Biking Question

LoriLou67

I need to know if there is a way to estimate mileage spent riding my bike on a trainer. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

stringcheeze

estimate mileage spent riding my bike on a trainer.

I assume you mean a stationary bike? If you don't have a speedometer on it, the only thing I can think of (and it's probably over complicated for its own good) is to do this:

a) Measure the length in inches of the pedal shaft (the part between what you put your foot on to the center of where it connects into the bike). Multiply this length by 2 then by 3.14. This is the circumference of the circle and the distance of travel your foot makes in one revolution.

b) get up to your average speed and count how many full revolutions you do of one foot in ten seconds. Multiply the number from step a to this number then divide by 10. This is your distance (in inches) per second. Multiply this by 3600 to get the inches per hour.

c)Next, do your ride and record the time spent. Convert this to hours (divide the number of minutes you rode by 60 -- a 20 min bike ride would be 0.33 hrs of riding)

Multiply what you get in part b with part c. Now find an online converter you can plug the results into to change those inches into miles.

That should tell you the miles of your bike ride.

Feel free to check my math 'cause admittedly, I can't math my way out of a wet paper bag.

bsexton3

I finally got a cat eye for the back tire. Before that, I took my regular cat eye and put int in the rear wheel during the winter. Found there was no way to be close on mileage. It is always a bit faster than road miles. I bike 16 on the road as an average. On my trainer it is between 18 and 20 miles per hour.

CeleryStalker

You can always splurge on a PowerTap Not sure how into cycling you are tho, and that's a rather significant investment. It'd give you super accurate details tho, including mileage and calories burned

Also, if you have a Garmin cyclometer, you can turn off the GPS sensor which will force the unit to use the wheel speed sensor

StuAblett

First, what are we talking about, a stationary bike, like in a health club....



or a bicycle on a stationary trainer....



If it is the second choice, then you can put a cycling computer on the rear wheel, this will give you a very accurate read out of mile and speed, on the trainer.

For the stationary bike, I don't know, but I would think the trainer would have some sort of program on it showing distance traveled etc...?