Group: General Fitness & Exercise

General Fitness & Exercise
Created: 2011/12/31, Members: 383, Messages: 54581

Various general exercise related discussions. Find out what it takes to reach your fitness goals through daily effective exercise. With so many options we try to find out what works best.

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bicycle vs. stationary bike

baseballno13
baseballno13
Posts: 1
Joined: 2004/04/15
United States
2004/06/10, 04:51 PM
hey...this might be a stupid question, but for my cardio I was going to ride a bike. Is there any advantages of having a normal bicycle as compared to a stationary bike, or vice versa, or are their benefits basically the same? thanks in advance.
ursusarktos
ursusarktos
Posts: 346
Joined: 2004/01/18
Canada
2004/06/10, 11:45 PM
Not a dumb question at all. The potential advantages of a stationary bike are that it can be used regardless of weather (more important in some climates than others) and work ouput may be more easily quantified, although a real bike can easily overcome thes 2 issues.

Aside from that, a real bicycle has the stationary beat in every way. With a real bicycle, you will develop a sports skill, see interesting scenerey, breathe fresh air, etc... Not only that but with the purchase of an inexpensive magnetic resistance trainer you can use your real bicycle indoors as a stationary bike (for winter or rain day training). Better still than a convention magnetic resistance trainer would be a set of rollers with a magnetic resistance option. Rollers force you to learn how to pedal really smoothly.

As for quantifying how much work you do, their are all sorts of cool bicycle computers available. The most amazing of these computers is the Powertap system which actually uses a sensor with strain guages that mounts at the hub of the rear wheel. This device measures actual power output (as expressed in watts) at the rear wheel and records all of this data on the bicicle computer. This data can then be downloaded to your desk/laptop/pda.