On 2017-10-02 08:43, wrote:
On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 1:41:14 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 1:03:32 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On 10/1/2017 9:56 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
We hear a lot about bicycling having health benefits forthe one
doing the bicycling. Yet a lot of CASUAL bicyclists are not all
that healthy.

So, in order to gain NOTICEABLE health benefits from
bicycling:

1a. How long in time does each ride need to be? 1b. What
intensity does the bicyclist need to reach?

Well, there's this:
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/P....aspx#moderate



They say "at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity such as
cycling or brisk walking every week" or "75 minutes of vigorous
aerobic activity, such as running or a game of singles tennis
every week" plus strength exercises. Following links from that
page tells you that flat riding is "moderate," fast or hilly
riding is "vigorous."

So 10 to 20 minutes per day does it, depending how fast you are.


The last five words are key. It doesn't matter whether you go uphill or
not, what matters is how much your heart rate goes up and is kept there.
That can be achieved either by long climbs or by shifting up and
stepping on it. I prefer the latter.

At my last check-up at Kaiser the questionaire had check boxes for
vigorous activity per week. The highest one was 60-120mins. So I added a
120-240min box by hand and checked that ...


And I suspect most of us here would be considered fast, even
though most of us are probably slow by our "used to be"
standards.

"The older I get, the faster I was."

-- - Frank Krygowski

I wonder if they built the facilities that Joerg states are
mandatory to get non-bicyclists onto bicycles if those new
bicyclists would ride that hard for that long?

I've tried to get some people in my building interested in
bicycling; even to the point of offering them the use of one of my
spare bicycles. I got told that theweather was too hot, too cold,
too wet and so on. In other words those people had no intention of
riding a bicycle even though we have roads with bike lanes on them
or very quiet roads that go 2 miles to a 50 miles long rail-trail.

People who will ride a bicycle will ride; those who won't ride
won't ride. No matter how much bicycling infrastructure you build
for them they'll have some excuse to not ride.

But there is that small subset of people that if you have rails to
trails so that they feel relatively isolated from asshole drivers
WILL take up cycling and gradually grow in confidence. Especially
with the help of bike clubs.


There are a lot of those people, it is not a small sub-set. I'd venture
to say the majority of riders in our area. This is clearly evidenced by
the number of riders who cart their bikes to the bike path, unload and
then start their sports ride or mixed-mode commute.

Further evidence on a regular basis is when I ask neighbors "Want to
come along?" ... "You mean we have to use Green Valley Road? No! How
about we truck the bikes to Folsom?" ... to which I sometimes grudgingly
agree.

So yes, they do ride and they actually ride a lot. But not on roads.
When we ride together they are certainly no slowpokes either.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/