Old 06-26-21, 11:17 PM
  #364  
livedarklions
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Originally Posted by MaximRecoil
False, though, ironically, you just demonstrated that you didn't understand my posts.
The last person who replied didn't understand what I said either, which is why he argued against something I never said (i.e., I never said that one was "harder" than the other, only that they're different).
And again you've demonstrated that you didn't understand what I said, despite the fact that I've been typing in plain English. I never said anything at all about effort, so you've just posted a non sequitur. It is half the work per mile, and that's a fact that anyone can easily calculate with the simple work formula.
Why don't you try a 500-pound bike and see what happens? How about a 1,000-pound bike? When you use extremes it's plain as day that the workout effect is different, and it's not as if the effect of the workout just suddenly starts being different once you reach an arbitrary weight difference; a weight difference always results in a different workout effect. As I said in my original post, you can do the same amount of work with any weight bike (assuming you can move it at all; if you can't move it no work is done regardless of how much effort you put into trying to move it), but you can't get the same "workout" on a lighter bike as you can on a heavier bike, nor vice versa, because the body reacts differently to moving heavier weights than it does to moving lighter weights.
This is another non sequitur. I never said that bench pressing is equivalent in any way to riding a bike. I used it as an example of how the amount of work can be the same but the effect of the workout is drastically different.

Only to a certain point, because bikes don't have an infinite number of gears.
Your concession is noted. Also, keep in mind that a workout with a different-weight bike can have a drastically different effect, depending on how big the weight difference is, unlike the far more minor differences that you've listed.

Sorry, but this is hilarious! Obviously, my points went completely over your head.

A 30 pound bike does not require twice the work per mile because the primary work you are performing is the transportation of your own weight on the bicycle. So unless you somehow magically double your own weight, the difference is a lot less than double. If light bike plus rider weighs 165 pounds and heavy rider plus bike weighs 180, that's not double the work. I'm amazed that you would actually make this very stupid mistake twice.

Not sure where you think you're going with the 500 pound bike bit. I said that weight was a significant factor in acceleration, obviously, no human being can accelerate a 500 pound bicycle. They also don't exist for that reason. And you know, neither do 1 ounce bicycles because they couldn't support a person's weight. Taking things to extremes does nothing but obscure what's really going on in the realm of the plausible.

I'm pretty sure that you don't need an infinite number of gears to approximate the resistance of a heavy bike with a light bike. Frankly, if that's all you got, it's pretty pitiful.

And no, you have this all wrong, when it comes to bikes, your body isn't reacting to weight per se, it's reacting to resistance, and weight is just one source of many. If you actually knew anything about bicycling, you'd know that the air resistance at higher speeds dramatically increases the work you do per minute. If you care to explain why, in principle, riding a heavier bike more slowly can't produce roughly the same work per minute, I'm all ears. And seriously, if you really want to get an equivalent workout with a lighter bike, attack more hills on it.

Work per mile is an arbitrary choice of metric, and you're about the zillionth person to assert that all else being equal, the heavier bike will require more work per mile. This, like the notion that no two workouts are exactly alike, is what is known as a trivial fact. There's no reason to keep all things equal if you're trying to hit some platonic ideal of the right amount of resistance over time.

Finally, and I didn't mention this one before, if you're dead set on riding a heavy bike, you can always put some weight on the light one. Lightening the heavy bike is an entirely different matter, however.

By the way, some of us, myself included, actually do ride bikes that differ in weight by 100% and also lift some weights. 100% difference in a pair of dumbbells is a much more profound one than it is for the bikes unless you happen to be carrying the bikes up the stairs. What you missed in the comparison between cycling and weightlifting is that a bicycle is a machine designed to maximize momentum, and that means it actually minimizes the effects of weight once you get the vehicle to speed.
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