How does cycling to work affect running?

Plus it's fun to ride out in the country mountains about 5000 feet, grab a beer,

and take it back to the where I parked. Gotta watch out for bigfoot, those

suckers will roll rocks in your path when you're going up hill.

I bike 27 miles/ day, my fitness has improved + hills workouts are a joke, i just sprint up and down like nothing. But my leg turnover has decreased. So it might not be good to bike that much if you're training for short distances, but anywhere from 10k and up it should be beneficial. Also i run 70mpw .

I think cycling improves my fitness overall, but it definitely makes me more tired during the week.

i don't cycle that much anymore but if you have any bit of conditioning with bicycling 5-7 miles really isn't much.. you will get use to it pretty quickly.

If you think your turnover has decreased because of cycling you are are cycling wrong. SHIFT gears!

You can always tell a clueless cyclist by their cadence. If you are trying to push a big bear (macho man) and peddling 40-50 rpm you are doing it all wrong. They have many gears on a bike so that you can maintain a good cadence as the conditions change. Use the gears to maintain 80-90 rpm and your turnover will not be affected. Your legs will also feel better in general.

tri runner wrote:

If you think your turnover has decreased because of cycling you are are cycling wrong. SHIFT gears!

You can always tell a clueless cyclist by their cadence. If you are trying to push a big bear (macho man) and peddling 40-50 rpm you are doing it all wrong. They have many gears on a bike so that you can maintain a good cadence as the conditions change. Use the gears to maintain 80-90 rpm and your turnover will not be affected. Your legs will also feel better in general.

Correct. A big part of proper integration of cycling (even "easy" commuting) is riding properly and what bike you're using. If you're grinding hard in a big gear on a mountain bike/cruiser/townie, then 5-7 miles could take some punch out of your legs daily. If you're on an efficient road or hybrid that you can still ride relatively fast with good cadence, you'll be much better off.

From years of short bike commutes, I'd reccomend an efficient bike, high cadance, and just making sure you have a few extra minutes so you don't feel rushed and dont feel the need to hammer. Nothing worse than taking the punch out of your legs before a workout and/or showing up to work that much more sweaty.

Don't expect any gains, mate. The two don't cross-over. Physiologically speaking the quads are in constant contraction whilst cycling versus the braking, or decelerating force exerted during the footfall portion of a run stride. Two completely different uses of the muscle. A waste of stress on the body that doesn't build into run adaptation. If you're really curious, stop running and bike focus for a few weeks and try to go back to running. You'll not get beyond a mile before quad cramps bind you up, and you'll find that you retained almost zero running fitness by cycling. Your quads go from being in a contracted state to a stretched state during each impact. Why would you simply recreate that dichotomy each day, sure you may not notice it, but it certainly isn't helping.

I run in the early mornings (in the summer) then bike 4-5 miles to work ... and then bike back. I think its fantastic ... keeps me healthy and I got a Single Speed with a bigger gear and it has really helped with leg strength. Plus its an awesome way to get around and have fun ..extra cal burn never hurts IMO.

uh_no wrote:

the catch about cycling is that your heart rate is much lower when cycling than it is while running (hence the fact that pro cyclists routinely go for 6-7 hour rides)

Bollocks, my heart rates for cycling and running have always been the same. Pro cyclists go for 6-7 hour rides because they race for that long.