Biking with a head wind

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AlwaysWanderer
AlwaysWanderer Posts: 641 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Do you burn more calories? If the wind is like 15mph, head on? I used this website http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm to calculate calories burnt with the wind taken into consideration, but it seems extremely high. It agrees with mfp when I put 0 for the wind, but it almost doubles when I enter 15mph head wind ( as it was yesterday). Anyone knows how it works? Should I assume I burn extra calories, or leave it as it is?

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  • McKayMachina
    McKayMachina Posts: 2,670 Member
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    I wonder the same thing about riding a big, heavy beach cruiser. I ride that and think it feels difficult. Then, I ride a friend's expensive European street bike and it's like doing no work at all. I'm sure sooo many things come into play. These online calculators are just estimates. Albeit, decent estimates in most cases.

    I personally wouldn't count it as twice as high a burn unless it felt like twice as much work. Up to you.
  • Jenniper
    Jenniper Posts: 6
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    Did you apply the head wind to half of your ride?

    I'd be tempted to take the average of the two, as it's more difficult to keep a consistent speed in a head wind, and therefore the calories burned cannot truly be calculated accurately.
  • LeeKetty1176
    LeeKetty1176 Posts: 881 Member
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    wow ! that is getting i to it !

    I think i would be tempted to not to take any wind in to consideration and be happy thinking that when it blows and i log it as not that i am burning more and get a better result
  • dcmat
    dcmat Posts: 1,723 Member
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    I commute 42 miles a day by bike with a GPS for average moving speed and time. Considering it is a mixture of head/tail winds I guess 1 cancels out the other. However, if you were to do the maths, as you cycle into a headwind for longer you will burn more calories if there was no wind for both ways.
  • AlwaysWanderer
    AlwaysWanderer Posts: 641 Member
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    I only cycle one way from work, and it's always head wind. I dont mind if its not very strong, but yesterday it was so hard! I worked twice as hard, but was slower than normally. I even had to pedal DOWN HILL otherwise it just wouldnt go. I was exausted when i got home. Its a straight line ride for 19 miles, so its not like some of the way was side wind or anything. Its just head wind constantly. And its heavy mountain bike that I ride, not one of those road bikes with thin tyres, so its more difficult. I logged it as normal ride, it's just I wondered if its a lot different.
  • dcmat
    dcmat Posts: 1,723 Member
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    I only cycle one way from work, and it's always head wind. I dont mind if its not very strong, but yesterday it was so hard! I worked twice as hard, but was slower than normally. I even had to pedal DOWN HILL otherwise it just wouldnt go. I was exausted when i got home. Its a straight line ride for 19 miles, so its not like some of the way was side wind or anything. Its just head wind constantly. And its heavy mountain bike that I ride, not one of those road bikes with thin tyres, so its more difficult. I logged it as normal ride, it's just I wondered if its a lot different.

    See if you can borrow a HRM from someone and compare the results against logging at the correct speed and the next range up

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