Conquering the stationary bike

I'm still not ready to drop a couple thousand to get out onto the roads, but I have been happy with my progress just hitting the stationary bike a couple of times per week. The first time I hopped on I decided to ride for an hour and see how I liked it. I did around 17.5 miles and, other than some issues getting used to the seat, everything went well. I've been trying to go further in one hour once per week while allowing the other ride to be more relaxed. I'm going to add a third ride once softball is over and I have my thursday nights back.<br><br>
Anyway, I've been progressing well, typically going half a mile to a mile further each time I test myself over an hour. My legs still aren't all that strong, but I seem to be able to maintain a pretty high cadence so, as I tire, I can drop the resistance and still move pretty fast. Last night I managed 21.33 miles in one hour. This is probably still very slow, but I was quite pleased. My heartrate stayed between 160 and 170 for most of the ride and I was actually faster during the 2nd half of the ride than the first.<br><br>
I do have a few questions:<br><br>
1)What can I do to strengthen my legs so that I can keep the resistance level higher? Right now I can typically keep the RPMs over 100 up to level 11 or 12, but anything higher than 10 and my HR starts to climb. It feels easier to do 115 RPMs at level 8 then it does 100 at level 10.<br><br>
2)Am I risking burning myself out if continue to do a one hour time trial every week?<br><br>
3)Am I going to get dumber if I continue to be force fed Fox News as that is the only TV on in front of the stationary bikes at my gym?