Are Beach Cruisers good for exercise?

You will lose
Enjoy it
Make it a lifestyle

If you mean a pedal bicycle for the beach, I don't see how it couldn't be good exercise.
The only problem with bikes is that its very easy to just cruise around and not burn calories.
However I imagine if you are on the sand, you have to keep pedaling.

Enjoy.

I ride a beach cruiser now and it is definitely a work out. The calorie calculators unfortunately are all geared to street bicycles because, as said before, it takes serious work to get it much above 12mph on a flat road. The fastest I have ever gone was around 20mph on a downhill. Pedaling becomes useless because the gear ratio is low.

Another thing to remember is that cruisers weigh much, much more than the road bikes. Many road bikes weigh less than 10 pounds. Cruisers are much heavier. Mine is at least 25 pounds, which adds a lot when you are pushing yourself and the bike uphill. So for very hilly or mountainous areas, a cruiser may not be ideal.

That said, I love the cruiser. It gives you more time to look around and enjoy the scenery. It often gets complimented, cars seem to see me more easily than road bikes and seem more courteous. Plus looking at it just makes me want to ride it. I'm all for cruisers, or any bike, for weight loss. They are a great way to get cardio without overly straining your joints. Especially since I am heavy, running or other high impact work outs destroy my knees and leave me gimpy and unable to work out for days. Bikes are much better for this, cruisers included. It is elitist and simply wrong to think that you can't get a decent work out on a cruiser.

26 years ago I bought a beach cruiser at the age of 16 with money I earned announcing Little League games.
Not long ago I mentioned in passing that I'd like to start riding my old bike for stress relief. This bike has sat in the garage for the last 20 years collecting dust. This Fathers Day my wife and kids had it fixed up (tires, chain,
Etc...) as a surprise gift. 4 months ago I started riding nightly for fun. I downloaded myfitnesspal.com and mapmyride.com to help put me on some type of structured program. I started riding 1-2 miles around town a night to now I'm riding 12-15 miles 5-6 nights a week! In 4 months I have gone from 244lbs. to 214lbs. and I feel amazing!
My classic cruiser has rejuvenated me and with the help of myfitnesspal.com
and mapmyride.com I have an amazing, recorded exercise program to follow. My wife has recently joined me on her NEW cruiser and it has been fantastic. I am so glad I kept this cruiser and now my wife and I look forward to riding every evening. Happy, Safe Riding to ALL.

I just got a 3 speed Beach Cruiser, after not riding a bike for nearly a decade. I am so out of shape, a half hour ride on flat terrain beat me up. Going up hill, even a small hill is mega challenging. (for the unfit such as myself) I was wondering if anyone can recommend a good training program for someone who's fitness level is very low. Is there a program out there?

:laugh:

pj1969: Thanks for sharing this information about beach cruisers! I have one that I bought from a yard sale (80's, no gears, and weighs maybe 50lbs?) about 6 years ago. I've been using it to ride to work for exercise, however, I could not seem to find a website that would help me calculate time, ground grade, and miles,etc. I went onto the www.mapmyride.com and it was just EXACTLY what I was looking for, the only thing, is that it does not save my calculated workout with the calories and date attached to it... but it's doable!

You should try MapmyWalk. Not sure how different it is from mapmyride, but MapMyWalk live tracks your rides and does include an estimated amount of calories burned. Plus tracks your average speed, shows you the elevation levels, distance, & duration. It's fantastic! I actually wish MyFitnessPal did that. But I'm only here to track my food intake/calories whereas I like to track my exercises through MapMyWalk

Sure, why not? Anything's better than sitting on the couch.

My first time losing weight, I did quite a lot of cycling to get there. Like 100-200 miles per week every week for 18 months. Riding position will not be a big difference in how many calories someone burns per hour. More upright and wider hand position will cause more drag and make it harder to go fast. You just burn more calories per mile due to the drag.

Multi-gear versus single gear will make a difference. A single speed is a compromise. For a beach cruiser it's probably a compromise that makes it not terribly hard to start and reasonable to ride at a comfortable pace on flat surface. Up hill, the gear will be too high. Down hill, the gear will be too low. And if you're pushing pace, it will be too low. If you're pushing pace on your bike, you're in a gear that lets you maintain a cadence and a certain amount of pressure on the pedals constantly. On a single speed, you may be pedaling slower than ideal, which reduce power output because you will be less efficient. Or you may be going too fast and have to coast until you slow down. Again, reducing power output.

You can get a multi-speed beach cruiser, fitness bike, hybrid or whatever. That will help. Even with this, road bikes have a little more advantage than just multi-speed and aerodynamics. More beginner comfort oriented bikes have the seat further back from the pedals. This tends to emphasize quads more. Road bikes will better utilize hamstrings and quads together, which gives you more miles until fatigue. Road bikes also have a lot more hand positions, which help with comfort on long rides. I don't think I could ever do a 4 hour ride on a beach cruiser. I have done it on a road bike...at 30 pounds lighter.

My recommendation would be to do what's comfortable and affordable. If you're not comfortable with a road bike, start with something easier. I would probably go with something more hybrid-like than a beach cruiser. I did this with a Giant FCR3. Then graduate up to a road bike if you get into it enough. After doing my first 100 mile ride with the Giant, I got myself and Orbea road bike.

I've seen a couple funny numbers thrown around on bike weight. UCI, the main cycling governing body, set a 15 pound minimum weight on competition road bikes. You have to spend thousands on a road bike to get there. The $800 road bike down at the shop probably weighs 22 pounds give or take a couple. The $1200 bike is probably 20+/-2. A beach cruiser or comfort bike is going to have massive variation. I would guess 30+/-5.