Bicycling Downhill

We’ve been talking here and here about the effects of weight, speed, and grade on climbing hills on a bicycle.  Now, let’s reverse direction and think about coasting down a hill. 

More Bicycling Uphill

Last time we looked at how weight and speed and grade affect the power requirement for a bicyclist climbing a hill.  Today, we’ll reverse the question and assume that the cyclist has a fixed amount of power to deliver.  How will that affect climbing speed?

Bicycling Uphill

Not long ago I was huffing and puffing on my bicycle up a very steep hill and another cyclist blew by me with apparently little effort.  Now, in addition to looking younger, stronger, and having a better bicycle, he appeared to be carrying significantly less excess, ahem, baggage.  So I got to wondering how much difference one’s weight (or to be charitable, a loaded backpack) makes when ascending a hill on a bicycle.

Cheeseburgers per hour?

In the last two posts, we considered the units of food energy, and some of the issues associated with calculating human energy use. Today we’ll look at different views of calculating energy use from exercise.

Cheeseburgers per day?

Last post we talked about the units used for describing the energy content of food.  For the purposes of an energy balance on the body, we also have to consider the efficiency of converting food energy into activity.

How many Calories in a cheeseburger?

Sometimes it seems like most of the people you meet are on a diet of some kind—either to lose weight, gain weight, or stay the same. In any case, it seems reasonable to assume that diets ultimately have to be about the amount of energy that you take in as food or drink, and the amount of energy that your body burns through exercise or just existing. Today we’ll talk about the units used to measure energy in food.