How many calories are used cycling as fast as your legs can go?

rubadub

I have seen some sites saying 300kcal per hour cycling. But obviously there are different paces, nobody would say you used Xkcal using your feet to get around! you could be strolling or sprinting for the hour.
What about cycling at full pace, as fast as your legs can go in a reasonable high gear?

I found this site with some info.
http://www.cptips.com/energy.htm

Is there a calculator I could put in my weight, bike type, weight of bike and average speed etc.

interesting bit from this page http://www.cptips.com/weight.htm

Some authors have suggested that riding at slow speeds (<50% VO2 max) is preferred for a weight loss program as more of the Calories expended will be supplied from fat tissue storage at lower levels of exercise. Let's look at this argument in more detail. If you ride at 65% VO2max, your body's fat stores will provide about half of your Caloric needs and the other half will come from glycogen reserves. At 85% VO2max, the relative number of Calories supplied from fat fall to about one third of the total number expended with the balance again coming from glycogen reserves. However, if one looks at the absolute numbers, a fit cyclist riding 30 min at 65% VO2max will burn about 220 Calories (110 fat Calories, 110 Calories from carbohydrate or glycogen stores). The same cyclist, riding at 85% VO2max will burn an additional 100 Calories (total of 320 Calories over the 30 minutes), with 110 Calories still coming from fat and the balance of 220 coming from carbohydrates. So even though fat provides a smaller percentage of the total energy needs, the actual number of fat Calories burned during the 30 minutes of exercise remains unchanged.
Even if the duration of the faster ride were shortened so that total Calories expended were equal (but proportionally more fat Calories with the slower pace) during both rides, a recent study at Georgia State University demonstrated an equivalent weight change i.e. there was no support for the idea that metabolizing fat for energy resulted in a greater weight loss. Another study at West Virginia U. study assigned 15 women to a low intensity (132 beats per minute) or high intensity (163 bpm) exercise group, both exercising for 45 minutes, 4 times a week. There was a decrease in overall body fat the high intensity group, but not the low intensity one, further evidence that it is total Calories expended, not the source of those Calories (CHO vs. fat) that makes the difference in an exercise supported weight loss program.

It is the final balance between total Calories burned (from ANY source - carbohydrates, fats, or protein) and those eaten (i.e. the NET NEGATIVE CALORIC BALANCE) that determines whether weight is gained or lost. The advantage of riding more slowly is that it may make the ride a more enjoyable experience for the novice rider, and the pace can be maintained for hours. If you have only a limited amount of time to ride, the faster your average speed, the more Calories you will burn and the more weight you will shed.

In fact there has been speculation that when you exercise at a slow pace, and preferentially burn fat Calories while maintaining muscle glycogen stores, any post ride carbohydrate loading may find the "tank full" (i.e. muscle glycogen stores) so to speak, and any additional carbohydrate Calories will be converted into fat instead. The bottom line is to ride at a pace that is comfortable for you, push yourself occasionally for the cardiovascular benefits, and avoid eating more Calories than you expend if your goal is to lose weight.

another link http://pwp.value.net/~fitness/index.htm

zAbbo

Burning calories at a a high intensity rate is unlikely to be as beneficial for weight loss, if thats what your after, as the eneergy used won't be coming from fat stores. But if you were looking for an idea, perhaps a heart rate monitor would help.

Reyman

zabbo wrote:

Burning calories at a a high intensity rate is unlikely to be as beneficial for weight loss, if thats what your after, as the eneergy used won't be coming from fat stores.

The article seems to contradict this point by saying that if you exercise at a low intensity you will indeed burn fat but you will have carbohydrates to spare, whch will then turn into fat and negate some of your effort.

The high intensity trainer burns both the fat and the carbohydrates and loses more weight in the same exercise period.

Seems sensible enough to me.

BossArky

I used to burn around 900 calories doing 31km in 51 minutes a year or so ago.