I ride my bike to work 4 days a week Monday - Thursday, from Comox St. on the edge of Stanley Park to the UBC campus it is a very nice ride. This acts as excellent base training. If I ride 4 days a week that is a total of just over 4 hrs of cardio/week. During the commute I usually have an average HR of 135 or 67% of Max HR, this puts me in the fat burning zone.
The ride to work has one decent hill that takes a few minutes to climb this helps build a little bit of leg strength (good for the mountain running). In the late sping/summer when it is lighter out I extend my ride home on Mondays and Wednesdays adding 3+hrs extra/week for a total of 7 hrs of cycling/commuting time per week.
Another benefit of the riding is obviously the calorie burn, each hour of cycling burns around 600 calories x it by 4 days this equals 2400 calories for one week of riding. If I do not take in excess calories, I can drop 1 pound in around 6 bike commutes (a 3500 calorie loss generally equals 1 pound of weight loss).
Other reasons I bike commute not related to fitness are it saves me $18.00/week in transit, it is good for the environment and I feel more productive the days I ride.
