[Closed] How much difference has losing weight made to your biking?

Lots

Yup, lots.
Especially on the road bike.

My climbing improved from diabolical to merely **** poor 🙂

Lost 10kg in the last year. Can't really tell any difference. Still very average.

Huge difference,

More noticeable i guess on the road bike, but I've been riding that more recently.

With the mountain bike, i can keep up with other more so it is no longer a case of ending myself to catch up on the way uphill just to have no energy or concentration for the down.

I've lost 12kg in the last 6 months- 84kg down to 72kg. I had a bit to lose but managed to drop down to around 18% body fat. It's made the biggest change to my riding. Feel like I have more endurance and less fatigue/arm pump. It's easier to move around on the bike too!

Massive difference, gone from 110kg to 85kg which is the difference between being a slow bloke hanging off the back to being at the front pushing the pace and even keeping going on the hills.

Try picking up a 20kg weight, then imagine carrying it whilst cycling up a hill!

I carried two water cooler bottles in this morning, that's 36kg, which is what made me think that's actually quite a lot extra to be hauling up every hill.

I'm in a similar position. Love biking and always have done but over the last 10 years my weight has crept up to 107 KG.

At 5' 11" that is about 25 too much and up hill it is very noticeable.

General day to day life is a bit rubbish as well tbh.

Being healthy (thin or otherwise) also makes one feel good which in itself is worth a few extra seconds riding the bike.

Yep, when I lost a couple of stone, it turned granny ring climbs into middle ring climbs. Unfortunately, I found most of that weight again after my ironman and therefore had to find the granny ring again.

I normally drop a stone for summer riding. I didn't bother this year and my lap times (year on year and relative to people I ride with) are the same.

So it makes no odds for me. I'll add another stone next year and see what happens...

Not answering the OPs question but the biggest difference for me has come from doing squats

Feel the difference even going from 74kg (winter weight) to 71kg (summer weight). Most significantly on the climbs. Do the w/kg maths and you'll see how much extra power you'd need to get the equivalent gain, it's pretty big.

Edward, you got a squat routine?.

Loads. Since shedding all the weight and riding my road bike regularly I can do way more runs on an uplift before feeling nackered. I always used to get too ****ed at around 8-9 runs at the FOD but now I can easily do a full day. Much quicker down hill as well. Weight training helps a lot, especially squats as mentioned.

There'll be no weight training for me, I can't stand it. Lots of swimming though, two to three hours a week.

Hard to say TBH, as I've lost weight mainly through riding much more - so I've got fitter too.

And I've only lost 4 or 5kg, at a guess.

How you gonna lose the weight?

What chakaping said. I'm an endless amount fitter than I was 2 yrs ago when I never imagined I'd be ranked 125th GB MTB XC - and in competitive terms I haven't scratched the surface. I lost 2 stone in the process. Most of my gain would be fitness as I'm not a climber, but now I have that fitness I have been / am working on climbing technique to minimise my time loss here during events. So fwiw, the less you have to carry around the more you can put into overall rising speed / fitness / endurance.

You gain weight your pretty quickly loosing posture then core strength is breached then your kinetic chain is thrown plus your breathing capacity is diminished and invariably your power output drops - Weight loss is massively performance enhancing unless your already at optimum body mass - which most hobbyists aren't .. When I'm overweight I think diet is more important than intense exercise - If your eating super clean the weight will fall of with moderate exercise ..

I've set myself a target of 95kg (my weight in my superfit rugby days) from 125kg.

I happen to have the same goal from now until Mega 2016 (if I even get my leg fully healed).

Good luck with achieving your goal.

chakaping - improved diet mainly, doing as much exercise as I have time for at the moment, but in all honesty I eat/drink loads of crap, got away with it in days gone by, evidently not anymore!

TFTR - Thanks, and good luck to you.

I dropped 2 & 1/2 stone this year and it's made a big difference. Not sure if I'm any faster but I can put in a decent length ride at a reasonable pace without feeling like I'm going to die. Its both weight loss and fitness gains as I'm riding more this year than I have for a few years (pretty much stopped riding for a few years and piled the weight on) and beginning to feel the old fitness return, although still a long way to go with the fitness.

Loads. My ideal weight is just under 90kg (I'm 6'4"), when I'm close to that I feel and am noticeably quicker than when I'm at my large high 90's weight. The problem I have is that I love food and beer a little too much

I opened this thread with a nasty feeling you were all going to say it makes a lot of difference. I like beer, and I like food. But I also like not feeling like I'm going to die every time I ride uphill...

This is my exact problem ^

Well, it depends how serious you want to be. I use a number of techniques to satisfy my booze craving:

A) I discipline myself in that I won't allow myself a beer unless I've done a ride / turbo session first, and even then if it's within my daily calorie allowance (I use mfp)

B) the most common - I don't drink the night before ride/turbo or in the week, so this means a rewarding beer Friday night as a treat day, and red wine on Sunday's.

C) resort to gin and slime line tonic. You can have 4-5 doubles for the same calorific content as a single beer.

D) my training program is 11 months long. So basically my holiday "off bike" period is August. So at the very moment I am taking advantage of everything in a Sunny all inclusive resort (hic).

As far as I'm concerned food is a choice. When faced with a Big Mac or plate of vegetables, make your own disciplined choice, and limit your portions. What you put in is literally what you get out. Fill your cupboard with fruit and nuts not crips and cakes. No fizz, and chilled tap water is essentially the same taste as bottle water so fill so,e empty bottles and stick them in the fridge for more palatable experience.

Lost 7lbs this year. Appear to be maybe 1mph quicker on average speeds on the road bike.

Losing 30kg would make a huge difference to your cycling, and your general day to day life aswell I'd imagine aswell. It's alot of weight and worth doing I'd say. At 6'3" my ideal cycling weight is about 75kg, at 80kg I feel quite a bit worse on the bike, especially out of the saddle up hills.

OP obviously if you lose that amount of weight you will notice a massive difference, not just on the climbs but all round.
I used to be 6ft and 10.5 stone and could climb like a goat. I'm now 13.5 stone and can climb for short sections but in terms of getting up mountains, it would be twice as difficult.
But I prefer the way I look now - when I see photos of myself then I look skeletal.
So I think the moral is to find a weight that suits you all round. I see plenty of uber-fit roadies and whilst it looks great on a bike, I think they look too skinny in an everyday context, but I guess it is better to be underweight than over for health reasons.
Also I'd add that obsession over what you eat/weigh is becoming a bit of an issue, especially when I look at some of the posts above. Do you people ever actually enjoy your lives?

Lots.

Went from the back to the front uphill. 105kg down to 85kg.

On the downside I fell off a lot on downhills as got thrown about a lot more without the extra weight to absorb and carry me through the gnarl.

Had to sharpen up to regain dh speed.

Andy

I'm about 5kg over my normal summer weight this year and it really tells on the hills. Fitness is normal though, and being fitter makes more of a difference than being heavier.

It is a big difference. Say you are 80kg and 4w/kg (so 320w) at threshold, then losing 5kg is the equivalent of an extra 21 watts at threshold. And say you are honking it up a short sharp hill and doing 10 w/kg, being 5 kg lighter gives you the equivalent of an extra 50 watts, which would make a big difference. All assuming of course that you can lose weight and not lose power, which you can usually do if you're not already well trained and very skinny.

Edward, you got a squat routine?.

All I do is a few warm up squats with just the bar. Then 3 x 6 or 8 reps, with the last rep being near my max.

Also do lunges and dead lifts to prevent muscle imbalances

Do you people ever actually enjoy your lives?

Yes thanks. Currently sipping a rum and coke overlooking the Carribbean sea.

Made a fair bit of difference to my riding; I actually go looking for hills on my road rides these days instead of working around them.

Those that know me will laugh at that.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha

😉

I expect it to make my climbing quicker, but on the flip side my climbing is quicker because I am aware of my need to mtfu and hit hills harder, rather than spinning in a comfortable gear ( I did that on Thursday on my first attempt at a club run and it wasn't quick enough - I need to improve).

Am down to 18 st or so, not quite wasting away yet.

4 years ago I was 103 kg now down to 83.

Now that is a gradual loss 😉

I've lost fat recent but have put on muscle due to joining the gym and doing High intensity training. It's a killer but the cardio side makes a Huge difference on the bike.

It's still hard work as I always seems to push myself on the bike but, last weekend, I climbed upto winter hill mast finding it hard work and I only realised how much quicker I am when I reached the mast a lot sooner than I anticipated.

Lots of difference. But my loss has been combined with quite a lot of riding and a big race target.

I have gone from 15stone to 14 this year. So I am no longer overweight by BMI.

When I used to be 17 stone I was quite slow.

ape.........no at all.
lets be honest, us big bloke like our food.....it is why we are big.
cutting things that we like does not make us happy........it makes us sad, miserable ****ers.
now i have been up to 23 stone, and i am now down at 19.
i dont eat stuff i like to eat, but i ride my bike best when i am happy.......denying myself stuff i love does not make me a happy man.
if i am not happy, how can i enjoy myself, and how can thing be easier.

embrace the fat, just ride more

I know where you're coming from tony. I don't intend to give up my post ride pint with the lads, or my Sunday roast, both of which I thoroughly enjoy. But the Coke, crisps and sweets I eat at work because I'm bored and it's late, which I don't even enjoy that much, are pointless. Cutting them out shouldn't be a chore because I'm just as happy with a brew, but should make a difference. McDonalds breakfast - it's shite, not really a pleasure at all, not afterwards anyway, just a bad habit. They reckon you've only got to cut out something like 500 calories a day, I think, to lose weight steadily - that's a can of coke, a mars bar and a bag of crisps - so it's not like going veggie or anything daft like that 🙂

A couple of years ago I went from 100Kg to 81Kg (currently between 83 & 85Kg depending on how naughty I've been 😳 ) - this was by a combination of the 5:2 diet and lots of biking. Basically it was new wardrobe time. I'm now on the upper bound of my recommended BMI range.

As others have said, on the road it makes a *huge* difference - climbs that were a struggle now feel easy or rather they would if I didn't still beast myself on them.

I've seen a "formula" for pro cyclists: take the height in inches and convert to Kilogrammes, so a 6' cyclist is 72" tall so should be 72Kg. Obviously not that easy for an amateur to achieve what with work and general life getting in the way. When I was in my twenties and doing a lot of rock climbing I weighed 79Kg (12st6) if I dropped to 78Kg (12st4) then I noticed a drop in strength and endurance so for me 79Kg is probably my ideal given my body type, etc.

I lost 15kg, from the higher end of the healthy BMI to the lower end. I think the healthy eating and lots of riding I did to lose the weight in less than 2 months made more difference than the actual weight loss.

End result is I enjoy riding alot more, find it easier (or at least can push harder for alot longer) and am alot quicker.