How Many Calories Does Biking Burn?

Wondering how many calories you burn on your bike commuting to work or on the weekend trails, or if biking can help you lose weight?

Read on to find out how many calories you can expect to burn while cycling.

Calories burned on a bike: outdoor

When we were children, we moved around and the bicycles worked on pedals.

We may not live on our bikes anymore, but cycling has many benefits for exercise, transportation, and fun.

Cycling is an exercise that offers both cardiorespiratory and muscular training with low impact on joints and knees.

It can reduce stress, and you can easily speed it up or slow it down depending on your fitness level and your goals.

Calories burned on a road bike

While you won’t get the same calorie-burning benefits on a leisurely bike ride as you would on a mountain bike, you can burn insane calories on the road if you pedal with enough intensity.

But let’s say your commute is 15 minutes each way and you weigh 150 pounds, you can still burn 232 calories just commuting to and from work.

Best of all, you won’t have to pay for parking.

Light effort (10 to 19.9 km/h on average) for 1 hour:

Moderate effort (20 to 22 km/h on average) for 1 hour:

Vigorous effort (14 to 15.9 mph on average) for 1/2 hour:

Mountain biking calories burned

Navigating all those hills, inclines, and declines inherent in mountain biking makes for a more intense workout than just pedaling through town.

A typical person weighing 150 pounds can expect to burn 477 calories in half an hour of uphill pedaling and 715 calories in 45 minutes.

Of course, since the typical ATV experience also includes coasting down hills, your burn may vary.

General, for 1 hour:

Ascent, vigorous, for 1/2 hour:

Competition, race, for 1 hour:

Calories burned riding BMX

BMX biking doesn’t quite offer the same burn as a vigorous trail bike experience with lots of hills, but this fun sport still burns a lot of calories: a 150-pound person can expect to burn 580 calories within one hour.

General, for 1 hour:

Calories burned on a bike: indoor

Indoor cycling is a great alternative to outdoor cycling in bad weather. Stationary bike workouts offer the advantage of being better able to customize and monitor results.

And you’ll find a variety of indoor cycling classes at many gyms, health clubs, and spin studios.

Light to moderate effort (51 to 89 watts), for 1 hour:

Moderate to vigorous effort (90 to 100 watts), for 1 hour:

Vigorous effort (101 to 160 watts), for 1 hour:

Factors Affecting Calories Burned While Cycling

Your weight and method of pedaling are just two variables that will affect calories burned, among other factors.

For example, if you keep pumping your legs during declines, you’ll burn more calories than if you just coast.

Likewise, you’ll burn more fat if you mix speed and intensity.

Steady-state exercise (pedaling at a low to moderate intensity throughout your workout) is a good way to improve cardiovascular health.

But high-intensity interval training (HIIT) — alternating periods of intense exertion and rest — is just as effective in this regard, and perhaps even better when it comes to losing weight.

The caveat: you need to be in good enough health to do HIIT safely and effectively, so move on.

How to calculate calories burned while cycling

You can calculate your own calorie expenditure by following these steps:

1. Research the Metabolic Equivalents (METS) of the cycling method(s) you would like to practice at Arizona State University. Collection of physical activities.
2. Use Cornell University METS-calorie calculator to convert the number from step 1 to calories burned.

This number may only be an estimate, but knowing that you just burned a few hundred calories while having a great time can definitely be motivating.