During the cold winter months when snow and ice are on the ground, it’s too dangerous to ride a bike, so many cyclists run instead. The standard comparison is that one mile of running equals four miles of cycling, but that’s lousy science. Although running requires the same amount of energy per mile at any speed (110 calories per mile), riding is affected by wind resistance so the faster you ride, the more energy you use. So you have to compare running and cycling at different cycling speeds.

Dr. Edward Coyle of The University of Texas in Austin determined average values of oxygen consumption by cyclists to develop a table to estimate the approximate caloric equivalence between running and cycling. He found that if you ride 20 miles at 15 mph, you burn 620 calories (20 miles X 31 calories per mile = 620 calories). Take the 620 calories and divide them by 110 calories per mile for running and you get 5.63 miles to burn the same number of calories. So riding a bicycle 20 miles at 15 miles per hour is equal to running 5.6 miles at any speed.

Coyle’s derived conversion figures are for an average-size adult (approximately 155 pounds). A larger cyclist would divide by a slightly higher number; a smaller cyclist, by a slightly lower one. Wind and hills are not accounted for in the table; nor is drafting, which can reduce your energy expenditure by up to one-third.

The number of miles ridden divided by the conversion factor for the speed of riding equals the number of miles running to use the same amount of energy. Here’s the conversion table:

MPH:Calories per mile:Conversion factor
10: 26: 4.2
15: 31: 3.5
20: 38: 2.9
25: 47: 2.3
30: 59: 1.9

How to use the table: For riding 20 miles at 10 miles per hour, divide 20 miles by the conversion factor of 4.2 to get 4.8 miles running. For riding at 20 miles at 20 miles per hour, divide 20 miles distance by 2.9 conversion factor to get 6.9 miles running. For riding 20 miles at 25 miles per hour, divide 20 miles by 2.3 to get 8.7 miles running. For riding 20 miles at 30 miles per hour, divide 20 miles by 1.9 to get 10.5 miles running.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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All my life I have had tremendous sexual energy. Lust that’s been hard to work off. If this Olympian type carnality could have been properly harnessed… I would have been like King Solomon.

With five hundred descendants.

And God help the world if that was the case. One of me is enough.

When you lust all the time, let’s face it, even for the luckiest of us, Brad Pitt for example. I don’t care who you are, there’s only limited opportunities to expunge it.

But it has to be expelled somehow.

This has led to some extremely embarrassing moments. My parents, like most parents of the Baby Boom generation, taught me shame of the human body and sexuality.even though they had me, and my sister.

I got my first orgasm doing chin-ups on a glass shower stall.

No joke!

I had been feeling queer lately (odd, not gay). I was sixteen. Or maybe, fourteen. What else do you do with your spare time when you’re fourteen in 1964…except chin-ups? Like every day in P.E.

I decided to do a little exercise in the shower. So I did chin-ups flat up against a glass shower door (gripping a metal bar overhead). My developing male organ was, how can I put it delicately, making up and down contact with the glass.

Suddenly, I felt very good. The best I’d ever felt in my life to be exact. Gee! I said. These chin-ups sure are certainly pleasant today for some reason. I wonder why? Like, it’s the easiest set of chin-ups I’ve ever done.

I just, can’t seem to stop doing them.

Oh, this is great. I’ve just set my own personal best record for doing chin-ups. Why is it I don’t feel tired? Why is it I can do so many of these? Am I superman? What’s going on?

And then, powww!

“Wow!” I shouted. “What is that?”

The rest is history.

Suddenly, to no great surprise, chin-ups became my favorite sport. Chin-ups in the shower. Not regular outside chin-ups. I started taking five showers a day. I had never in my life been so clean.

My parents were puzzled.

I became a chin-up swinger, a lothario, a clean-freak nymphomaniac.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” I told my mother.

“You just took one two hours ago,” she would say. “Okay. What’s going on?”

Sex is like a narcotic. The more you do it, the more you want, and you have to expand, enlarge the experience. I decided to move up a notch and to start the action this time with a sexy costume, the only one I had at the timemy PE jockstrap.

Like a stripper, I would remove this after a few chin-upsandyou know the rest.

I was doing the first set of chin-ups, the hot water running, really getting into itand the door burst open and my parents came storming in (this was before drug problems with teens).

I was caught red-handedor rather..hand over head.

I could have easily told them, “hey! I’m practicing for the Olympic Games.”

It wouldn’t have worked. Whatever you do when you’re fourteen, they assume it’s dirty.

They’re right.

But they couldn’t stop me from taking showers.

The sessions continued.

© Copyright 2006 by SammonSays.com

John Sammon is the author of two books and writes a weekly humor column you may access at http://www.Sammonsays.com