Best improvement suggestions for newbies

glad to have another convert to cycling!.

From my perspective i think firstly you really need to identify what your goals are going to be in relation to your cycling. Do you just want to get fit?, do you want to race?, do you really want to get that ride to work time under a certain level and you would be happy?. I personally feel that if you have a really strong idea of what you want to achieve you will become very focussed and motivated.
If you want to race then the wonderful world of training opens up to you. There are many schools of thought on this topic and if you are serious a coach might be good, but i think in the beginning learning as much as you can yourself will empower yourself to learn about your body. No one can tell you more about your body if you listen to it properly. Maybe get a couple of books on the subject and just read up, that will give you a good idea of what is required.

I think intitially though, you should concentrate on building a "base" level of fitness for you to build upon. This means a lot of low intensity, high duration riding, that will strengthen up your legs and get your body used to the higher levels of intensity you will be submitting your body to next year. I think you are in the northern hemisphere so maybe a goal of competing in a few races next spring/summer could be good.

Hope this is helpful.🙂

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by byron27
glad to have another convert to cycling!.

From my perspective i think firstly you really need to identify what your goals are going to be in relation to your cycling. Do you just want to get fit?, do you want to race?, do you really want to get that ride to work time under a certain level and you would be happy?. I personally feel that if you have a really strong idea of what you want to achieve you will become very focussed and motivated.
If you want to race then the wonderful world of training opens up to you. There are many schools of thought on this topic and if you are serious a coach might be good, but i think in the beginning learning as much as you can yourself will empower yourself to learn about your body. No one can tell you more about your body if you listen to it properly. Maybe get a couple of books on the subject and just read up, that will give you a good idea of what is required.

I think intitially though, you should concentrate on building a "base" level of fitness for you to build upon. This means a lot of low intensity, high duration riding, that will strengthen up your legs and get your body used to the higher levels of intensity you will be submitting your body to next year. I think you are in the northern hemisphere so maybe a goal of competing in a few races next spring/summer could be good.

Hope this is helpful.🙂

Byron,
Thanks for your reply. and you make a good point that I need to first identify what it is I want. Honestly, I doubt I will be racing. I have too many other things in my life to say that I would become dedicated to it. so honestly, I think the thing that interest me the most is to be fit and to be able to do century rides. I have already started reading about local organizations that do centuries, and they will start in the spring. So I would deffinetly like to get fit and have my muscles used to being able to cycle for such long period of time.
When I hear of other riding for 100 miles or km, its like woah!!! and so I would like to be able to do those!!!

any tips on that would be great appreciated. 😄

if thats the case i would say that you should start riding for, say an hour, 2-3 times a week at an easy pace and then slowly over time increase the time you ride each week on an individual ride. During the week riding for more than an hour or so is hard if you work fulltime. I dont even have a family and i find it hard!, so try and do your long ride on a saturday or sunday and gradually increase the time you spend on the bike on that day. If you are riding a century (i guess you are thinking miles, not australian metric) then you would be on the bike for 6 -7 hours maybe, so building up to do this a couple of times before the event would be good. After you are physically and mentally comfortable with riding that long on a bike then look at increasing your average speed or intensity on the bike for those same time periods. Slowly over time increase your intensity and you should be ready for the challenge when it arrives. I spose the general goal of your training is to emulate what would be expected in a race in bite size pieces, whereas the race iteslf is the whole family pizza in one bite!! D:

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by byron27
if thats the case i would say that you should start riding for, say an hour, 2-3 times a week at an easy pace and then slowly over time increase the time you ride each week on an individual ride. During the week riding for more than an hour or so is hard if you work fulltime. I dont even have a family and i find it hard!, so try and do your long ride on a saturday or sunday and gradually increase the time you spend on the bike on that day. If you are riding a century (i guess you are thinking miles, not australian metric) then you would be on the bike for 6 -7 hours maybe, so building up to do this a couple of times before the event would be good. After you are physically and mentally comfortable with riding that long on a bike then look at increasing your average speed or intensity on the bike for those same time periods. Slowly over time increase your intensity and you should be ready for the challenge when it arrives. I spose the general goal of your training is to emulate what would be expected in a race in bite size pieces, whereas the race iteslf is the whole family pizza in one bite!! D:

Byron,
Again, thanks again for your advice. It sound easy enough as you have outlined it for me and it soungs logical. so I will work towards my goal and be there in no time!!! Thanks again.

no worries, hope it goes well for you!

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by rjcgix
Greetings all.

Im just starting to get into cycling. I have always been the excercising type, although mostly weightlifting. As I get a bit older(32), not so much into the weights, but more about just being fit.

I just purchased a Trek 1000, have clipless pedals, have the tights/jersey and the bike computer(nothing fancy), helmet...in other words, "the whole 9 yards" for a newbie.

My riding lately has consisted of me mainly riding to work, 16 miles every other day. My motivation has been doing it in less time. When I started about 4 weeks ago, it took about 30 minutes, and now im down to about 24 minutes one way.

what suggestion do you all have to improve or to get more fit in time? is it to just do it for longer periods of time and longer distances and improvements will come? Should I concentrate on time instead of distance?

is there anything else I should buy, to help imrove, like a heart monitor, trainer....etc?

Any help or suggestions are welcome 😄

I am also a weight trainer who has recently turned to cycling except that I'm 40. I weight trained on and off for about 15 years and never did any serious cardio training. Just enough to keep my bodyfat down. I started cycling recently because I figured at my age it was probably important to get the heart and cardiovascular system in good shape (too many people around me are having health problems although most of them don't have my good eating habits but still...). I could never stand to do anything cardio for more than about 40min in the past. I was surprised to find that I took to cycling so much I started riding for 1 1/2 hours 3 days week on my second week. I've been increasing steadily since (I'm now starting to actually pass a few people on my rides). I now want to do some centuries this spring and am re-evaluating my original goals as I'm being sucked into cycling. I haven't completely given up weight training but it has taken a back seat to cycling and I do just enough to keep my strength and shape up (don't want my arms and chest to get too small). I stopped worrying about the bulk several years ago and am down to about 180 pounds from my original 200 (lean) pounds. I can really feel the difference in my body and it's a completely different feeling from being in really good "strength" shape.

As for you question on time or distance I'm still just concentrating on distance although I've noticed my average speed has been steadily increasing. So I'm riding both farther and faster (faster being very relative). Once I get my endurance up I'll probably try doing intervals and working on more specifics at which point I'll probably have lots of questions but for now I'll continue concentrating on endurance.

Good luck,

Matt