calories burned bicycling seems too high?

Sorry, I know people have posted about this before, but I'll never find those posts, and I'm just starting to ride a road bike, so I'm not sure.  The calculator I used, http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm , says that in 2 hrs of riding at average 14.4 mph, I burned 650 calories.  That seems really high.  Is that possible?  I put in 0 wind resistance since I don't know about that.  It was a hilly route but I put 0 for "slope of road" since I started and ended at the same place.  I weigh about 130.  Can anyone who uses a hrm give me an idea if 650 is way out of the ballpark?  (Or point me to earlier posts on this topic... though I'm not great at the complicated calculations people get into about this.)  thanx!

That seems like an odd calculator since it is asking for wind resistance and slope which are two values that you will never know.  But what you do know is that both values are greater than zero which is why your calorie burn came out so low.  Yes, I said LOW.  You can easily burn 650 calories in one hour on a road bike if you give it some effort.

It's not hard to really rack up the calorie burn on a bike if you work hard -- you are using your body's largest muscles to fuel the effort -- the bigger the muscle used, the more calories burned while using it.  One reason why cycling is such a great cross training tool for runners.

Wow, cool.  Now that I think about it, I guess it's easy to spend a lot more time on the bike than on the treadmill, so that's why the calories add up more than I expected, even though I'm not sweating or working as hard for a short time.  Biking is more fun!

Well, first thing is that on a hilly route, you should consider that it's more than zero slope even if it's a loop ride. After all... you might spend 5 minutes working really hard to get to the top, and then 30 seconds riding down the other side. Overall, your time spent working harder is going to be higher than if you were riding a flat loop. But that's beside the point.

I read once that when running you can estimate your calories at about 100 burned per every ten minutes for a 150-pound person. I don't think bicycling burns more than running, and believe me, I have a lot of experience as a long-distance bicyclist and runner. Unless you are all-out racing, or climbing steep hills almost exclusively, I think you probably burned closer to 500-550 calories an hour bicycling, since you are only 130 pounds. Most calculators estimate that I burn, at 17 mph average and 150 pounds, about 550 calories an hour, and I'm a very efficient rider. So yes, I would agree with you that the calculator you were using is probably giving a high estimate.

Hi ainedb

The 650 estimate was for two hours. 

I've read posts that say both things about loop rides- that the uphill and downhill cancel each other out, and that they don't.   It sure seems harder on a hilly route.

 

 

You might be interested in trying this site: http://www.mapmyride.com/

You can map your rides and keep a training log.  It also has a calorie calculator that I find to be very close to my heart rate monitor.

Oh, I'm sorry that I misread the OP then. 650 calories for two hours seems reasonable to me, and perhaps is even a bit too low. Two hours of riding is probably closer to 800 calories burned...

Thanks for the info everyone. 

trhawley, I had used that mapmy run before, but I didn't know they had a site for bicycling too.  I'll check it out.  thanks!