September Cycling Challenge

23 on 9/2

How do people here compare road riding, and mountain bike trail riding?

Coder - I know I find mountain biking harder and slower but I count all of the miles the same.

Pamela - looks 10 is a new high? Awesome!

Sept 3rd: 21.81 miles

Please allow me to share my story... hopefully it will give you all motivation NOT to quit riding!

In July of 2011 our family walked into a local bike shop with the intention of getting 4 new bikes (we did this because our daughters had outgrown their bikes and decided to make it a family affair since for over 18 years, my husband and I "talked" about getting bikes). That day changed my life! I weighed about 250 lbs that day, sadly that was not my top weight. We started out riding as a family and quickly our teenage daughters lost interest. My husband and I continued to ride nearly every weekend weather permitting. I managed to lose about 18 lbs between then and December, just by riding on weekends. In December I joined a gym and picked up the pace. I continued to ride on the weekends when I could due to weather. When spring rolled around, we were back out on the trails nearly every weekend. By then I was down another 20 lbs or so. Then I had an ah-ha moment! I realized I needed to challenge myself... so with complete fear and a little bit of crazy, I challenged myself BIG TIME!!! I registered for a Century Ride! Using an on-line training guide, I have been building up to the 100 mile ride with yesterday's ride being 51.25 miles. We started out just over a year ago barely being able to finish a 6 mile ride and yesterday I rode 51.25 miles! The Century Ride is October 6th... so I have a long way to go, but every day I make a conscious decision to work towards my goal. And to sweeten the pot, I've also challenged myself to lose 13 more lbs by then... because then I will have lost 100 lbs. How amazing will it be to exchange 100 lbs or 100 miles??

Please don't give up on the riding, just do what you can do 4 miles or 100, it sure beats sitting on the couch!

I track my miles with a very inexpensive bike computer. They range greatly in price and you can get them wireless or wired. If all you are looking to do is track miles and give you an idea of time and mph, you can get one for around $30 or so.

Then you can plug that info into something like MapMyRide for more details.

There are also heart rate monitors that will track your distance, calories burned and all kinds of other info, but they are much more expensive.

Somewhat n00b question here. I ride on and off-road in a local park and hardly ever the same route so I've not been tracking distance.
How do people track mileage? MapMyRun/Ride on smartphones? Are there other, better gizmos?

I downloaded a free pedometer app on my phone that has a GPS link. Ok, so I ignore the steps (obviously) but it plots my route on google maps and hives me distance and average speed which is all I'm really interested at this stage!

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Coder - I know I find mountain biking harder and slower but I count all of the miles the same.

Pamela - looks 10 is a new high? Awesome!
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Yay! It was a new high, the first 10 miler! Only started at the weekend, and apart from the odd one or two short rides on holiday it's the first time I've properly ridden for about 15 years!
And it was on a mountain bike.

Add me for 400 miles in September. I log rides in Endomondo, too.

YTD miles: 2306 mi

Somewhat n00b question here. I ride on and off-road in a local park and hardly ever the same route so I've not been tracking distance.
How do people track mileage? MapMyRun/Ride on smartphones? Are there other, better gizmos?

I have a bike computer on my bike that tells how many miles I have ridden. I can reset it at the beginning of each ride.

Somewhat n00b question here. I ride on and off-road in a local park and hardly ever the same route so I've not been tracking distance.
How do people track mileage? MapMyRun/Ride on smartphones? Are there other, better gizmos?

I use an app for my smartphone called sportracker. Tried Cardiotrainer but it wouldn't work with my specific phone. Sometimes use my son's old Garmin 205. All of the above are very convenient. Hope this helps.

Goal 600miles

September 1 - 57.5 miles 16.7mph avg 1569 calories - 3 hours 30 minutes
September 2 - 43 miles 15mph avg. Recovery ride 1089 calories - 2hours 50 minutes
September 3 - 42 miles. 18 avg. annual BBQ ride. 25miles there, eat, 17 miles home.... Keep a fast pace to burn off the pastries and sweets the local church ladies make...




Total For Month : 142.5 miles


Calories (not that it matters I do not eat them) are based on the rough formula of 30 calories per mile ridden. It may be more or less on any particulary day so I let it just average out in the end
Edited by andrewlazenby on Sun 09/02/12 01:48 PM

I'm raising it this month with hopes of more cooperation from the weather. I may also throw in some stationary bike if I can't get out.

I spun out 260+ last month, going to shoot for 300 this month. Going to be tough as I'm going out of town for a long weekend plus got a slow start. Got to getr my riding in before the weather starts to turn. As of this morning have done 21.4 miles soe it's a goot start!

Somewhat n00b question here. I ride on and off-road in a local park and hardly ever the same route so I've not been tracking distance.
How do people track mileage? MapMyRun/Ride on smartphones? Are there other, better gizmos?

The bike shop where I bought my bike attached a computer to my bike. It gives high mph, average mph, distance etc. and even though I can reset the miles after each ride, it also has an odometer that keeps track of the total miles of all rides.

I am in late again - thanks to Isaac's much needed rains and a 3-day 1200 mile round trip visit to help my elderly parents. Starting tomorrow.