turbo or road? which is best?
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Personally I want to be fit and good at cycling, but my priority for the moment is weight loss. There's no way I'm going to be a decent cyclist weighing 25kg more than I should be. So that has to come first.0
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Simon Masterson wrote:The Strava calorie figure is a useless fudge number.
My data originates from Tacx, not strava0 -
deejaysee wrote:Simon Masterson wrote:The Strava calorie figure is a useless fudge number.
My data originates from Tacx, not strava
The point is that they are all useless fudge numbers. The best you can do is get the data from one source and only compare it to other data from that source.0 -
I did my first ride on Zwift last night and that gave me 498 calories in 30 mins so unless Tacx and Zwift are both talking BS then i say 800 in an hour is easily done........and i'm far from a Pro ffs0
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deejaysee wrote:I did my first ride on Zwift last night and that gave me 498 calories in 30 mins so unless Tacx and Zwift are both talking BS then i say 800 in an hour is easily done........and i'm far from a Pro ffs
They are both talking BS
Measuring calories is very complicated and involves detecting how much water and CO2 you produce when you breathe, as methabolic products of burning "fuel"... any other way is just an educated guess... I can give you a number which will be just as different yet just as good as the one your thingy gives youleft the forum March 20230 -
deejaysee wrote:I did my first ride on Zwift last night and that gave me 498 calories in 30 mins so unless Tacx and Zwift are both talking BS then i say 800 in an hour is easily done........and i'm far from a Pro ffs
I think the point many are making is that any calorie figure quoted is based on a number of factors, many of which are a guesstimate. Using several sources may help to get a consensus but you still end up with a consensus based on guesstimates! Personally, I just ignore the calorie thing as it doesn't mean anything in terms of training. Most of the pros who have diet management don't rely on specific calorie expenditure figures, more a case of ensuring the right foods and an upper limit on calories taken factored against the type and length of activity...and even then the diets are often dynamically managed by measuring body fat as it is easier to just see how the pro is doing weight wise and adjust on the fly to reach the required weight/fat.0 -
Point taken but the calories so called guestimate cant be that inaccurate that a reading of 800 should really be 500.
My heart rate, cadence, speed etc is all being recorded so it cant be that far off0 -
deejaysee wrote:Point taken but the calories so called guestimate cant be that inaccurate that a reading of 800 should really be 500.
My heart rate, cadence, speed etc is all being recorded so it cant be that far off
Maybe you are right, maybe you are not, who knows...
What does a heart rate mean without a baseline? Nothing... your 150 bpm might use the same calories as Indurain's 110 bpm. The machine doesn't know you and thinks you are Joe average... the amount of calories you really use sets you close or far apart from Joe averageleft the forum March 20230 -
If you have a power meter you have an exact quantification of work performed *in turning the pedals*. That can be converted directly into calories. But you will actually have burned 4 or 5 times that amount in calories to do that work. Although the relationship is very complicated, my understanding is that in practice, the variation usually falls within certain bounds in "trained" people, that being about 20-25% efficiency. If so, then an estimate based on work performed using power meter data should be able to be accurate to within about 20% in most people (5% is 20% of 25% ;-)). Someone who knows more about variation in metabolic efficiency among moderately fit people may correct me if I'm wrong here.
If you ride for an hour at 222 W you will burn 800 kJ in turning the pedals. That's 191.2 kCal, which at a metabolic efficiency of 25% would equate to a total of 765 kCal burned, or 956 kCal at 20% efficiency. So accuracy of estimates aside, burning 800 kCal in an hour is certainly quite doable for a half-fit amateur, and some pros will doubtless be able to burn 1500 kCal in an hour.0 -
Some HR based calorie estimates are moderately accurate - newer Garmins use firstbeat 2 which apparently validates within 10% of lab tests.
Of course +/- 10% is still a fairly large range.0 -
I always fall about laughing when I see people on a turbo. They look like hamsters on a wheel. I've only ever used a turbo to set a bike up after major maintainance. And that usually involves about 10 minutes on the thing.0
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Milemuncher1 wrote:I always fall about laughing when I see people on a turbo. They look like hamsters on a wheel. I've only ever used a turbo to set a bike up after major maintainance. And that usually involves about 10 minutes on the thing.
You bought a turbo so you could do maintenance on your bike?0 -
Milemuncher1 wrote:I always fall about laughing when I see people on a turbo. They look like hamsters on a wheel. I've only ever used a turbo to set a bike up after major maintainance. And that usually involves about 10 minutes on the thing.
TROLL KLAXON!
Nobody can see me when I'm on the turbo and it makes me faster when I get on the road so who gives a sh!t. You'll never see me doing it to fall about laughing.0 -
Indeed there's always one isn't there. Who gives a crap about how you look inside or out. Turbo is better than no cycling at all that is without question.
I too use my turbo to work on my bike. It's very handy although the rear mount can get in the way of the rear mech.0
