Health & Fitness

Buffalo Bayou Biking: How many calories can you burn?

Houstonians,

Here at BHW, we love biking on Buffalo Bayou more than you.  We love it so much that if given the choice between saving biking on Buffalo Bayou or you we would choose it before the presenter of this unlikely ultimatum even finished saying your name.

That love is why we thought it important to find out just how much this popular Houston activity was benefiting us. Because how can you ever truly love anyone or anything without a guaranteed profit?  That was a sarcastic comment, which has just been ruined by this explanation.

Houston Texas Skyline and Park
A small piece of Buffalo Bayou Park biking path by night.  Do it for the views. (source: Adobe Stock)

The Distance

If you start at the Buffalo Bayou Bike Trail from University of Houston – Downtown and loop back at Montrose Blvd. (or vice versa), you’ll make a 5.2 mile loop.  This route lets you enjoy the bayou along Allen Parkway, which is arguably the best part of it.

This would take about 100 minutes at a 20-minute mile walking pace.  Let’s round up to two hours (120 minutes) to account for the uphill parts of the path.  That’s a pretty good city hike.

As you would expect, riding a bike for 5.2 miles isn’t as hard.  At an easy-but-still-exercise pace, about 11 MPH, it would take you approximately 28 minutes.  Let’s round up the same arbitrary 20 minutes we did with the walking math to account for uphills, and you’re looking at a 48 minute bike ride.

The Calories

Researching calories burned and bike riding, we realized something nobody here had considered.  The amount of calories you burn biking depends on your weight.  You’re probably thinking of course it does, but we challenge you to go back in time to before you read this article and try to figure this all out yourself.  It simply can’t be done.

PeeWee
Pedaling is essential to the calorie-loss process.

The more you weigh, the harder your muscles are working to propel you forward. This is simple physiology.  Metabolism also factors into this, but for the sake of arriving at a solid figure upon which you can project all your weight loss fantasies, let’s assume all metabolisms are created equal.

We found a cool calorie calculator on Bicycling.com that is going to help you determine approximately how many calories you’re burning on your 5.2 mile bike ride. Just punch in your pace, weight and time and blast off.

And then you can multiply the number of calories the calculator spits out by the number of times you ride around that beautiful bayou loop, because we know once is never enough.

We’ll see you on the bayou!

Stay Hot, Houston.

BHW

music

Bobby Earth: Houston’s Young Pharrell

Houstonians,

Local artist Bobby Earth‘s tracks are an intergalactic journey that evoke Odd Future and N.E.R.D.  But for a talent as impressive as his, Earth’s fan base remains shockingly small.

BE Twitter
Earth’s twitter profile; his following doesn’t match his huge talent

The Houston Press spotlighted the young producer/singer as early as 2011, and somehow Earth has since managed to fly under the radar in a fashion that both suits his alternative style and yet seems deeply disappointing.

The Houston native stuns as a part of Milky Wayv, a soulful, gravity-defiant group of musicians.  The local ensemble’s latest collection, The Best Mixtape You’ve Ever Heard, heavily features production from Earth, which sounds something like frozen kaleidoscopes.

Check this mixtape out when you want to feel high without drugs or when you are high on drugs.

Earth’s contemporaries and collaborators make up some of Houston’s most promising young artists (I won’t name them, because this article is about Bobby, but find them on his SoundCloud).  The tracks they deliver echo the vibes of Best Mixtape. They’re dripping in cosmic gel and backed by a slow syncopated beat.

Tell your friends about him, because he’s getting regular shouts out from the Houston Press, Milky Wayv has been a featured performer at SXSW (in a free late night show, but on the SXSW schedule all the same), Earth himself has collaborated with Matt Martians of The Internet, and Milky Wayv even opened for The Internet at their Houston and Dallas shows last year.

All this respectable recognition and still he hasn’t been featured on a late-night talk  show.  Something is wrong.

He’s on his way to big things, but hopefully, he can first find the local appreciation he’s so curiously lacking.

Stay hot, Houston.
BHW