Whats better, 1 hour ride or 2 half hour rides?

[Perry]

I ask this because my usual commute is 30 mins each way.

I was loosing weight

I am off work at the mo so if I were to do an hour ride in the morning would that be:

1) Better
2) Just as good
3) Not as good

 

[02GF74]

depends on what you define as "good".

shorter ride would mean you are not going into the body';s fat reserves.

also you would tend to pus ha bit harder since you know you are on the bike less so you would be becoming stringer. the longer ride you would take it a bit easier to conserve your resrves so would help with endurance.

just my guess - it may be any of the above.

 

[Twenty Inch]

Do one long ride. How often are you going to drag yourself out 2x daily, with all the faffing around it involves? Get out for an hour, it may become an hour and a half, you can mix the riding up a bit, a few hills, some sprints, some slow endurance work. Much better for you. After half-an-hour, you'll hardly be warmed up.

 

[Perry]

Maybe I didn't explain properly, sorry.

While I am off work, How much riding do I need to in one ride to be the equivilent to my 2 X 30 mins ride to work?

 

[Moonlight]

A rough guess would be 50 minutes. I can do a 30 min cycle without breaking a sweat now. But 50 mins would start to push me slightly.

There really is far too many variables to calculate it. But if you want to loose weight go for long rides and eat little, then you burn the fat. I'm underweight, so I have to stay off the endurance stuff unless I eat lots while I'm out, I do short rides to try and build my muscles and thus my weight increases, you will prehaps be the opposite.

 

[doyler78]

Really if you want to ride when you are off work and you are not too limited by time why not use the time to build up longer rides. Why limit yourself if you don't have to. This will really improve your fitness and ultimately your commute times.

I found some of the biggest gains I got in my commute times came when I increased the distances I rode over varying terrain and my belief on this is because when you train for longer then you can maintain shorter distances at higher speeds much better. Win/Win situation. If you always train over the same short distance then your body will simply adapt to the demands of that ride and will just plateau ie you will not actually get any fitter. We need to challenge ourselves in order to grow stronger.

 

[monnet]

I found some of the biggest gains I got in my commute times came when I increased the distances I rode over varying terrain and my belief on this is because when you train for longer then you can maintain shorter distances at higher speeds much better. Win/Win situation.

And the opposite works too - if you push yourself to the limit on shorter rides the power you can consistently produce over longer distances also goes up.

 

[doyler78]

And the opposite works too - if you push yourself to the limit on shorter rides the power you can consistently produce over longer distances also goes up.

True - that's why interval training is hard and why you generally need recovery time after such training. It's all about good balance.

 

[shades.5]

How Long

Hi all just wondering how long it takes to loose a little weight and build up some decent fitness, have been riding for about 8 days a couple of 10 milers and a 20 miler today ( feel quite tired ) i am doing a 100 miler bristol to chobham aug 24th so want and hope i can buld up a decent amount of fitness in this time , so anyone got any tips or advice
thanks