ciaraco

RickGr4

I don't see how anybody could accurately answer this question. There are too many variables. Ride your bike and work up a good sweat every time you go out riding. Unless you are over eating you should shed weight.

chasm54

Obviously, it depends on the five miles. Hilly or flat, going hard or easily, how heavy you are, all that. FWIW (which isn't much) riding at around 200lbs I usually estimate that I burn around 25 kcal per mile, on average. That seems to work out more or less OK over time. 300 kcal for five miles is certainly a gross overestimate unless you can maintain about 400 watts and cover the five miles in around 12 minutes.

chong67

You got a smartphone? Install a bike or exercise app and see. For more accuracy, get a heart rate monitor and strap to your chest.

My app auto pause when I am not moving.

It also depend on your height and weight for calories burned. If you are going uphill or downhill or flat land.

Its4theme

250lbs, 15mph, flat terrain, heart rate average about 145bpm. Per my Apple Watch and Cyclemeter, I average about 50 cal per mile. Before heart rate was brought into the equation, Cyclemeter gave me an output of 75 cal per mile. Like another poster said, there are a lot of variables in play. Most of it depends on how hard your body works.

NYMXer

For general purposes, you can estimate about 50 calories/mi for average cycling.

rm -rf

"It depends", but, at a moderate conversational pace: about 25 calories per mile. That's maybe 300 calories per hour. (50 calories per mile is in the "breathing hard" or "uphill" range.)

Bikes are very efficient! Yes, it's way less calories than most people would guess.

Here's a another thread with more details.

bisuper

I burned around 200-250 calories for 5 miles!

canklecat

About 50 calories per mile seems right. I've been using Cyclemeter for a week, without any physical monitors -- just plugging in my weight, etc. Wednesday's 30 mile ride, averaging 10 mph (varied from 5-25 mph with lots of head winds) and 1280 feet of climbing, estimated 1,650 calories.

ciaraco

Is that Strava app? I recently got it. I did some difficult hills overall that ride was 15 miles over almost 2 hours yet I managed to only lose 400 calories according to it :/

chong67

I use Runtastic Road Bike app.

I went to my website to look and for 24.24 miles, I got 479 kcal burned. I had HRM on. I am 5'7" 165 lbs. Is that about right or about wrong?

Kcal is Kilo Calories. Is that 4,790 calories burned?

jimmie65

It depends where and when I'm riding. If I'm riding through downtown San Antonio after the bars open, it's about 200 calories every 5 miles (250 if I go with a stout instead of an IPA).