My New Cycling Regimen in Virginia Beach

In April of this year, I transferred to Virginia Beach, Virginia, to start with my new marketing executive job for one of the resort hotels in the city, which had a thriving tourism industry and had extensive bicycle paths or trails.

After settling in my job and in my apartment, I researched the Internet about the good bicycle paths or trails in Virginia Beach. Since I already brought my mountain bike from back home, I searched online for bike shops where I can buy high quality, but affordable cycling wear and accessories.

I have been cycling since high school as an enjoyable hobby, but when I moved to Virginia Beach, I decided to make it a part of my exercise regimen for losing weight. The number of calories you should burn depends on your weight and the distance of the riding activity you would do.

My height is five feet, eight inches and I now weigh 170 pounds, which is slightly overweight for me. Based on my online research, a person weighing 160 lbs riding for one hour at a speed from 12 to 14 miles per hour would burn about 500 calories or more. I wanted to achieve an ideal weight of about 140 lbs within two months. Since I could only go riding during my weekend days off, I estimated I have to be riding faster than 15 mph for 60 minutes twice a week if I am going to achieve my goal of 140 lbs within two months.

I found a good bike shop where I bought new pairs of cycling shorts, warmers, jersey shirts and jackets, protective glasses, and helmet. The bike accessories I bought are two water bottles and a bottle holder, frame and wheel reflectors, bike lock, and air pump.

The Virginia Beach Boardwalk is the nearest bike path from my apartment, but I cannot reach my ideal speed in this path because there are many people in the board walk during weekends. So I switched to two locations, the False Cape State Park and First Landing State Park, both of which had the flat dirt roads and rolling hills ideal for mountain bikes. It also took an average of one to two hours to finish riding the two trails so that I could achieve my goals for riding speed and distance.