losing weight and touring weight

[lindagould]

I have lost 10 pounds.  Can I carry 5-10 pounds more weight in my panniers and equal the same amount of work load while pedaling?

[rvklassen]

Simple answer is yes.

More complex answer is if the weight you lost is all fat, great.  If some of it is muscle, you've just lost some of what you used to use to power yourself.

Many folks (half) joke that the cheapest way to reduce the weight of their bike is by taking it off the rider.

If you put on some weight touring, it'll all be muscle, so that's a benefit. 

Since I know nothing about your physical condition, I'd just caution you that once you are on tour, that's not a good time to be trying to lose weight.  It may naturally happen as you burn lots of calories while riding.  But you need to keep enough fuel in the tank that you can keep going.

[staehpj1]

I have lost 10 pounds.  Can I carry 5-10 pounds more weight in my panniers and equal the same amount of work load while pedaling?

Probably, but it sounds like a bad idea to me unless you were unable to carry 20-30 pounds of gear to start with.  Better to just enjoy the reduced load.  It is a good idea, at least in my opinion to continually strive to carry less, at least until you get down to a gear weigh of 25 or so pounds including panniers.

[raybo]

I recently wrote an on-line article about taking less weight on tour.

My first suggestion was losing weight yourself!

Why do you want to take more gear?  Are there things that you haven't taken in the past because they weighed too much?

While it would be nice to take less weight, I find that after a few tours, my gear list remained pretty constant.  The easiest way for me to reduce touring weight is not to take camping gear, which for me is around 13 pounds, but that limits the kinds of tours I can take.

Ray

[bogiesan]

I have lost 10 pounds.  Can I carry 5-10 pounds more weight in my panniers and equal the same amount of work load while pedaling?

No.
One reduces the mass of the engine for only one reason, to carry less weight.

david boise ID

[velo]

Maybe. If you lost all fat your ratio of power to weight will change meaning you can probably carry more.

Do you need to be able to carry more? If you need to carry more adding strength is going be be as crucial as losing weight. Weighing less and carrying less would probably be the real win in all of this.

[johnsondasw]

When I dramatically increased my riding, rock climbing, and weight lifting about 5 years ago, I gained about 15 pounds over three years--all muscle.  This has been a good thing.  I feel better and lost nothing in performance/endurance.  I could work out less and lose weight/muscle, but I prefer this.  I'm 61, 6'2", and about 205-210 pounds now.

[seattlewoman]

Your post made me smile. I fly to London tomorrow with my Trek 520 touring bike and 41 lbs of gear spread in 4 panniers [if my bathroom scales are accurate.] It's as minimalist as I can manage and still not look too weird and windblown to the locals. Of course I kid myself that I'll lose weight while pushing this around during my 7 week tour. However, I'm going to France, so perhaps all that camembert will simply turn into muscle. One can only hope.

[rvklassen]

Your post made me smile. I fly to London tomorrow with my Trek 520 touring bike and 41 lbs of gear spread in 4 panniers [if my bathroom scales are accurate.] It's as minimalist as I can manage and still not look too weird and windblown to the locals. Of course I kid myself that I'll lose weight while pushing this around during my 7 week tour. However, I'm going to France, so perhaps all that camembert will simply turn into muscle. One can only hope.

For what it's worth, I consider 41 lbs of gear quite a reasonable amount for one rider.  For two on a tandem, we try to get closer to 70-75.  It's possible to get substantially lower, and there are folks who carry substantially more.  Enjoy.

[Tourista829]

I have lost 10 pounds.  Can I carry 5-10 pounds more weight in my panniers and equal the same amount of work load while pedaling?

The same amount of effort for the rider. It may vary a little depending on weight and balance.

[paddleboy17]

I am going draw on what little I remember from that physics course I took in the late 70's.

Pannier weight is weight has less impact on the work you do than body weight.  So every 10 pounds of body weight is 10 pounds that you are not constantly accelerating up (and down) as you move.  Besides all that, a belly roll might have its own internal resistance to every movement you make.  Body weight probably also affects respiration and circulation.

So a skinny body works more efficiently than a not so skinny body.

So I think you have to take how ever much gear that you feel you need to take, and we should all aspire to be skinny.  I'm working on the skinny part.

[bikerHen]

I've lost 50 pounds over the winter.   In part because of a planned tour in the Canadian Rockies in July. The overall improvement in my cycling to date has been huge. We'll see what happens when I load up the bike for some weekend warm-up tours planned for the next few months. I'm hoping to see and feel a real difference.  And maybe I'll pack a few extra items in the panniers.   bikerHen