Originally Posted by
dagray
I looked at my calorie count for a 10 mile Zwift ride compared to a 30 mile ride outdoors, and the calories burned were almost the same.
This is due to more hills in Zwift, and also more coasting/soft pedaling outdoors.
I ride with a power meter (Stages), cadence sensor (Cateye), heart rate monitor (Garmin) and let the trainer (TacX) tell Zwift my speed.
Wow. That can't be right. Edit: unless you were doing alp d'zwift or something.
I checked my most recent Zwift ride along with a solo ride (using TT bars), a hilly ride with just one other person (he did most of the pulling) and a group ride. The kj per km were:
Zwift: 21.45
Solo Ride: 23.66
Duo Ride (hilly): 23.86
Group Ride: 22.14
Zwift was the lowest for me in terms of energy expended per km travelled. I checked the last Zwift "race" I did, one of the ones on the World Championship course, so quite hilly, and it was 26.11 kj per km. So, slightly higher (due to the hills and me riding at a much more intense pace), but still very much in the same ballpark. I don't see how you could get triple the energy spent per unit of distance like you say.