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Mountain Biking: calculating calories by distance, not time

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    • CommentAuthorFree Memberjcdill
    • CommentTimeFeb 2nd 2009
     
    jcdill

    The mapping function here is pretty cool, but the calorie calculations are not working for me.  If I map a ride at 14 miles (yesterday's ride) but don't have my exact time, the site gives me different answers for how many calories I burned based on how long I estimate the ride took.  That's obviously wrong - it takes a certain number of calories to move a given mass (my body and bike) a given distance no matter how fast I go.  If I say it took 2 hours, the site says I burned twice as many calories as if it took 1 hour - which is nonsense - going slower and taking more breaks doesn't burn more calories!

    Does anyone know of any sites that calculate calories based on weight and distance?  Even better if they take terrain (altitude changes) into account, and of course that they have a separate category for "mountain biking" that doesn't think all mountain biking is BMX or the same as road biking. 

    Thanks!

    • CommentAuthorFree Memberdaytrekker
    • CommentTimeFeb 6th 2009 edited
     
    daytrekker

     

     try www.dietandfitnesstoday.com. They have a good one [calories burned].if you click on cycling in the list it gives you a list from steady cycling,mountianbikeing,bmx ,raceing and others.hope this helps.

    • CommentAuthorGold Membershipaea@mmf
    • CommentTimeFeb 6th 2009
     
    aea@mmf
    Actually, you're incorrect in pretty much all your assumptions. Calories Burned depends predominantly on the duration of exercise not the level of difficulty. A lot of this is to do with the basal level of energy burned during exercise and a non-linear relationship between speed and physical activity. This results in the integral of total forces at 'half' the speed being greater then the integral of total forces at your full speed. This is also why professional cyclists will train for very long durations over sprinting the same distance (although this would feel more tiring while burning less calories).
    • CommentAuthorChampionship Membershipairdoc7
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2009
     
    airdoc7

    I've been using a formula from Bicycling magazine for the last couple of decades.  It incorporates body weight, average speed, and distance.  On the downside, it does not adjust for bike weight (my mountain bike was definitely more of a workout than my road) or type of terrain (trail or crushed gravel is more difficult than road).

    But it's pretty good as an approximation that I use to compare one ride (road) with another.  Sometimes I'll use it to estimate how much I should eat while riding over several hours.

    Anyway, here's the formula (if I'm reading my spreadsheet correctly):
    calories (Kcal) = [(body weight (lbs) x ride time (minutes) x 0.014] x [2.71828182845904^(ave speed (mph) x 0.092499399)]

    Don't ask me why it's out to 15 significant digits.  But anyway there it is.  If you plug it into Excel or another spreadsheet, it spits out your energy usage.

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