Posts: 9
9/25/10 6:28 P

I find the sparknotes calorie counter for cycling to be a gross overestimate.
The best way to get an idea of the amount of calories your burning is by measuring your power. If you have a means of doing this (gym bikes and spin bikes usually have power meters) than I suggest doing a few workouts on one and getting an idea of how hard your working at different power levels.
Once you have an accurate idea of exertion vs power output its very simple. Just multiply your power out put (in average watts/hour) by 3.6 and presto. You have your hourly calorie expenditure!
Example.
If I ride at 200 watts for 2 hours.
200 watts * 3.6=720 Calories per hour
Now, if I want to learn my total calories expended......
720 calories per hour * 2 hours=1440

200 watts is a pretty high power output for a non-racer but it was a nice round number for the example lol.

original poster- If you pm me I'll give you a fairly accurate estimate of you average calorie expenditure on the bike.

Posts: 8,603
9/15/10 12:59 P

I have a Timex one, but I am unsure of the model # since it's at home.

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9/15/10 11:47 A

SBATE, what HRM do you have?

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Posts: 8,603
9/15/10 11:31 A

My HRM and SP give me pretty much the same total of calories burned, and with different lengths and intensities of riding. I tend to ride at about 25kms/hr for a 40 minute ride, and 22 for an hour or more.

Pounds lost: 20.0

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Posts: 26
9/14/10 9:23 P

If you ride in an area like I ride in where there are hills everywhere you can burn quite a few calories biking!! Just one more reason among many why it's my exercise of choice. I use a Polar HRM too and find it very helpful to track calories burned but also to help me push a little harder.

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Posts: 293
9/14/10 5:48 P

SP is apparently much smarter than I am...I didn't realize it was taking my weight in to account when calculating the calories burned.

current weight: 173.4

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SparkPoints: (25,032)
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9/14/10 5:38 P

At my weight, the 15 mile ride calculated at less than 10 mph still comes out to 629, or twice what the HRM indicated.

Frustrating.

Edited by: REVJVH at: 9/14/2010 (17:40)

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Posts: 293
9/14/10 5:17 P

If you use the -Cycling-Under 10 mph- category in the SP fitness tracker you will get much closer to what you HRM is telling you.

I realize you were going about 10.5 mph on your shorter (15 mile) ride, but using the under 10 mph category, I came up with something like 425 cals burned. If you enter in 150 minutes at this rate, it comes out to 749 calories.

Hope that helps.

current weight: 173.4

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9/14/10 5:13 P

I think your Polar is closer to right, and is in line with the values I get off my Garmin HRM. www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist.htm gives the calories burned per hour for different activities. You're going ~10 mph, so ~250 calories/hr. Therefore, 350 for the 15 mile ride, and 625 for the 24 mile ride. It's frustrating, but cycling just doesn't burn as many calories per hour as a lot of other activities. Plus, I'd rather underestimate than overestimate my calories burned.

current weight: 139.0

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Posts: 3,889
9/14/10 5:06 P

My rule of thumb is always go low.

A quick back of the envelope calculation/guesstimate based on my power #s suggests that I would probably burn much closer to 314 than 1000+ cals going at 10.5mph for 85 minutes.

current weight: 190.0

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9/14/10 4:56 P

I bought a Polar RS100 heart rate monitor to get an idea about how many calories I'm burning when I do exercise that SparkPeople's fitness trackers don't have calorie information for.

I've worn it biking a few times, and the disparity between the Polar and SparkPeople is huge.

Today, I rode 15 miles in 85 minutes. SparkPeople says I burned over 1000 calories; Polar says I burned 314.

Last week I did 24 miles in 150 minutes. SparkPeople said 1120; Polar said 515.

What do you think, folks? Which one's closer? The online calculators I've checked tend to be closer to SP.

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