Bicycling for exercise; calorie counter designations yield different calorie burns
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I've shopped for power meters this year and while there are some available for less than $1000, those with good reviews are way way over $1000. If it's a price war, they're using golden bullets.NorthCascades wrote: »Detritus_1965 wrote: »Using heart rate for energy expenditure estimates for an unfit person is also a wild guess and most likely to give exaggerated numbers.
That's why I used the term "at least".
Problem here: For most accurate results you'd need a power-meter. Sadly these device are extremely expensive and only make sense for highly ambitioned cyclists.
For all others a HRM is a good compromise between accuracy and price.
There's been a price war in the power meter market for years. They've come down drastically in price.
I gave up on getting a realistic online guess at my bike rides. I log it as mountain biking/bmx and eat.
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I second the congrats on your getting going on the bike. Calories burned are often a unicorn. I don't worry about calories burned. There are too many variables - wind, temperature., what you ate, if you had a good sleep, a fight with your partner or you have 35 pounds in your back pack or the wrong air in your tires. I worry about getting my 45 minutes minimum of cycling a day. Always a different route, conditions etc.0
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Personally, I go with the formula ... 100 calories for every 5 km.
If a person rides fast, that person will burn more calories per hour than a person who rides slowly.
In the old imperial terms, I've seen people talk about anywhere from 25 to 40 calories per mile, with a preference for the lower number, of course.
Therefore, your 3.5 mile (5.6 km) ride would be a shade over 100 calories.Do it twice and you'll get your 216 cal.
Do it twice???? Agggghhhhh!!
Well ... yes.
3.5 miles is a great starting point for your first couple weeks, but you'll build up from there.
When I decided to get into cycling again, my first ride was 2 miles, and I had to stop at the 1 mile point for a break. But within 2 or 3 weeks, I was riding 5 miles, and by the end of the summer, I did a 50 mile ride. That was in 1990, and I've been cycling ever since.
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Personally, I go with the formula ... 100 calories for every 5 km.
If a person rides fast, that person will burn more calories per hour than a person who rides slowly.
In the old imperial terms, I've seen people talk about anywhere from 25 to 40 calories per mile, with a preference for the lower number, of course.
Therefore, your 3.5 mile (5.6 km) ride would be a shade over 100 calories.Do it twice and you'll get your 216 cal.
Do it twice???? Agggghhhhh!!
Well ... yes.
3.5 miles is a great starting point for your first couple weeks, but you'll build up from there.
When I decided to get into cycling again, my first ride was 2 miles, and I had to stop at the 1 mile point for a break. But within 2 or 3 weeks, I was riding 5 miles, and by the end of the summer, I did a 50 mile ride. That was in 1990, and I've been cycling ever since.
I know, I was joking about it. I'm near the point of blacking out when I'm done at this point so the thought of doing it again is reprehensible at the moment. I pace up and down the street for ten minutes trying to get my breathing calmed down as it is. I know I'll improve gradually. The day I can do this route twice, I'll know I've gotten somewhere.
Sometimes I wonder if I should have just done flats for the first month, to build up a fitness baseline before tackling hills.0 -
Personally, I go with the formula ... 100 calories for every 5 km.
If a person rides fast, that person will burn more calories per hour than a person who rides slowly.
In the old imperial terms, I've seen people talk about anywhere from 25 to 40 calories per mile, with a preference for the lower number, of course.
Therefore, your 3.5 mile (5.6 km) ride would be a shade over 100 calories.Do it twice and you'll get your 216 cal.
Do it twice???? Agggghhhhh!!
Well ... yes.
3.5 miles is a great starting point for your first couple weeks, but you'll build up from there.
When I decided to get into cycling again, my first ride was 2 miles, and I had to stop at the 1 mile point for a break. But within 2 or 3 weeks, I was riding 5 miles, and by the end of the summer, I did a 50 mile ride. That was in 1990, and I've been cycling ever since.
I know, I was joking about it. I'm near the point of blacking out when I'm done at this point so the thought of doing it again is reprehensible at the moment. I pace up and down the street for ten minutes trying to get my breathing calmed down as it is. I know I'll improve gradually. The day I can do this route twice, I'll know I've gotten somewhere.
Sometimes I wonder if I should have just done flats for the first month, to build up a fitness baseline before tackling hills.
It wouldn't hurt to build up distance on flat ground even now. Pick one day each week to tackle the hill, and build up distance on the rest of the days.
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Personally, I go with the formula ... 100 calories for every 5 km.
If a person rides fast, that person will burn more calories per hour than a person who rides slowly.
In the old imperial terms, I've seen people talk about anywhere from 25 to 40 calories per mile, with a preference for the lower number, of course.
Therefore, your 3.5 mile (5.6 km) ride would be a shade over 100 calories.Do it twice and you'll get your 216 cal.
Do it twice???? Agggghhhhh!!
Well ... yes.
3.5 miles is a great starting point for your first couple weeks, but you'll build up from there.
When I decided to get into cycling again, my first ride was 2 miles, and I had to stop at the 1 mile point for a break. But within 2 or 3 weeks, I was riding 5 miles, and by the end of the summer, I did a 50 mile ride. That was in 1990, and I've been cycling ever since.
I know, I was joking about it. I'm near the point of blacking out when I'm done at this point so the thought of doing it again is reprehensible at the moment. I pace up and down the street for ten minutes trying to get my breathing calmed down as it is. I know I'll improve gradually. The day I can do this route twice, I'll know I've gotten somewhere.
Sometimes I wonder if I should have just done flats for the first month, to build up a fitness baseline before tackling hills.
It wouldn't hurt to build up distance on flat ground even now. Pick one day each week to tackle the hill, and build up distance on the rest of the days.
I've only ridden 3 times, so perhaps flats are called for here lol. Then come back next week and see how I do on the hills.1 -
I have a Jamis Coda Sport right now. It's 4 years old. Just put a new chain on it, new brakes and got it tuned up a little. Should I be upgrading as my fitness level increases or is this bike good enough for awhile? Unsure, really.
The only app I have is Road Bike Pro. Logs the time, miles, splits, elevation, avg mph, graphs, etc.
The possible reason to upgrade would be if you needed more speed for some reason (group rides, trying to get a commute time shorter, etc.) or maybe if it has older components you personally find annoying (like the shifter levers on the very very old 10-speed bikes that were on the center of the stem) or wanted something lighter for the hills.0 -
I have a Jamis Coda Sport right now. It's 4 years old. Just put a new chain on it, new brakes and got it tuned up a little. Should I be upgrading as my fitness level increases or is this bike good enough for awhile? Unsure, really.
The only app I have is Road Bike Pro. Logs the time, miles, splits, elevation, avg mph, graphs, etc.
Advice from The Cannibal: don't upgrade your bike, ride your bike up grades (hills).
I agree with the sentiment but that's only good advice when your bike is already set up the way you need it.
I'm guessing you could probably spend $20-30 to replace your cassette with one meant for hills. The cassette is where most of your gears are, different gears will make it easier. Note that using an easier gear won't have you burn fewer calories, it's the same amount of work just done in a different manner.
Anyway, that would be a job for your bike shop, unless you have a friend who can help. After for and gearing, your better off focusing on "the engine" and hill repeats are an excellent way to do that.0 -
I have a Jamis Coda Sport right now. It's 4 years old. Just put a new chain on it, new brakes and got it tuned up a little. Should I be upgrading as my fitness level increases or is this bike good enough for awhile? Unsure, really.
I wasn't familiar with the model so I looked it up, and it appears to be a fine bike for general fitness riding. I wouldn't upgrade it unless your goals change. Maybe you want to give mountain biking a try, or you want a drop-bar road bike for fast group rides, or something. Even then, I'd still keep this bike as a city/utility/commuter bike.0 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
I've shopped for power meters this year and while there are some available for less than $1000, those with good reviews are way way over $1000. If it's a price war, they're using golden bullets.NorthCascades wrote: »Detritus_1965 wrote: »Using heart rate for energy expenditure estimates for an unfit person is also a wild guess and most likely to give exaggerated numbers.
That's why I used the term "at least".
Problem here: For most accurate results you'd need a power-meter. Sadly these device are extremely expensive and only make sense for highly ambitioned cyclists.
For all others a HRM is a good compromise between accuracy and price.
There's been a price war in the power meter market for years. They've come down drastically in price.
I gave up on getting a realistic online guess at my bike rides. I log it as mountain biking/bmx and eat.
Which ones are you looking at? SRM?
You're right to ignore many of them. A lot of the least expensive models take shortcuts that can impact data quality.
I guess for weight loss, we don't need superb data, and consistency is probably almost as valuable as accuracy. At least if you're willing to figure out how you respond to things.
Power meters are really training tools, the calorie thing is just a side effect. They tell you how much energy you're putting into the bike (force at the pedal * RPMs) and you use that feedback to do a workout with targets, or to pace yourself during a ride. I guess a relevant example is you can use one too help avoid the temptation to attach a hill too hard at the base and then fade, instead you level the hill by staying below your breaking point on the way up.0 -
^ pacing, the other lo-fi data that you can immediately realize is the ability to model your physiological response by plugging into the modified Bannister's impulse-response model to track your fitness, fatigue, and form (stress-strain). Accuracy is important but "mid range" models ($500-$1,000) are "good" enough as long as it is consistent. Keep an eye out, I just pickup a Pioneer L/R & computer for $800 plus $65 shipping to have it installed on my cranks at their Long Beach shop. Power2Max NG NCO looks pretty enticing (so long as you have the right cranks plus future ability to enable current NG functionalities). Stages was my intro and other than finding out I have a 56%/44% L/R imbalance with new Pioneer, I was very happy with it (ignorance is bliss).0
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I have often found the calorie estimates for exercise a little high. I might do 5 or 6 hours of gardening in a day and it says I have burnt over a 1000 calories. My classes I do for muay thai are counted the same, but they definitely are not, comparing a class focussed on technique to one on sparring simply does not work.
If I were to eat the exercise calories earnt I would probably gain weight. I find the best trick is to avoid eating the exercise calories, therefore if they are inaccurate it does not matter! Having said that, if like me you have had a binge that you need to compensate for, do twice as much as required to counter it. Aim for green so to speak.1 -
meganpettigrew86 wrote: »I have often found the calorie estimates for exercise a little high. I might do 5 or 6 hours of gardening in a day and it says I have burnt over a 1000 calories. My classes I do for muay thai are counted the same, but they definitely are not, comparing a class focussed on technique to one on sparring simply does not work.
If I were to eat the exercise calories earnt I would probably gain weight. I find the best trick is to avoid eating the exercise calories, therefore if they are inaccurate it does not matter! Having said that, if like me you have had a binge that you need to compensate for, do twice as much as required to counter it. Aim for green so to speak.
Not to derail the thread too much but your approach is the right one and it is quite likely that you did not burn 1000 calories in the garden (or at least, 1000 extra calories on top of the amount you would have burned just sitting on the couch).1 -
Rode the bike to work today for the first time. Only 4 miles, but I figured out a route that lets me go DOWN the Sasquatch Hill on the way to work...according to GPS I reach nearly 40 mph just coasting down...then ride relatively flat roads with some small tortures mixed.
On the way back I turn off before that hill and go around it. It makes the return trip 4.5 miles but as my heart rate is about 130 the whole time I'm good and ragged at the end. Best of all I don't feel as though I'm going to die.
Hey, this bike riding can be fun if you aren't trying to be Lance Armstrong taking on steep climbs without chemical assistance!0 -
Chapeau!Rode the bike to work today for the first time. Only 4 miles, but I figured out a route that lets me go DOWN the Sasquatch Hill on the way to work...according to GPS I reach nearly 40 mph just coasting down...then ride relatively flat roads with some small tortures mixed.
On the way back I turn off before that hill and go around it. It makes the return trip 4.5 miles but as my heart rate is about 130 the whole time I'm good and ragged at the end. Best of all I don't feel as though I'm going to die.
Hey, this bike riding can be fun if you aren't trying to be Lance Armstrong taking on steep climbs without chemical assistance!
Cycling just for calorie burns is very fleeting.
Doing something fun and enjoyable can last a lifetime.
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Chapeau!Rode the bike to work today for the first time. Only 4 miles, but I figured out a route that lets me go DOWN the Sasquatch Hill on the way to work...according to GPS I reach nearly 40 mph just coasting down...then ride relatively flat roads with some small tortures mixed.
On the way back I turn off before that hill and go around it. It makes the return trip 4.5 miles but as my heart rate is about 130 the whole time I'm good and ragged at the end. Best of all I don't feel as though I'm going to die.
Hey, this bike riding can be fun if you aren't trying to be Lance Armstrong taking on steep climbs without chemical assistance!
Cycling just for calorie burns is very fleeting.
Doing something fun and enjoyable can last a lifetime.
I'm starting to see that myself now. Since I radically altered my diet on July 5 I have dropped 23 lbs (50kg?) but started to think that's not enough, fitness would work well, also. I was trying to discover what the calorie burn was, as I am tracking (for the time being) everything I eat and the exercise I perform every day.
What I discovered yesterday is that I just like to ride my bike for the pleasure of it. Fitness will come as a byproduct.4 -
What I discovered yesterday is that I just like to ride my bike for the pleasure of it. Fitness will come as a byproduct.
Hi OP — you've been bitten by the bug! When I got back into cycling in '97, a normal ride for me was 5-10 miles, and 15+ miles was long. Now a normal ride is 15-30 and I get in many rides every year upwards of 62 miles/100 km every year, some of them on hilly dirt. It kind of creeps up on you. Don't measure yourself against anyone else: was damn proud of doing a 15-mile ride back when that was a stretch, and I'm happy to congratulate anyone who pushes themselves beyond their comfort zone.
Fitness comes with practice; if you get serious, you can add structured training, but if your goal is to have fun while getting some moderate exercise, there's no need to go down that rabbit hole. Hill training is one of the classic ways to improve overall fitness, so you're in essence already doing that. Regardless of your weight and fitness, the best way to approach hills is in a low gear that lets you spin up them (i.e., pedaling at a relatively fast cadence/RPM). "Mashing" (pedaling slowly in a high gear) is a good way to strain your knees.
You've got some good advice already on the calorie burning side of things. My own rule of thumb is that for a 180-lb. rider plus bike combination, I burn 30-35 calories per mile on flat to moderately hilly terrain, and 35-40 calories per mile on hilly terrain. That's only an estimate, but it's close enough to my actual weight change vs. calories eaten to be reasonably accurate. Running is a lot more efficient as a way to burn calories quickly, but cycling is a lot more fun!1 -
Hello all. First post. Errrr...second. I posted this at the end of another thread but then thought maybe no one would see it, so I started my own.
I'm wondering about my bike rides. I have several steep and intimidating hills on a 3.5 mile route I do three times per week (I just started; my third ride today). When I get to the top of these hills I am nearly unable to be able to take enough air in. I couldn't speak if I wanted to other than "aaaaggghhhhh!!".
I have a calorie counter at cronometer.com. When I enter in, say, "moderate" biking for 20 minutes, it tells me I burned 216 calories. That's all well and good. Who knows? But when I put in "vigorous" bike ride for the same time, it tells me 323 calories burned.
My question is this: Another person, say Rider B, in great shape could do my same route in the same time and not be breathing heavy at all, effectively moderate for him. Rider A, me, does it as fast as he can and at the end is completely and utterly spent. It takes about 10 minutes for me to breathe normally again.
I'd say Rider A did a VIGOROUS workout, while RIDER B did a moderate workout, right? Did we burn the same about of calories because we covered the same distance on the same bike with the same body weight in the same time? Or did the fact that RIDER B wasn't challenged nearly as much mean that less calories were burned?
Or conversely, if RIDER A goes all out to exhaustion because he's in pathetic physical condition, did he burn more calories? As I get into shape, this ride will gradually change from vigorous to moderate, for me, but will the calories burned remain the same? They don't on calorie counters, because when you change the intensity from vigorous to moderate, the calories burned changes significantly.
I guess it comes down to "vigorous" versus "moderate". The ride is quite vigorous to me, but for a great rider it wouldn't be much effort at all to do it in the same time I did it. Who burned more calories if all other specs are the same?
If the two riders cover the same distance in the same time then the more experienced rider will burn fewer calories. But generally more experienced riders will burn more calories over the same distance because they will ride faster.1 -
My question is this: Another person, say Rider B, in great shape could do my same route in the same time and not be breathing heavy at all, effectively moderate for him. Rider A, me, does it as fast as he can and at the end is completely and utterly spent. It takes about 10 minutes for me to breathe normally again.
I'd say Rider A did a VIGOROUS workout, while RIDER B did a moderate workout, right?
Nope. Same route, same conditions, same bike, same sized rider, same speed -> same calorie burn.
How hard it feels doing it makes no meaningful difference.
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Also my first post.
First of all congratulations and keep it going!!
Just my opinion and some observations after riding for years and tracking different peoples data for years.
In answer to your question - I somewhat agree with some of these answers but everyone is different. Different people even of the same weight are very different. Men and woman are different. The same person on a different day is different. These numbers are very subjective. I somewhat agree that similar people of the same sex under the same conditions including fitness level, recovery level, fuel, acclimation, and a bunch more things would likely have very similar numbers. In real life that never happens. These numbers are useful for trends and for comparison to themselves.
I can't post any of my friends data of similar weight to me but they are very different. Hugely different on the same ride measured with the same device. Saturday my wife and myself did our weekly long ride - 62mi. The numbers come from a garmin that is connected to MFP. Screen shots attached. I weight about forty pounds more than my wife which is a large difference but on the same ride my calorie count was 1634 and hers was 623. She is a lifetime athlete and I am not. If you look at the screen shot she also did an hour run when we got back and with the run she is still only at 1050ish. Her performance is better, her recovery is better, her heart rate is lower (way lower), and she burns way less calories. I also ride with people my own weight (or more) that burn less than me because of their fitness level, experience, and so on. Now if you reduce the load down to something that is comfortable and easy for both of you the numbers will be closer. A big hill and running beyond your personal threshold will dramatically affect your efficiency and the numbers. My wife's burn in a race when she is pushing it goes way higher. The good news is you will get better quickly and the numbers are very valuable to track your own progress.
If you are doing 40ish coasting down that hill on your Jamis that is one big hill! I am not sure I could make it up that hill. You are my hero. Personally I think you should do easier rides most of the time. That hill would fall into the interval training category and once a week is plenty.
Most coaches will use your ability to speak, respiratory rate, and heart rate as a good indicator of training level and you are way up there in zone 4 or 5. Go look at any training program you like as a guide. I strongly recommend a heart rate monitor. It is a great tool and also helps show your improvement. (besides you are flirting with max heart rate if not over on that hill). My resting heart rate and recovery time at the top of hills is dramatically improved (even if my wife leaves me in the dust) over a few years ago. We use all Garmin devices just because of Garmin Connect and we have all the data. It is very encouraging to go back and see the improvement.
I wish you the very best. I am going to train harder after reading your post. You are an inspiration. Thank You!
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