Calories Burned

[jowwy]

I went out yesterday and did a 40 mile ride with 1100ft of ascent - i weigh 240lbs and my bike weighs 22lbs - my average speed was 13.6mph - temp was 3degs

how many calories would i have burned during the ride??

i have put this info into an online calculator and it came up with a figure and just want to know how far off it is.

Thanks Guys nd Gals

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

Without being properly tested and/or owning a power meter. Pretty much every calculation is a piece of string.

I've seen 30-40cals per mile mentioned around here before. But again it's at best a guess and doesn't include something which most forget about. Raised BMR for hours upon hours after exercise accounts for a lot of consumption.

 

[tadpole]

How tall are you,
How windy was it
How hilly was it, were you wearing Lycra
how much air in your tyres
how wide are your handle bars
how much effort did you put in
What was the weather like
what was the combined average slope for the whole ride
How fit are you, what is your Vo2max
how accurate do you want the guess to be,
I'd say between 1245 and 2069 calories depending how efficient you are.

 

[jowwy]

Without being properly tested and/or owning a power meter. Pretty much every calculation is a piece of string.

I've seen 30-40cals per mile mentioned around here before. But again it's at best a guess and doesn't include something which most forget about. Raised BMR for hours upon hours after exercise accounts for a lot of consumption.

which is why i'm asking peoples opninons - cause everyone will come up with a different figure and i'm sure it can be calculated without a power meter

and 30/40 calories per mile based on what???

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

which is why i'm asking peoples opninons - cause everyone will come up with a different figure and i'm sure it can be calculated without a power meter

and 30/40 calories per mile based on what???

I've been wondering that myself.

I can assure you. Your calorie consumption cannot be calculated without actual testing.

 

[jowwy]

How tall are you - 5ft 10"
How windy was it - 6mph
How hilly was it, were you wearing Lycra - 1100 ft of climbing and yes
how much air in your tyres - gatorkins at 95psi
how wide are your handle bars - 44 cm
how much effort did you put in - average speed 13.6mph
What was the weather like - flaming cold
what was the combined average slope for the whole ride - i live in south wales we have hills and mountains not slopes
How fit are you, what is your Vo2max - fat not fit
how accurate do you want the guess to be, - if i want it to be accurate i'd buy an over expensive power meter like T.H.M.N.E.T keeps trying to sell everyone
I'd say between 1245 and 2069 calories depending how efficient you are.

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

I'm not trying to sell anyone,anything.

You're looking for a guess, you got one of your own accord via a calculator. Roll with that?

 

[tadpole]

which is why i'm asking peoples opninons - cause everyone will come up with a different figure and i'm sure it can be calculated without a power meter

and 30/40 calories per mile based on what???

Try here, it's as good a guess as anywhere
http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm

 

[vickster]

I'd guess at 40-50 per mile. But that's a guess...somewhere beaten 1500 and 2000 therefore

 

[redcard]

i'm sure it can be calculated without a power meter

You're so sure you don't know how to do it so you ask everyone to guess for you?

Also, your average speed is absolutely nothing to do with effort.

 

[jowwy]

I'm not trying to sell anyone,anything.

[/quote

it was tongue in cheek hence the smiley whistle

 

[Rob3rt]

Even a power meter provides only an estimate, this estimate is subject to error.

There is a fundamental assumption made in the calories burnt being approx 4x that delivered to the cranks as measured in kJ owing to the human body being ESTIMATED as ~25% efficient (the estimate varies by small amounts thus this is where error is introduced) in converting calories burnt into physical action (the rest lost to heat etc), as 4 kCal is roughly 1kJ, the factors of 4 cancel and thus kCal as measured by a power meter is approx equal to calories burnt. APPROX, not absolutely correct, owing to assumptions made about the efficiency of the body (which varies person to person anyway).

Usually, they (implementers of such algorithms) use a value that results in the calorie figure being slightly higher then kJ, and not all of them take the same value, eg. Strava and Garmin connect will return differing calorie estimates even if you use a power meter.

I just take kJ as kCal with a 1:1 ratio as this is almost certainly a slight under estimate but a much better estimate than other methods such as that from HR monitors etc.

 

[ColinJ]

Coming at the question from a different viewpoint ... I was wondering why you want to know how many calories you burned?

If the reason is to do with weight loss, then why not just do the rides and weigh yourself? You wouldn't see much difference for one ride, but 10 such rides should burn (say) 3-5 pounds off if you don't eat and/or drink extra to compensate. (Assuming that you were eating and drinking just enough to maintain your weight before you started doing the rides.)

If somebody was able to measure that you only burned a fairly small number calories on your ride, would you:

• Give up in disgust? Don't - the exercise is doing you good!
• Do even more cycling? If so, then why not just do that anyway?

If the calorie burn was higher than you thought, would you start cutting back? Don't - the exercise is doing you good!

I say - forget the calories and ride your bike. Do the riding that you want to do, and adjust your diet to suit your size and activity levels.

(But if you still desperately want to know how many calories you burn on that ride (and later, recovering from it), I'd say 1,500 would be towards the low end, 2,500 would be towards the high end of the range and the actual number is likely to be somewhere towards the middle of the range. But as stated above, the only way to be sure is to measure it and that isn't going to be easy for you unless you have a sports scientist and a lab handy!)

 

[Ningishzidda]

At 5' 10" and 240 lbs, don't worry about how many calories you burned, eat normally and observe how much lighter you are next week.

 

[Ningishzidda]

You're so sure you don't know how to do it so you ask everyone to guess for you?

Also, your average speed is absolutely nothing to do with effort.

Explain.