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.
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.
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
bravehouworld.com 