Cycling vs. Spinning

wendybird5
wendybird5 Posts: 577 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I enjoy cycling outside either as transportation or just for exercise and fun. I also love my weekly Spin class and never miss it. Ever so often I'll see some pithy saying on some of the cycling websites making fun of people driving in their cars to the gym to get on a bike rather than just biking outdoors and while I get what they're saying, I find that the two are actually quite different.

For me cycling is very externally focused. I'm riding and enjoying the scenery and being on a bike rather than in a car stuck in traffic. But I also have to be very aware of everything around me at all times - other riders, traffic, road hazards, weather hazards. If I'm with a group, I'm trying to keep up with them including on the hills. I can't have my music on too loud or I won't be able to hear what's around me. It's fun and relaxing (unless you have bike issues like the time I biked across the city to Santa Monica only to lose a pedal) and I enjoy it because it's an adventure and even the same route can yield different surprises. And I love spending most of the day riding around to different places and traveling across the city. (One of these days I need to find a cycling partner so I can do some bike camping.)

Spinning, on the other hand, I find to be more internally focused. You aren't worried about running in to anyone or anything or keeping up with anyone. The hills are as difficult as you want to make them and you go as fast or slow as you want. Weather and road hazards don't matter and you don't have to try to keep up with anyone else. You focus much more on what your body is doing: Are you activating your core to help support your back? Are you putting the weight on your legs and not the handlebars? My favorite parts are when a song comes on that I really enjoy and I just close my eyes and visualize everything that is going on inside my body as I pedal, focusing on each breath and picturing that bodyfat burning off like wax from a candle. For that hour I can shut out the world completely and there's nothing but me and the bike and it is glorious.

So I'm curious if anyone here has a preference for one over the other and why, or do you like both equally?

Replies

  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
    your question is if i prefer riding in the sunshine along the beach while seeing the sights of the city or would i rather pedal indoors in a sweaty room while staring into a mirror?
  • wendybird5
    wendybird5 Posts: 577 Member
    Well, if my gym only had a sweaty room lined with mirrors then I wouldn't want to go there either. Thank goodness that is not the case for me.
  • EdTheGinge
    EdTheGinge Posts: 1,616 Member
    Being that the road are an absolute joke in the UK and there's barely a flat bit I'd take the spinning anyday, however it won't get me to work lol. I feel that with the spinning you can push yourself that bit harder as you don't need to worry about the return journey, you can just go hell for leather and feel the burn.

    On a nice summers evening it's enjoyable to have shades on, music in and ride in the countryside but again the roads are poor and I seem to be average 1 puncture a month or sometimes more so not fun.

    Big up the spinning !!!
  • Natihilator
    Natihilator Posts: 1,778 Member
    Yeah, the spin room at my gym is tiny with about 25 bikes packed into it, in front of a wall of mirrors. I don't dare ever go in on a Saturday or Sunday morning, it reeks of boozy sweat :sick:

    I love biking outside, but I'm a pathway/trail rider, the roads and drivers in my city are not cyclist-friendly at all, it's a shame.
  • jenj1313
    jenj1313 Posts: 898 Member
    I am a cyclist. I don't spin. But I do drive my bike and my trainer to a friend's house several times a week during the winter to do group trainer workouts in his insulated garage. Sounds silly, but it motivates me, keeps me training during the cold weather, and helps my pedaling technique, so it works for me.

    One of my favorite sayings recently is: "Don't worry about what other people think... they don't do it very often anyway".

    I'd just do what works for you and ignore the pithy sayings!
  • David1540
    David1540 Posts: 10 Member
    Both are good for different reasons. Indoors you are pedaling 100% of the time, outdoors you tend to coast at least some of the time. So indoors is more intense in the time you spend doing it. Indoors is very regulated in terms of resistance and cadence, outdoors is random, you have to react to whatever the route throws at you, hills, turns, starts, stops etc. Riding indoors can make you a better cyclist outdoors, but only if you do go outdoors, eg you need both. My indoor trainer is in the basement, and I typically do 1-hour Carmichael interval training videos, and can burn over 1,000 calories in a session (per HRM). My friends say my pedaling technique and cadence are noticeably improved outdoors, and I don't lose fitness over the winter months like I used to. I still ride outdoors on weekends, yesterday 30 miles in 25 degree weather.
    I used to go to a 90-minute spin class at the gym, it was a sweatfest but in the end I didn't get that much out of it cycling. Too much stand up /sit down, not enough high cadence max effort intervals. It just burned calories in my opinion.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    I cycle from love and spin from necessity.

    Give me the best the outdoors provides versus the best the indoor can hope for any day.
    Spinning is ok, but it loses a lot of the reason of why I bike. Haven't led a group spin anywhere.
  • RunDoozer
    RunDoozer Posts: 1,699 Member
    I dont like cycling mainly because my eyes are bad and I can't really see everything I need to be able to feel safe. I just get way too nervous about my surroundings and can't focus on my exercise or having fun.

    Spin I can zone out and not have to think about anything and just worry about how much I'm gonna sweat
  • benol1
    benol1 Posts: 867 Member
    Hi wendy,

    I used to cycle-commute, and get involved in team endurance fund-raiser events and belong to the Audax (long distance) cycling club in Australia. In the last five or six years I've become too unfit and overweight to use my road bike, hence I see my attendance at regular RPM classes and doing the stationary recumbent bike cardio-machine as part of a medium term project to get back on my road bike.
    Cycling, certainly in this country, suffers from an elitist culture.
    I think that spinning and outdoor cycling as two separate activities with their own benefits and purposes. The important thing is being active.
    Wishing you all the best,

    Ben

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