City Bikers: Logging Calories Burned?

aaasky

I live in one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world and ride most places, but even with the amazing bike paths a lot of it is start-stop or slowing down to avoid bikers and pedestrians. When I actually ride on a clear trail I log 10-12mph, but I'm not sure how to enter the calories I burn when riding in busy areas since I don't have a HRM. Just log "casual biking"? Cut the time in half? City bikers, I'd love to hear your words of wisdom and experience!

madamstn

If you have an I phone there is a free app called Runtastic, through this app you can pick up another app called road bike. This runs off of GPS and works great for me.

heybales

You can log it two ways.

Take total miles divided by total time including stops for an avg, and use that in the database or www.bicycling.com has a better one.

Take total miles divided by just the riding time, and use that.

It'll actually work out about the same I've found.

Now, where the kicker is, if you daily maintenance had you burning say 2000 calories daily already, that means every hr is already planned for you to burn 83 calories no matter what exercise you did.

So if you spend 2 hrs biking, and estimated burn is 700 calories, then 166 of that is already expected, and you actually only burned 534 calories above and beyond your already accounted for burn.

So you'd only log and eat back the 534 calories.

paul_draper

Yes, Runtastic also runs android and blackberry.

kathym1122

Purchase a odometer for your a snap to instal. Bell makes a nice one for $25. Gives ave speed miles and only time pedaling.

madamstn

You can also link the Road Bike with your MFP and it uploads the calorie burn into your MFP. It does lots more, you should check it out