Forerunner 210 - Calories Burned accurate for cycling?

dubcat

I know the Garmin Forerunner 210 is not meant for cycling. It is targeted at runners. However, I understand it measures calories burned via the measurements from the heart rate monitor. Are the calories burned calculated accurate when riding a bike too?

YeehaaMcgee

I'm guessing it will be looking at a combination of heart rate and distance - as applied to running.
I doubt it will be accurate for cycling, since you will be burning a hell of a lot more calories per hour mile whilst running as you will whilst cycling
And heart rate can vary during various scenarios anyway. A highly stressed situation for example, can raise your heart rate significantly, but you're not going to be burning calories at the same rate as running or riding.

dubcat

I found some good info on the garmin forum and thought I would share it here. Since I am using the heart rate monitor the calories burned are accurate according to the following thread. The guy compared his Edge with his Forerunner and the results were the same.

https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.ph ... g+calories

hope that helps other forerunner users.

YeehaaMcgee

Hmm, fair enough.
I'd be interested to see how accurate any of these are when compared to one of those breath-analyser thingummies though.

dubcat

I read they are about 15% out which is a lot. However they do provide a nice metric to monitor between workouts. To be honest it doesn't mean much as I don't count the calories I eat.

YeehaaMcgee

Aye, definitely useful for seeing, for example, that you've used a lot more this week than you did last week, and that kind of comparison.
I don't think Endomondo gets mine right, but I try and keep it fairly consistent, or increasing, from month to month - as interestingly it does take weight into account, so to burn off as many calories, I keep having to ride more, since my weight is decreasing.