New to road cycling (Heart rate ?)

AlahDamIt

Hi

Had a MB for several year's (Lapierre Zesty), not used much off road due to the amount of broken bones I've got and metal plate's (22 at last count) :roll:

I bought a road bike 6 weeks ago and count get enough which is great, doing several 7 mile runs a week and 25 mile runs at the weekend at an average of 16mph which I am pleased with after a 12 month break, also got a heart rate monitor.

My question is im 42, when im first setting off around the 1/2 mile mark im hitting a hill (Down), my heart rate is hitting 194 and this is on 2 occasions. Is this good or bad should I see this dropping with time. :roll:

NITR8s

I am fairly new to cycling too, started properly in March and was interested in what my heart rate was doing so watched it over a 45 miles ride.

My Max I noticed that my heart rate on flats was about 170 - 180, on hills it climbed to about 195 and on decents it would drop to about about 140 or lower depending on the length of the decent. My average heart rate was 176.

I hope this info helps.

t.m.h.n.e.t

AlahDamIt wrote:

Hi

Had a MB for several year's (Lapierre Zesty), not used much off road due to the amount of broken bones I've got and metal plate's (22 at last count) :roll:

I bought a road bike 6 weeks ago and count get enough which is great, doing several 7 mile runs a week and 25 mile runs at the weekend at an average of 16mph which I am pleased with after a 12 month break, also got a heart rate monitor.

My question is im 42, when im first setting off around the 1/2 mile mark im hitting a hill (Down), my heart rate is hitting 194 and this is on 2 occasions. Is this good or bad should I see this dropping with time. :roll:

Your HR may well be higher during the warmup period. 1/2 a mile isn't long to get blood pumping and heart rate settled.

paul2718

It's possible that your jersey is flapping on the downhill and since you've not worked up a sweat the monitor strap is mis-reading.

For an example, http://app.strava.com/rides/13179747 if you go to the 'performance' tab and enable heart-rate there is a spike at 2m45 caused by exactly this.

Paul

giarc

Sounds like jersey flap to me. If your top is a little loose the wind when descending will make it flap like a flag in the wind which confuses the HRM!

AlahDamIt

Yep think your right about the flapping, went down a different hill, I wasn't pushing it and still had the same heart rate of 195 plus. Thanks for the responses is there an easy way of stopping this from happening as I am doing lots of hills.

thescouselander

My HRM takes a while to settle down. Often when I'm just leaving the house my heart rate shoots up to 225!!! After a few miles it goes down to where it should be. I guess it's just down to the contacts not conducting properly until there's a bit of perspiration ot help make the contact.

jamienorton

i've just got a Garmin with HRM and after a 20 mile averaging 17mph i'm getting an average heart rate of about 185bpm, seems high to me, checked my resting heart rate this morning and it was 47bpm. Don't really know what much of this means tbh, to stay in zone 2 id probably have to walk next to the bike.
Link to ride http://app.strava.com/rides/14000843

KINGGARY

I find wearing a base layer helps reduce the erratic readouts, if I'm not wearing one I often see readouts of 250 plus on my ride data.