I'd like to achieve a sub 5 hour 100 miles on road, before Nov 7th 2005.

I'm 5' 8'', 172lbs and 30 years old. Body Fat between 12.6% (immediately after a ride) and 14.7% (first thing in the morning).

I've been cycling for just 18 months now. I ride 27 miles a day (mon - fri)as a commute to work and back (13.5 miles each way).

Sprinting to work, I achieve an average just over 20mph. Quite a bit of traffic and lights and roundabouts. I cruise reasonably comfortably at 23mph. When sprinting across roundabouts (20 sec burst) I max 34.7mph on the flat.

I'm thinking on targeting various areas:
(1) get my own weight down. (Eat more healthy.)
(2) get my body fat % down to 8% (not sure what level is still healthy?)
(3) increasing endurance (longer slower rides?)
(4) increasing my mileage (not sure how to quickly to increase?)

My only exercise currently is cycling (also doing an office job). I can't see myself going down the gym regularly (I'll get bored), but I could put up with an hours badmington twice a week.


Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

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i'm 5'8" and 142 pounds and my body fat scale says i have 17% body fat. Either your scale or my scale is inaccurate.

Comparing height & weight is not relative to body fat count. Somebody could be smaller than you and heavier but have a single digit body fat percentage because his muscle mass is greater, e.g. body builders.

hey Tippster, how are you calculating body fat? cause if you do the math very roughly, you are saying that you lose 4 pounds of fat over the course of a day which is about 14000 calories, even the racers in the TDF don't burn that much energy in a day. I think that most of the weight you are losing is water. you likely burn about 600 calories a day roughly riding to and from work which adds up to .17 of a pound roughly.
your daily RMR is roughly 1794 calories (that is the amount of calories that you burn if you sit around doing nothing) so you should be eating roughly 2300 to 28 or 2900 calories a day(very very rough estimate.) a pound of fat by contrast is 3500 calories so you may be looking at dropping a pound or 2 a week if you are on a healthy diet and keep at it. any more and you are only losing water or worse- muscle mass.

personally, I'm 175 cm (5-9) I weighed 200 pounds in may of 2004 I'm down to 168 and was as low as 160 (though I was very sick so that doesn't count) it took 8 month to lose 30 pounds, but when you take that long, you end up changing your lifestyle and not putting on that weight. point being that you have to take it slow and steady, and stay away from those fad diets, they aren't healthy at all, personally I like to eat lots of fruit and vegetables, eggs and fish or chicken.

personally I'd suggest that you do some weight training it will be a huge help to your performance on the bike. keep in mind that lots of reps at a low weight will help build endurance, heavy weights with low reps help build strength. Interval training on the bike can help build strength and speed, It might be helpful to get a guide to show you how to do these, I have chris Carmichaels book the lance armstrong training guide, which addresses everything from diet to workouts.

that being said, though, the diets section and the weightlifting section aren't really all that complete. Chris has a book on nutrition, and I'd look for another book that deals with weightlifting for cyclists.

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Keithster,


I see what you are saying about the 4lb of body fat (did the calcs myself). I'm using a body fat scale. From the guide I briefly read, your body fat % changes across the day. For most people it begins high and dips slowly across the day, reaching a low between 6pm and 8pm.

Ideally I need to measure my body fat immediately before and after a ride. Or just compare after a ride this week Vs after a ride next week, at the same time of day.

So far I've dropped approx. 2-3 lb a week (started approx 205lbs 18 months ago), over 12 months. I think my weight has reached a plateau, but my riding and eating habits have remained constant. As I'm now looking to increase my mileage, thats why I got the scales.

This week, I've done 2 longer rides - 24.5miles, as opposed to 13.5miles. The longer ride was more hilly too (and to help [irony] only my large front ring and the 4 smallest on my cassette are working - helps with power training, but draining on the legs). My average speed over 24.5 miles was 18.0 mph and later in the week 17.4 mph (felt really tired that day).

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"Ride it like you've just stolen it!"

this site has alot of good advice I think cyclingnews

Thanks Perry!

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"Ride it like you've just stolen it!"

I thought about getting one of those scales, but they say that the scales aren't accurate for people that are fit. personally I have a low resting heart rate so the scale wouldn't work for that reason - but that being said I haven't tried them.

any electric equipment like that is finicky make sure that when you use your scale that you don't have anything in your pockets cause even the metal in a credit card can throw them off, (I did an ECG this week and forgot that I had my wallet in my pocket, the doc wasn't impressed.)

water content would also affect the reading on the scales.

I presume and I may be wrong, that the readings should be consistant as long as all of the factors are consistant.

little changes can make a huge difference in weight loss such as drinking water instead of Juice or pop, both of which are loaded with Calories and don't fill you up

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Jack of all trades, master of none.

The scales I have have an Athlete mode. I'm using that for the reasons you describe above. I'm also taking readings naked.

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"Ride it like you've just stolen it!"

I'm not exactly sure how they calculate body fat, weather they factor in weight or what, It is not unreasonable for you to add or lose 4 pounds in a day but some of that could be both water and ah, fecal matter.

I use a tape and measure different areas of the body, but even that can be a touch unreliable, 12 to 14 doesn't seem unreasonable, I'd guess that you have a 33 inch waist based on the info provided. you'll know that you have lost a lot of fat when that number drops.

there are a lot of tools on the net that give rough estimates when you put in certain measurements, typing in body fat to google will turn them up

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Jack of all trades, master of none.

what is the fascination with low body fat apart from the fact that ripped legs look awesome? is it to show off amongst the boys?

if you put in enough training to finish a century well and eat smartly then your body fat will come down on its own

chasing low percentages of body fat is silly, not health and can lead to a variety of health issues

The body fat % monitoring was to avoid health issues.

Just ordered a Polar 725 and power unit and a set of Syntace C2 Aerobars. Started reading a HRM book for cyclist by Sally Read. Just surfing for some cycling nutrution books now.

Still wondering how fast to step up my milage from current 600 miles a month.

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tipp, I think you want to read this!

http://www.e-caps.com/downloads/fuelinghandbook.pdf

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Tip.

Your muscle fibres have alot to do with being able to complete a century.
Some riders have fast twitch which like high speed but need to rest after each sprint. Others have slow twitch with can ride at a meduim pace without resting.

It sounds like you would like the later, and by training over longer distances you can modify your muscle composition, but if you have the former type, don't be too hard on yourself.

I work on my strength and ignore my weakness (sprinting) while rotating my program between hills, time trial and speed. It sounds like speed and strength training would help you.

Speed can be done in fast races or motorpacing, and strength is best done grinding up hills (very similar to pushing against a strong headwind) or doing all out sprints for 10 min.

I agree the look at body fat is meaningless (particularly when alot of those reading are influenced by water content and muscle stimulation).

I hope that gives you some ideas.

As far as body fat percentage goes, if you do the correct training and eat healthy your body will naturally adjust. it sounds as if all this body fat talk strayed off topic. theres a lot of methods to achieve your goal. with your limited amount of time i would suggest doing high intensity tempo rides 2-3 times a week never on consecutive days. once a week you need to get in a long ride. try starting out at 40miles, and increase about 5 miles every two weeks until your up to 90-100. set smaller goals along the way. at 60 miles go easy. following week shoot for 60miles under 3 hours. then followed by two weeks at 65 miles (easy then aggressive). at the second week of 70 shoot for under 3.5 hours. on your century remember to drink often, before your thirsty, and eat atleast a bite or two every 15 to 20 minutes. it also helps to ride an out and back, leaving early before the wind and returning with the wind at your back

p.s. as far as the body fat debate goes, i am 5 foot 7 inches with 5% body fat, verified by underwater weighing at the local university. during track season (running) one year i started out at 5%body fat running an easy 4:20 mile and midway through the season with a 5000 calorie diet had dropped 6lbs and dropped to 4% fat. i struggled to maintain a 4:22 mile.moral - eat 60% carbs 25% protein and 15% fat. listen to your body as you train, rest when you need to, and your body will find it's ideal weight.