You bet it is! Bicycling is one of the best possible exercises for burning calories. Whether it is on a stationary bike in a gym, at home or riding outdoors, riding a bicycle burns more calories than almost any other exercise in a given amount of time. On top of that bicycle riding is a lot more fun than most other exercises.
Bicycling is also much more user friendly than most forms of exercise. It is not a high impact sport that that wears on joints like running or many aerobic exercises. It is even an exercise that can be enjoyed after hip or knee replacements.
The longer you stay at it the more calories you burn. The amount of calories burned bicycling or any other exercise, depends on the time you spend at the exercise along with your intensity. This is a great plus for bicycling because it is very easy to continue bicycling for an hour or more. The longer you stay at it the more calories you burn.
Most of the bicyclists I know can easily ride for two hours or more. Some of my wonderful fanatic friends are randonneures. Their rides are anywhere from 60 to 750 miles at a time. These folks ride day and night to reach their goals.
Talk about long rides, I recently met a very nice young lady on the University of Texas, Austin, bicycle team and they just completed a ride from Austin, TX to Anchorage Alaska and back in eighty days. They raised over $250,000 for cancer research.
Then there is the Ride Across America (RAAM) from Oceanside, CA to Atlantic City, NJ every year. This is a truly amazing race. The 8 person men's team completed it in 5 days and 16 minutes with an incredible average speed of 22.42 mph. The solo men's race was won in 8 days and 20 minutes with an also incredible average speed of 14.38 mph.
Those riders are incredible! I'll bet they can tell you about calories burned bicycling.
Join a Bicycle Club
Join a bicycle club and you will meet some very interesting people. Or join the CelebrateCycling.com community to meet other bicyclists living near you. Don't worry about that little bicycle seat, you'll soon get used to it. We all did.
Most riders started out with short rides and slowly increased so that now bicycling has become part of their lives. Many of them join clubs or groups where they enjoy long weekend rides with their friends on peaceful country roads. When I started, I thought 10 miles was a big deal but today a 30 mile ride after work twice a week is my norm. I also try to get a longer ride in on the weekend.
While they are at it they burn calories galore. Let's look at a list of the amount calories a 200 pound person burns at various activities in one hour to see how bicycling compares:
Bicycling for one hour at 12 mph = 725 calories
Running for one hour at 6 mph (10 min mile) = 908 calories
Basketball game for one hour = 725 calories
Rowing (Moderate) for one hour = 862 calories
Jump Rope (Moderate) for one hour = 908 calories
Aerobics (General) for one hour = 544 calories
Weight Lifting (Moderate) for one hour = 275 calories
As you see, bicycling is right up there with the rest and this list does not take into account headwinds and hills. They can easily increase the calories you burn bicycling.The real reason bicycling is such a great way to burn calories is that outdoor bicycling is so enjoyable that it beckons you to return. There is always a new landscape to look at and a new hill to conquer. There are friends to gab with and new routes to explore. Bicycle riding is simply fun.
Bicycling is great, but you should also do something else. Bicycling is a great exercise for the lower back and all of your leg muscles, heart and circulation, but it does not do much for your abs, chest, arms and upper back.
Spending a little time on the rest of your body will work wonders. If you have already conditioned your body to the discipline of bicycling, it is ready for some upper body work.
Bicycling groups and clubs have members who are all sizes and shapes, but it is easy to recognize those who combine cycling, along with some weights and core body exercises like palates or yoga. They look great and have the complete sculpted bodies we all wish we had.
Lose Weight While Gaining Strength And Form
We all know that exercise is important if we want to lose weight the right way. Burning those calories bicycling is a great way to start, but we need a little more. We need to burn fat while building lean muscle mass to lower our Body Mass Index (BMI). It would seem like eating less and exercising more is the right formula, but it may not be.
Depending on what we currently eat, we may need to exercise more AND eat more. Our bodies are very complex machines. If we exercise at even moderate intensity for more than an hour, we need to eat while we are exercising.
Even if we carbo loaded for two days before our exercise, our blood and liver only store an hour and a half of energy for a trained athlete. Once we go beyond an hour our tank starts to run dry and we need a refill. Passing an hour and a half, we start to go into a hypoglycemic state where runners hit the wall and cyclists bonk. Neither one is any fun.
Riding a bike beyond an hour and a half without additional food is self defeating. Not only are we out of energy and wobbly, but we could be burning up some of that new lean muscle mass that we have worked so hard to build.
10,000 Calories a Month! Keep at it! The calories you burn bicycling can easily add up to 10,000 a month or more. Wouldn't that be great?
If we keep this up, we will all be tri-athletes before we know it.