Calories burnt biking uphill?

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sixsexsix
sixsexsix Posts: 4
in Fitness and Exercise
My main exercise is biking up a hill that winds up the side of a mountain. I gain 560 ft elevation over a distance of 2.8 miles, so it's pretty steep. When I use the calorie burning calculator here, what biking option should I be choosing? My ride takes 45 minutes to reach the top of the hill. The mountain biking option says I burn 590 calories. Should I be using vigorous cycling option which says 700 calories? This ride really does not fit any of the option descriptions as it is a slow, very steep, uphill ride on pavement. Any idea how many calories I'm actually burning doing this? Unfortunately I can't afford any fancy electronics to tell me.

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  • hmoffatt
    hmoffatt Posts: 51
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    I think the 590 would be fair, no more than that.

    Are you sure about the figures? That works out to a 3.8% gradient which isn't very steep really. This might be a case of what you're used to though.
  • moondawg14
    moondawg14 Posts: 249 Member
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    Beg, borrow, or steal an HRM. It's the only way you're going to get anything close to accurate here.

    You're talking about biking at 3.7 miles per hour. that's extremely slow.... a fast walking pace. It would be hard, but not impossible, to stay balanced at that speed.

    It's going to depend on your weight, too. A 200 pound person is going to do more work than a 100 pound person on the same route.

    But, if you're pedaling CONSTANTLY for 45 minutes and keeping your heart rate in Z2 or Z3 for that long, 590 calories is probably fair.
  • suibhne
    suibhne Posts: 17
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    Have you tried any smartphone apps? Runtastic has a Road Bike app that utilizes GPS and measures elevation gain/loss, and I think it's ballpark accurate on altitude most of the time (tho I've seen some weird glitches). MapMyRide+ was also free for iOS recently - might still be, and the basic version is always free anyway. Both seem to do okay with calorie metrics, and are much more conservative than MFP's wildly inflated numbers. E.g., Runtastic Road Bike tells me I've burned about 1400 calories with a few hours of biking 30-32 miles, with only very mild elevation gain, and that seems fairly commonsensical. I haven't tested either against an HRM, however.

    (Sorry for this suggestion if you don't have a smartphone - I know you said you can't afford any additional devices.)
  • __Di__
    __Di__ Posts: 1,639 Member
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    Beg, borrow, or steal an HRM. It's the only way you're going to get anything close to accurate here.

    You're talking about biking at 3.7 miles per hour. that's extremely slow.... a fast walking pace. It would be hard, but not impossible, to stay balanced at that speed.

    It's going to depend on your weight, too. A 200 pound person is going to do more work than a 100 pound person on the same route.

    But, if you're pedaling CONSTANTLY for 45 minutes and keeping your heart rate in Z2 or Z3 for that long, 590 calories is probably fair.

    The bolded bit! Interested to know just how many you really are burning, I bet it is a fair old amount there because cycling uphill for that amount of time would be quite a large calorie burner (plus I am curious :laugh: )

    Even if you can only borrow an HRM for one time OP, at least you would have a rough idea for future cycling the same route.
  • sixsexsix
    sixsexsix Posts: 4
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    Are you sure about the figures? That works out to a 3.8% gradient which isn't very steep really. This might be a case of what you're used to though.

    Yeah I think those figures were misleading. The ride from my house is a little ways without too much elevation gain. Here is a picture of the main hill: http://imgur.com/ttIdgeN I the gradient ranges from like 3-8% maybe?
  • sixsexsix
    sixsexsix Posts: 4
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    Thanks for the advise everyone. I don't have a smart phone but will look into getting a heart rate monitor as soon as possible.
  • paulperryman
    paulperryman Posts: 839 Member
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    I do a 7.5 mile ride in around 27mins and approximately 500 calories that includes elevations upto 600mtrs gradients from -5 to +20,and averaging gear 16-20 (around 16mph), if you are in a low gear pedaling fast doesn't constitute burning, but doing that uphill certainly does

    but as someone else said 3% isn't very steep at all, now if it was like 10-15% then yeah.

    Definately get a Heart Rate monitor if you can, it may not be accurate but it's better then guessing on a database that is just generic answers anyway. and good luck with the biking, i ride a Cybex Static Bike with virtual tracks and tracked times competing against others around the world, it's fun when your *kitten* isn't being chaffed
  • hmoffatt
    hmoffatt Posts: 51
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    Yeah I think those figures were misleading. The ride from my house is a little ways without too much elevation gain. Here is a picture of the main hill: http://imgur.com/ttIdgeN I the gradient ranges from like 3-8% maybe?
    That looks like 900 feet in 2 miles, which is 8.5% - that's quite steep for 2 miles. And 8.5% is quite believable since the road switches back there. (Sounds like a fun ride!). Still I think the 590 calorie estimate is not too bad.
  • hmoffatt
    hmoffatt Posts: 51
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    Check it out here on Strava - http://app.strava.com/segments/1774855 - Strava is a ride tracking site.

    They say 8.9% for 2 miles, with a section near the bottom being 10%. Fastest time up there is 20 minutes so you have something to aim for!
  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
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    I'd just go with mountain biking. I've found online apps like runkeeper (which has a cycling option) to be REALLY inaccurate compared to my HRM. Like 30% to 50% more calories burned than my HRM indicated for cycling. It's pretty darn close to my HRM for running though.
  • sixsexsix
    sixsexsix Posts: 4
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    Check it out here on Strava - http://app.strava.com/segments/1774855 - Strava is a ride tracking site.

    They say 8.9% for 2 miles, with a section near the bottom being 10%. Fastest time up there is 20 minutes so you have something to aim for!

    Cool site, thanks!
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
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    you're overthinking this

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