Thx for the excellent advise and replies
good thread, i've been keeping an eye on it, just havent had a chance to post a decent reply yet.
couple things -
1. water vs. gatorade/etc. i def. choose water. if i were biking all day i may consider a bottle of gatorade or something, but at this point, is just useless calories imo. my rides are 1-2 hours.
2. uphill - i see a couple differing opinions on this one...so, which is the correct answer? at this point, i just downshift 1-2 gears so i can pedal whilst still sitting on the seat. barely sometimes, but doeable.
2a. relatedly - standing-up biking versus sitting down...is there any advantage to standing up for any reason? i've always tended to avoid it because it feels 'easier' but maybe it's just redistributing the energy i'm using?
3. biking with other people etc...
good idea in general, but in practise at this point i'm mostly solo-biker. why? because 1. i'm just kinda more introverted anyways, and biking is kinda my 'me-time' where i do a combination of thought processing and just giving my mind a rest, almost meditative. 2. language barrier. i'm an American living in Germany, and my command of the German language is still lacking (working on that tho).
4. currently, my goal is minimum of 6 hours a week, with a min of an hour a time. (i also use bike for transportation to school/store/etc, but that doesn't count). does it make a difference in calories burned how i distribute that time? like, for example, last week, it was split up over 4 days. wound up like 6.5 hours and approx 100+ km over those 4 days. (i've got a bike computer, so i can keep track of my stats). my avg speed is about 20 km/h.
k, that's all i can think of atm.
thx again for all your good replies, and i hope this thread is helping others too.