in response to mother theresa’s bike post–do you really think riding a bike around town is going to give you as good of a workout as going to the gym? no muscle machines, but enough cardio-vascular exercise? or–enough to keep you fit? I’m asking because I’m buying my first bicycle in Taipei and am wondering if i’ll still need to go to the gym if i ride it around all day.
my purpose in going to the gym is to have a relative level of fitness, not to necessarily be all muscled out.
Neither. I exercise at home, doing a combination of small 20-kilo weights (curls mostly) and aerobic exercise.
In the nude.
No, I’m not joking. That’s one enormous advantage of exercising at home - I don’t have to waste time changing into gym clothes. Plus, I get to blast my workout music from my stereo as loud as I please - a good tune really gets me pumped up.
Oh, and no expensive fees to pay, either. No time wasted swerving around in traffic en route to the gym across town. Plus, I can do it whenever I want for however long I want. If I want to play with my weights for five minutes in the morning before I head off to work, I can do that. Some days I only feel like doing 10 minutes of workout and who would go to all the bother to get changed & drive over to the gym for only 10 or 15 minutes of exercise?
Go to one of the big outlet stores, buy yourself a jump rope and some small weights and one of those little exercise machines, there are plenty to choose from depending on what kind of exercises you’re interested in.
Riding around Taipei for exercise? Oxy moron surely. The city is too flat for any real workout. Plus the air is pretty foul.
I’d say that a combination of both would be best.
But don’t overdo the cycling. I used to cycle a lot, but when I first learnt about the scary evidence that cycling causes impotence millennium-debate.org/ind16june033.htm, I quickly changed my exercise regime. I don’t have a bicycle now, and every time I consider buying one and getting back into the cycling habit, the fear of what it might do to my sex life persuades me that I’d better just stick to the gym and the pool.
[Sorry, that link’s not working, so here’s what it says:
"Cycling can double the risk of impotence, scientists said yesterday at the start of National Bike Week - an attempt to encourage the 10 million Britons who own a cycle but never use it to take to the road.
Scientists at University Hospital in Brussels found that male cyclists were twice as likely to be impotent as men who never rode a bike. Two thirds of both male and female cyclists reported discomfort in their genital areas - another sign of possible problems.
One in 10 men overall suffers from impotence, but among the 1,000 cyclists tested the rate was double that.
The link between cycling and impotence is controversial, with some experts believing that researchers have exaggerated the risks.
But Dr Irwin Goldstein, who published the first study on the issue in 1997, believes that cycling could have caused thousands of men to become impotent. Dr Goldstein, of the Boston Medical Centre, believes that the position a man sits in when cycling compresses the main artery in the penis, inhibiting the blood flow.
In the short term, this causes numbness, but over time the compression could narrow the artery and lower the bloodflow to the point of impotence.
Research published last year found that male mountain bikers were more likely to suffer from fertility problems. The frequent jolts and vibrations caused by riding over rough terrain are thought to reduce sperm counts.
The Belgian experts said cyclists should stand on their pedals every 10 minutes to relieve pressure on the genitals."]
Depends on your values, finances and available time.
Values: bicyling is far healthier than doing weights in the gym. Not only does it work the lungs and heart and burn calories far more than weightlifting, but it also tones up virtually the entire body – not just legs, but also stomach, back, arms, etc. And it results in a real emotional high when done regularly. Admittedly, weights are better for building up muscles to improve ones feeling of self-worth and help pick up chicks. Aerobic fitness and good health, emotional high, feelings of self-worth, picking up chicks, those are all important values. The decision depends in part on how important you find each of those values.
Finances and time. Bike’s a lot cheaper and quicker. Less than NT$4,000 will get you a perfectly adequate bike. If you live near a river or somewhere else for a quick escape from the traffic without having to drive to your riding location, you can get a decent bike workout in an hour, from the moment you leave your door till you return. The gym takes at least twice that.
Working out at home. I like the idea too, but I always get too bored. I find biking to be more fun and results in a better all-around workout (often weight lifing leaves me feeling that I worked on various separate parts of my body, but biking I feel that I worked the whole machine altogether).
I like lifting weights and wish I had the time to hit the gym lately. I also like mountain biking offroad, and feel the same way about that. Ideally, I’d like to lift, ride, swim, hike, etc., but given limited time and a desire to save money I find bicycling 3 or 4 times per week for an hour to be a great solution.
Oh, and as for the impotence thing, Omni, I’ve ridden my bikes a lot over the years and just fathered a child. 
So, one can do both.
Nevertheless, I wish I could find a bicycle with a bucket-shaped seat or something like it, just to make me feel completely safe on that score. Then I’d be able to get back to cycling with enormous enthusiasm, especially around my old favourite peddling-ground of Wulai, where there are so many good trails to ride on and plenty of good places to stop for a swim along the way. But even if I can’t find such a bike, I’m sure I’ll take up cycling again sooner or later, and just make sure to spend as much time as possible standing on the pedals rather than resting my butt and vital arteries on the seat.
As for the gym, I spend most of my time there on the treadmill, where I can get an excellent aerobic workout with an hour or so of running. I alleviate the boredom and make maximum use of the time by combining the exercise with Chinese practice (watching the local news on TV), which one can’t do on a bicycle. Those who patronize places like California, where there are lots of scantily-clad young babes working out, can enjoy other pleasures that are seldom available to me in my small gym, or to those who take their exercise on a real bicycle outdoors. But at least I’m fortunate that I don’t have to trek across town to reach the gym, just pop downstairs – the fitness center and pool in my building being the main reason why I chose to buy my flat there.
Actually, it depends on what type of weight training one does. Weight training can be very healthy… you can exercise nearly all of your muscles and you can lose fat as well… they say that if you work with light weights but do lots of reps, you get an excellent workout. Morover, once you burn off fat and build up a bit of muscle, your metabolism increases as muscle burns lots of calories.
I think, however, that any exercise is good… and a combination of several different kinds is probably best. I think bike riding would be much more fun than lifting weights.
Nevertheless, I wish I could find a bicycle with a bucket-shaped seat or something like it, just to make me feel completely safe on that score. [/quote]
There are seats that are expressly designed for male riders to prevent the impotence factor. They’re Y-shaped and narrower than your normal seats so as to allow plenty of air to circulate around the sperm factories.
That sounds perfect! I wonder if they’re available here? I’ve never seen them, but knowing they exist (as I do now), it would be worth inquiring about them in a specialist bicycle shop.
That sounds perfect! I wonder if they’re available here? I’ve never seen them, but knowing they exist, it would be worth inquiring about them in a specialist bicycle shop.[/quote]
Just go to your local specialist bike shop. I have one like that. It also has a soft gel insert to cushion the area between your balls and your arse. Works pretty well in terms of preventing discomfort. I don’t know about impotence, but I seem to be still firing on all cylinders.
I’m not sure why mountain bikers were singled out though – I’d have thought it would be long-distance road bikers that would suffer more. First thing I do (and I think this is probably male self-preservation instinct) when I see that I’ll be riding downhill on rough ground is to stand up on the pedals and grip the sides of the saddle between my thighs.
[quote=“sandman”]Just go to your local specialist bike shop. I have one like that. It also has a soft gel insert to cushion the area between your balls and your arse. Works pretty well in terms of preventing discomfort. I don’t know about impotence, but I seem to be still firing on all cylinders.
[/quote]
Excellent! It looks like my biking days are set to be resurrected very soon.
[quote=“sandman”]Just go to your local specialist bike shop. I have one like that. It also has a soft gel insert to cushion the area between your balls and your arse. Works pretty well in terms of preventing discomfort.[/quote]Did you ever get that gel saddle for your motorbike, Sandman?
Nope, they’d never heard of such a thing. They knew exactly what I meant though, but all the references we could find on the web (their shop is computerized) related to bicycle saddles.
Nope, they’d never heard of such a thing. They knew exactly what I meant though, but all the references we could find on the web (their shop is computerized) related to bicycle saddles.[/quote]From what Eric told me, I think there’s a guy in Taichung who makes them by hand. PM me if you’re still interested.
Surely there are some decent aftermarket saddles available for the Dragfire though, even if they’re not gel ones?
Another option besides the special seat is to get a recumbent. I don’t know of any research on them, but given that the seating position is completely different, I wouldn’t expect them to cause impotence.
Article today in the Taiwan Journal about biking. It says that by the end of the year Taipei will have 100km of bike trails and they will all be linked. Okay, that’s it. I’m leaving this rat hole!
My personal trainer (well he’s a friend of mine with a degree in Physical Education - bit of an expert) gave me a program of at least 40mins on the bike 5 times a week (4 at a push), and weights twice a week (including 10 min warm-up and warm-down). There’s a formula (based on age) for what pulse-rate range you should be exercising at, so it’s important to hit that. I have an exercycle at home to use when it’s raining. Bad news is my bike got stolen. Gotta get a new one, and maybe keep it inside this time.
Brian
[quote=“Bu Lai En”] Bad news is my bike got stolen. Gotta get a new one, and maybe keep it inside this time.
[/quote]
Didn’t you buy that bike not so long ago? That sucks man. I too got my bike ripped off last year and just purchased a new one from Alan’s Bike (Roosevelt Rd. Sec. 5, No. 40, just south of the Gongguan traffic circle). Nice fellow, knows his stuff (a rider himself) and carries Giant among other more exotic downhill/freeride rigs. His wife, who works alongside him, also speaks good English.