How to Find Time for Cycling
By Fred
Matheny of www.RoadBikeRider.com
We shouldn’t feel excessive
admiration for pro racers who log 600-mile weeks. They have plenty of time to
ride and recover—that’s their job. The real heroes are people like you, who
find time to ride while still having a life away from the bike.
Full-time work, family
commitments and cycling can be efficiently interwoven into your busy day. All
it takes to schedule everything into 24 hours is maximum use of
time-budgeting techniques.
Here’s where to look for time
slots that can accommodate your love for riding:
Commuting
Riding your bike to work or
school and back may be the best way to create time cycling time.
When you commute by bike, time
normally spent sitting in a car is used productively as part of the training day. An
eight-mile ride to work or school takes about 30 minutes each way. Even if
you do no other riding, that’s still an hour of cycling each weekday. The
trip home can be lengthened as much as time, daylight and energy allow.
Another benefit is arriving at
your job refreshed and alert. It may be tough to get up earlier for the ride
in, but the physical and mental lift of exercise will carry you through that
10 a.m. letdown that your sedentary colleagues experience. Then you ride
home, clearing cobwebs and blowing away job-related frustrations. You’re
refreshed and ready for evening responsibilities or family fun.
Commuting
Logistics
· Use a small backpack to carry clothes, lunch and papers. A waist strap helps eliminate swaying and
bouncing as you ride.
· Keep a pair of shoes at
work so you
don’t have their weight and sharp edges in the pack. Take the week’s clothes
to work on Monday morning and shuttle them home Friday afternoon, or whatever
arrangement fits your situation.
· Clean up in the restroom with a lightly soaped washcloth. Meanwhile,
get coworkers interested in commuting and lobby your boss to install a
shower.
· Dress in your office if it has a door. If not, use the restroom
or a storage room.
· Play on the way home. Scout out a longer route and ride for an
hour or more as time and commitments allow. Do intervals, time trials, or hit
the hills hard to get a great workout while you’re homeward bound.
If commuting simply won't work for you, here are two popular options:
Early
Bird Special
Consider an early-morning
workout. By the middle of March it’s usually light enough to get in a ride
before work. At dawn there are few cars on the road and the day is
brightening every minute.
Getting up in the pre-dawn hour
may be the ultimate test of whether you really want to ride. Roll out of bed
the minute the alarm rings and don’t think about anything. The longer you lie
there moaning about how early it is, the harder it is to extricate yourself
from the sheets.
Sleep loss is the biggest risk.
Make up the deficit with an earlier bedtime because it’s vital to get enough
rest. Lack of sleep can lead to deep fatigue and poor performance in
everything you do.
Evening
Rides
If your schedule prohibits
riding most of the day, try from 9 to 10 or 10:30 p.m. For most people, the
kids are in bed, the chores around the house complete, and you’re probably
wasting time watching TV.
To make this work, eat a
moderate dinner at 6 or 7 p.m., allowing the food to digest by riding time.
As an additional benefit this provides motivation not to overeat.
Riding in the dark used to be
dangerous because lights were poor. You couldn’t see road hazards clearly,
and motorists couldn’t see you. Modern lighting systems make night riding
safer, but it’s still smart to use
lighted parks or suburban streets if they’re available.
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