Newbie Advice?

Sitec

Hi, I'm 23 and want to get my fitness up. I bought a GT Aggressor last week and was wondering how many cycles a week and what distance should i be doing?

I know it's a mountain bike but I used to be big into mountain biking when I was 14-18 and want to get back into but I need to get my fitness up on the road first.

Any advice welcome.

Sitec

Anyone?

Beasty

Basically you should build up. Go out for a spin, and see how it feels. If you are young and reasonably fit, you should be able to do, say, 20k quite easily. See how your body reacts, and go out again when you feel ready.

Over time you can increase the length and frequency of rides. Get yourself a computer to measure your speed. Think about one with a Heart Rate Monitor, as this will come in useful as you get back into cycling - it will help you understand a little about the amount of work you are doing, and can also help you to pace yourself.

The more you do, the fitter you will get. Try and pick-up your average speed as you get fitter

Some people may only go out one or two times a week. If that's all you can do, try and make them longer spins. I am not suggesting you should set yourself unrealistic targets - some posters on here regularly do 100k+ spins in the Wicklow mountains - they have road bikes though, which are better for both distance and speed. There's no reason why you couldn't build up to this sort of weekly distance. You may even be tempted to get yourself a road bike

I only really started cycling seriously 2-3 years ago, in my late forties, but am now regularly clocking up 200km+ per week, although this is mainly commuting (which can be over 60k per day, depending on the route). There's no reason why you could not aspire to such distances, but equally you can keep very fit at much lower levels

Sitec

Beasty wrote: »

Basically you should build up. Go out for a spin, and see how it feels. If you are young and reasonably fit, you should be able to do, say, 20k quite easily. See how your body reacts, and go out again when you feel ready.

Over time you can increase the length and frequency of rides. Get yourself a computer to measure your speed. Think about one with a Heart Rate Monitor, as this will come in useful as you get back into cycling - it will help you understand a little about the amount of work you are doing, and can also help you to pace yourself.

The more you do, the fitter you will get. Try and pick-up your average speed as you get fitter

Some people may only go out one or two times a week. If that's all you can do, try and make them longer spins. I am not suggesting you should set yourself unrealistic targets - some posters on here regularly do 100k+ spins in the Wicklow mountains - they have road bikes though, which are better for both distance and speed. There's no reason why you couldn't build up to this sort of weekly distance. You may even be tempted to get yourself a road bike

I only really started cycling seriously 2-3 years ago, in my late forties, but am now regularly clocking up 200km+ per week, although this is mainly commuting (which can be over 60k per day, depending on the route). There's no reason why you could not aspire to such distances, but equally you can keep very fit at much lower levels

Thanks for the great advice.
I switched to semi slick road tyres and I can easily do 25km's. I'm doing this four times a week and on the fifth I take a route which has big hills and is 17km.

Bought a cycle computer as well to keep on eye on distance and AVG speed etc.

I'll try keep building my distance and pace on a weekly routine.

Thanks again for your advice.:)