Quote Originally Posted by velogirl View Post
I schedule my clients in time. There are no miles indicated in their training programs at all. It's up to them to choose the appropriate route for the type of workout I've prescribed for a given day. The only other metrics I use is watts (for my power-based clients) and elevation gain (for my clients focusing on events like the death ride).

Miles are not a true indicator or your effort. Your total miles will vary by terrain (ie hilly or flat), wind, traffic, road ride vs mtn bike ride, etc.
I've been keeping track of my miles because it was the obvious way to track my riding. Now that I'm on sparkpeople and they measure by time and mph, I'm keeping track both ways.

I know that the best thing would be to get a heart monitor but I haven't managed that yet. But when I look at the sparkpeople numbers I'm confused. I'm counting my time as at 10-11.9 mph. Now that I've got a new bike computer I'll have an even better handle on my mph.

BUT -- I'm on a 38 pound bike and carrying a lot of extra weight on my body. Does that make me burn more calories than if I were a more normal weight on a road bike? Or am I just having a bit of wishful thinking, here?