this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2025
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Biking for transit also isn't much of a workout if you're relatively fit. There's a cap to how fast you can go before it becomes dangerous because of obstacles and limited reaction time.
And also not wanting to show up at work a sweaty, disgusting mess because you decided to do threshold intervals on the way to work
Although i've been told that it's normal for dutch people to show up at work meetings in various states of wetness like rain or sweat
I'm lucky that despite living in a car centric Texas suburb, there are tons of of bike paths, and quiet neighborhood streets to get a workout ride on. Commuting by bike is currently not viable, but a new commuter rail line is opening next year that might make it work for me.
Indoor biking isn't much of a workout either to be fair.
It's one of those things that seeped into the public mind as part of going to the gym. Whereas you can get the same or better cardio while lifting weights that also builds your muscles, while indoor bike is imo just a meh, or borderline the "lazy" choice realistically for a lot of people.
It's what you do when you don't want to run because that's hard, and the elliptical is too hard because that actually hits the whole body.
Ofc this is a generalization of the majority, individuals can still use it to great effect, but imo, meh.
The cheapest treadmills and ellipticals are a lot more expensive than the cheapest exercise bikes. They take up more room, too (especially the treadmills.)
Of course, I'm talking about exercising at home here rather than going to the gym, but it's worth pointing out regardless.
Naw, bad take. I hate spinning, but it absolutely can be a solid workout.
Depends on what you mean by workout, for me it exclusively represents "stuff you do" for muscle building.
In that case it's not a workout.
The same way me playing squash is not a workout.
okay but that's just an issue with your narrow definition of workout lmao
Colloquially workout exclusively refers to strength/hypertrophy training, when someone asks "do you workout" they are not asking if you use a stationary bike.
There is workout, cardio,doing sports and training for a given sport.
Gonna need a citation on that. I've never heard a single other person define workout that way in any country I've ever been to
Are you genuinely going to fucking tell me that when someone says "hey you look great, do you workout?" they are asking about your running program or your elliptical program?
yuah
Not an expert but this certainly rings true for me, the bike is the one I go to if I'm too tired to do a real workout, because I get to sit down the whole time.
(edit: fuck me, sometimes it's just not worth sharing, people are downvoting because I openly admitted that I'm not using a piece of gym equipment properly? Get over yourselves)
There's way too much gatekeeping going on here. Your light bike workout on a bad day is as much of a workout as a high intensity treadmill run on a good day. Both are very much proper usages of gym equipment. Doing something suboptimal is always better than doing nothing.
people suck
you can absolutely get a great workout in on the bike while not having to go through the effort and tax of moving equipment, racking/unracking etc
just have a seat and go as hard or as light as you want, with the ability to instantly change intensity in response to how you feel. no need to think - just sit there with your head down and pedal hard
It's almost like people intentionally misunderstand things. that, or they simply don't have the experience and so weigh in on things that they don't know about
however that person's comment that indoor biking isn't much of a workout is just blatantly false. It's as much of a workout as you want it to be. People just don't know what it feels like to be holding hundreds of watts for a long time, and that that's what's required for a solid workout
right but it's comparable to the type of cycling that the grand majority of people do on the bikes at gyms
which, to be fair, is often because that's a warmup/cooldown activity at the gym. but there are people who go and just cycle at a low moderate pace and then drive home.
If you're fit, then cycling will ensure you stay fit. If you don't have to strain yourself, that's a plus. It's supposed to be fun commute, not a challenge.
If you want to workout, go the long way?
I think that person is saying that street biking requires a lot of slowing and stopping cause we invented cars then immediately had to invent traffic lights. I'm lucky in that I can stay at a decent speed for like 30% of my commute and even that doesn't really feel like a workout.
Going the 'long way' increases the time not the load, and it's the load that's missing.
That's fair, but on the other hand, accelerating requires more energy than maintaining speed.