Also, the more fit you are, the faster your heart rate will recover. So the average for a ride will be harder to maintain because every time you slow down, encounter a stoplight, coast, etc...You'll recover immediately. The flip side to that is your heart rate will be very responsive to the work load at the moment.
With more training, the other heart rate zones on your graph during non-training specific rides will tend to fill. Unfit people tend to have lag in heart rate response that then redlines & stays redlined for the duration of the activity.
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the metric some fitness devices use to make training suggestions. If/when you over train, you lose variability & resting rate tends higher & often your muscles can't place enough demand to reach peak heart rate even if your heart wanted to go there. IOW: Take a rest for a day or 3.
For myself at age 45, (not that it applies to you in any way,) but I can cruise along on a hill climb, roller, sprint, whatever, comfortably at 180bpm and sustain for as long as is needed & not even feel out of breath, but as soon as I hit a stoplight or coast down a roller my heart rate drops immediately to 80-100bpm. If I can manage above 150bpm average outside in the real world, I know I had a decent training ride. I look at & expect a much more even distribution of bars on the graph.
220-(your age) is a rule of thumb, back-o-the-napkin, wives-tale for untrained sedentary persons. Dubious but not with out value. Conventional wisdom puts your max at 185bpm. Absent other factors that would be a reasonable number to set your zones by. Look for trends and time to recovery, actual heart rate, etc... in the post ride analysis.You'll get a feel for the number ranges that are appropriate to you based on your actual fitness & current training goal, assuming you have one.
Your graph looks like a dedicated training session. So, that's what it means.
Last edited by base2; 02-27-23 at 01:01 AM.