I'd have to speculate.

I'm considerably heavier than you. And I don't have any ride data that matches your parameters exactly. The closest I can get from looking at my data for the last 6 weeks is comparing rides in the area of 2:15 at 14 MPH and a ride of 1:22 at 16.3 MPH. Averaging the active calories my Apple Watch thinks I burned, and that which Strava thinks I burned, it looks like I burned somewhere around 300 calories more on the longer, slower rides. Not a huge difference.

-Matt

daoswald

Driving time is not gaining anything -- that is sedentary time.

Ride from your home for 2.5 hours.

Even better, tell yourself come hell or high water you are going to ride 5x per week a minimum of 30 minutes. It's unlikely you'll hold yourself back to those 30 minutes. More likely, you'll end up going for an hour most of the time, and 2+ hours once or twice a week.

I went from 212 to 182 in six months by riding 4x-5x/week from my home. My averages started out around 13mph, and have grown to about 15mph. I live in fairly hilly terrain. I could drive 20 minutes to a flatter path, but I'd rather ride to that path if I'm going to get onto it at all.

Anyway, speed isn't the important factor, it's time and effort that matter. If you put in the effort to get yourself into the right heart zone, and ride for long enough, and keep your caloric intake in check, you will lose weight. If you commit to driving an hour just to start your ride, you won't ride frequently enough to make a difference. Consistency, time, effort. Forget about speed. It's not a factor unless you're racing.

Skipjacks

The speed has nothing to do with it.

It's all about how much you are working.

I can burn a lot more calories going 5 mph in low gears spinning my legs like Scooby Doo running from the ghost that I do at 12 mph at a leisurely pedal cadence.

How hard are you working is what matters.

Ultimately though...eat less. That's a bigger factor than anything. Eat less. Exercise the same. You'll lose weight.

Also, is you 5 lb gain fat or muscle? If you've been biking all summer you could easily have packed on 5 lobs of lean muscle.

When I started riding regularly I didn't lose a single pound. But I trimmed up substantially. Muscle is heavy than fat. So you can get thinner and gain weight in a healthy way

jsigone

I'd take 32 miles each way Jonny!

repeat 2-4 times a week and you will be an OX.

If your body can already do 18mph ave it's going to do the same for the longer distance, delta is stopping and slowing down for lights but that won't effect moving MPH too much, maybe 1-2 pending how many dozens of stop lights are in that 32miles.

And to what @Skipjacks said, yes you will lose more weight in the kitchen than on the bike. You will have to find that balance of cals in/energy level and still run negative cals at the end of the day. You will essentially burn 3-4000 cals a day on the bike pedaling 5 hours plus your body's base cal burn assuming you're at 16ish moving mph. You're body will become efficient at pedaling that much, so your cal burn will start to taper downwards a lil. But the end picture each day is to have energy to pedal it again the next day, taking big calorie drops will effect the next day's performance levels.

TrojanHorse

The speed has everything to do with it. If you are riding 12 miles an hour you're working harder than if you're riding 5 miles an hour (assuming constant wind/hills etc)

Get a power meter if you want to quantify it.

kingston 

Long and slow usually burns more calories. Here are the numbers from this calorie calculator for your two scenarios

Short & Fast: 1470
Long & Slow: 1633

The differences are even more significant when you start riding really long distances.

Skipjacks

Mmmmm...no.

Gearing is a huge factor.

If you are in the granny gear going 5 mph and your legs are spinning like crazy just to stay upright you could easily be working harder than a casual 12 mph ride in the properly gear.

But it's a different kind of exercise. Spinning your legs really fast with no resistance will be a cardio workout. Spinning your legs slowly with a lot of resistance will be a good muscle workout. The cardio is going to burn more fat. The muscle work is going to build stronger legs.

Think of a car. If you're in 6th gear on the highway going 70mph the RPM are around 3000 and the car is running smoothly and efficiently.

If you're doing 50 in 1st gear the engine is going to blow up and you'll have transmission parts all over the road.

If you're in the same gear, 12 mph is more energy than 5 mph sure. In different gears, it makes a huge difference.

jsigone

his equations are likely close to equal, one is consistent 90 min, the other is stop n go 150min, which is more like 120 moving time at nearly same pace with 30min at stop lights. He would burn more cals at the faster pace where the HR isn't dipping to near low zone 1 while at stop lights and ramp back up to zone 3-4. If the ride is consistent zone 3-4, he will burn more cals per mile. Add small interval work couple times a week, it will burn even more. Intervals are WAAAAY easier to do on a bike trail in nearly controlled environment. Unless racing from red light to red light counts as an interval. If he gave HR or power numbers, the online calculators will be more accurate than the speed vs weight.

Short & Fast: 1470cal over 27miles = 54.44cals per mile
Long & Slow: 1633 over 32miles = 51.03 cals per mile

jsigone

If you have no resistance than you won't burn cals..plan n simple. Pedaling thru air doesn't burn cals, pedaling thru geared resistance does.

This are MY numbers, Stages power meter, Wahoo HRM, Wahoo Bolt
Note the duration, watts and cals

Typical lunch ride loop I do,



Flatter course, so faster speeds



Now this is to where it gets interesting for your theory. Social ride w/ my Pastor. My Body is used to a base level of load. On this ride, my heart rate was so low and spinning lower gear into the air without much resistance lead to way lower power number. Low HR, Low Power = LOW Cals burned. I was in front most of the time pacing him, so drafting equation is out. 2hr 8 min I burned 612 cals or = to what I'd burn in 40min under normalish load. My weight is 200 flat

Skipjacks

Any movement burns calories. Energy isn't free.

People burn calories all the time with resistance free exercise. It's called cardio.

I swear it's a thing.

sdmc530

TrojanHorse

Dude... measure your output if you want to know what you're burning. I swear, physics is a thing. Just because it's hard to keep your feet spinning at 100 rpm doesn't mean you're doing any actual work. Calories are a reflection of work done... you know, force over distance.

Cardio <> resistance free.

KraneXL

Two extremes? ^^

I guess I'll have to chose somewhere in the middle, especially since it depends on your goal and training regiment. With that in mind both can be equally effective for fat loss. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that slow and steady training is the best way to burn fat.

That said, losing weight is 80% diet; and in the case of your gain of a mere 5 lbs, no cycling is really necessary. I lost 4x that with diet alone in less than 6 weeks without a pencil lift worth of exercise.

Clyde1820

In short, yes, harder interval-type training can improve fat loss. Much research has been done over the past ~15yrs or so. The following short list of articles is a sampling of some of the data out there.

Whether you use a trainer, or incorporate high-intensity interval sequences within a ride, or have routes you ride that involve shorter hill segments where you can really lay the power on for brief intervals, this sort of training seems to have clear benefits that include increased fat burn, along with a host of other benefits.

Can be done with running, bodyweight/strength exercises, cycling, rowing, and other activities.


High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss @ PMC/USNLM/NIH, 2011.

HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING: A Review of Physiological and Psychological Responses @ ACSM, 2014.

High-Intensity Interval Training: Brought to you by the American College of Sports Medicine @ ACSM, 2013.

HIGH-INTENSITY CIRCUIT TRAINING USING BODY WEIGHT: Maximum Results With Minimal Investment @ ACSM, 2013.

TABATA: It’s a HIIT @ ACSM, 2014.

The Best HIIT Workouts for Cyclists @ Bicycling Magazine, 2018.

High-Intensity Cycling Training: The Effect of Work-to-Rest Intervals on Running Performance Measures @ The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 2015.

eja_ bottecchia

Oso Polar

Eat less. 5 extra pounds one can easily loss in a week or two just by eating slightly less.

Yep. When I started eating less and regularly riding I lost 70 pounds. Eventually, however, weight loss stopped, even though I'm riding (and otherwise exercising) more than ever before - but I'm still becoming skinnier, especial at waist area. Soon will need to change all my pants. Again. Exercise is a way to get into a good shape but it'll not help to loose weight alone.

DrIsotope

Careful with Stages kilojoule numbers if you're looking to lose weight-- my year with a Stages resulted in those kinds of... erm, friendly numbers, my power2max meter is far less... generous.

rm -rf

That bicycling.com calorie calculator said I would burn 49 to 56 calories per mile (785 per hour) at the "14-16 mph pace" selection. Nope, that's way too high. From power numbers, (the kilojoules convert into calories) it's around 25-30 cal per mile for me.

If I do a two hour "conversational pace" / "recite the alphabet in one breath" / "zone 2" ride, I'm not nearly as hungry after the ride. So that might help with sticking to a diet. After spirited rides, it's easy for me to eat a big meal that's much more than the calories burned during the ride.

DrIsotope

Burning 50kcal/mi is no problem, so long as the grade is 5-6%. Doing 14mph on flat-ish ground (like I did for 2 hours with the wife this morning) is good for about 30kcal/mi.

SHBR

Do both.

Another thread with no replies from the OP.

Fantastic.

KraneXL

That's a paradox.
I wouldn't go by hunger its predominately mental and can be misleading. You went exercising on a holiday?

DrIsotope

I ride about 300 days a year. No reason to skip Thanksgiving-- the food isn't until around 5 o'clock, traffic is light, and the weather was nice. Did 28 miles, pretty close to my Thanksgiving average.

Sintern

I would recommend to combine. I mean, short distance with fast speed and other day any speed but long distance and so on

squirtdad

2 different things

Physics basis of Work = force x distance means if you spend an hour pushing against a 500 pound rock and it didn't move you did no work, but you will have burned calories. and just sitting and typing I am burning caloeries.....albeit a lot fewer than if were riding, walking, swimming, running.