The muscles in my legs that are used for bike riding never ever get used. I can walk/run forever. If you put me on a bike on a flat surface, within 2 minutes my legs are screaming. So to me it is amazing exercise, even if I am just slowly riding down the street. I really think it depends on how fit the person is.
As with diet (and just about everything else), your GOALS determine what is sufficient.
We all have different goals, and some of us will reach a point at which we decide we're going to stop and maintain what we're doing. Others will decide to continue on the path of constant improvement and what is sufficient today may not be sufficient next month or next year. Not to mention what is sufficient for us today might be too much for us tomorrow.
Only you get to decide whether your current endeavors are "sufficient" both for today and for the future.
If you're moving you are doing better than if you are not moving. What was the context of the conversation? Sounds like unsolicited advice to me, which is always annoying.
I also think any movement is better than no movement.
However, I recently read that bike riding is not considered weight bearing exercise (in the context of you need weight bearing exercise to help ward off osteoporosis).
If you're going from sedentary to leisurely bike rides, then you are certainly improving your fitness. At some point you might want to push yourself to ride further or faster or to take up a different exercise.
For a work out fiend, it wouldn't be enough to maintain fitness, let alone improve it.
Don't let anyone tell you you're not doing enough, as long as what you're doing now is better than what you were doing before.
Like others, I think it depends on what your goals are. For me, it wouldn't be enough, because I love pushing my body through heavy weight training. Regardless, it's 100% better than no movement at all!
Some exercise is better than none. I've personally found that if I can have a conversation with no problem during the exercise, its not vigorous enough to help me lose weight. So if you're unable to constantly speak well through it, its definitely working well.
I agree with 'not sufficient for what?'. I also somehow got in my head the screwed up correlation between exercise and punishment. If it is something you enjoy, makes you happy, and your health goals are being met that's all that matters. It's true that we need to do 'weight-bearing' and resistance training to keep our bones strong and to build muscles. Having said that, keep on riding your bike and look into adding a bit of the other a couple times a week, if you can. The bottom line: enjoy.
Leisurely bike riding might burn off 200 calories in an hour, while riding hard on hilly terrain might burn off 600. As Kaplods said, whether of not either figure is sufficient depends entirely on your goals.
as has been said, if the goal is to improve your cardiac fitness and improve weight loss efforts, then just casually la-la-la'ing through the countryside isn't going to do a lot.
true, it's better than sitting on the couch all day but the whole point of improving your fitness is to keep challenging your body. if you're careful not to break a sweat while bike-riding, then honestly your body pretty well IS still on the couch.
let's say you bike every day for 30min. you take the same route. you leave at the same time, you get home at the same time. it's only a matter of weeks before your body goes on autopilot and any fitness improvements cease - you hit a plateau.
so now you want to increase the intensity by
a) biking for 40 minutes
or b) leaving later and getting home at the same time (bike faster)
or c) change your route to include more hills
I think that's ridiculous, it's a start and it's good for your health to be active You need to start somewhere! I started doing easy biking around my city instead of taking public transit and then after 6 months I was able to a 30K charity ride. I say get out there and ride your bike, who cares what any one says.
I got told leisurely bike riding is not sufficient exercise..
