Last Saturday I did a long (for me) charity ride on the trike covering 96km. When I finished and before I had “saved” it on Strava it said that more than 3000 calories had been used however after saving it the figure displayed was 1800 calories. Can anyone shed any light on what’s happening here?

Ignore it – it’s a completely made up figure anyway! 😀

Normally has to refer back online to its cafe/cake stop database to allow for calories consumed mid-ride. The 1800 figure is net of sausage rolls and victoria sponge.

Basically for every minute stationary at a cafe location, that’s 100 calories or so.

Was it more nom nom nom than KOM KOM KOM?

If you to look at the calorie counter on Strava or Garmin it’s just proof you are a fatty trying to feel better about yourself. 🙂

It changes depending on what bike you say you’ve ridden e.g. road/mountain and possibly what weight you’ve put in for the bike.

It also over-estimates quite a lot, based on more conservative rules of thumb I’ve read (cycling weekly did quite a useful article, it’s online) Strava is usually between 30% and 50% higher.

It’s hard to know which is more accurate but if you’re trying to lose weight then I’d always go low…

Sometimes the Strava calorie counter sounds crazy high, but seemed reasonable for yesterday’s ~53.5 miles with ~1786 feet of climbing.
~3 hours of riding time, ~17.8mph average speed, total wight of me on bike including emergency kit and water ~87Kg.
Strava says 1801 Calories.
~600 per hour seems reasonable, perhaps ~10% high. Bluetooth HRM and cadence sensor fail for a lot of the ride.

While Wednesday’s five cat4 challenge in the South Downs was ~47.2 miles, ~3323 feet climbing, ~3 hours riding time (I was running on fumes getting home from Beacon Hill after four hill PBs).
Strava says… 1826 Calories (with HRM working). 😯

Actually that ^ does sound pretty reasonable, definitely comes in at the low end of the Cycling Weekly spectrum (think their estimates would say approx 900kCal/hr at that speed and weight, +/- 20%)

Hmm, now not sure if quoted Calories in my earlier post are from Strava, or the amazing data-tastic free plugin for Strava on Google Chrome explorer called Stravistix!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stravistix-for-strava/dhiaggccakkgdfcadnklkbljcgicpckn?hl=en

“more nom nom nom than KOM KOM KOM?”

That made me chuckle. I will be using that one in the future. Thank you.

On a related note, am I correct in thinking that if you have a power meter the calorie information in strava (when you view it on the web) is spot on, as it’s based on actual joules expended which has a straight conversion to calories (thus removing the guess work)?

Ride was on a recumbent tadpole trike which weighs around 22kg so I’m having the higher figure.

When I finished and before I had “saved” it on Strava it said that more than 3000 calories had been used however after saving it the figure displayed was 1800 calories. Can anyone shed any light on what’s happening here?

when you saved it the algorithm probably compared your route to its historical data and ‘corrected’ the amount of assent etc and thus the effort required.

However, as pointed out by muffin man it’s rubbish / wildly inaccurate.

the total ascent changes as well. I ended a ride the other day with my garmin claiming just over 3000 feet of climbing (I actually road up the hill a bit more just to clock it over.)but when it went onto to strava I was comepletely deflated gone back down to 2k something. Swizzers!

My calorie count is always 500+ up on the guys I ride with (Strava app on an iPhone 5).

How do you change the bike?

I’m using the phone app and my appreciation of what it’s doing is assuming every ride is on road so when you mtb it thinks you are riding easier than you are.

You need to ‘create’ each bike on your profile, once done there should be a wee drop down when you’re entering the ride details which allows you to select which bike you rode.

I’m beginning to think it’s far better to keep the weight of you “in your boxers” (or otherwise) separate from your bike and everything else in Strava. If you use the same bike to commute in your work gear as you do in reacreational lycra mode, create two (or more) separate bike gear entries and select the right one for the ride you just did when finished.

These days, my Wazoo can be anything from ~10kg to ~13.5Kg IIRC, depending on which wheelset/tyres I’m using. Then there is the 0-750ml water bottle variance, the emergency ~0.5Kg pump/tube/lever/multi-tool, ~1Kg extra in work gear rather than recreational MAMIL lycra etc.