How do you begin to calculate the calories burned riding a 30-lbs bike on a smooth, flat surface for 1 mile versus walking this distance with a 30-lb backpack?
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There are a few too many variables in your question to easily answer. For instance, what type of tires, what speed?
But if you had a power meter on the bicycle you could measure watts and get an estimation of calories burned. Typically an average person is only 20-25% efficient so going backwards you can get calories burned. Energy (kcal) = Power (watts) * Time (hours) * 3.6
Same issue with walking. How fast, how heavy is person, how efficient is their walking? In this case you could put the person on a treadmill and hook a mask up to measure oxygen uptake and then calculate calories burned.
I mean really it’s incredibly hard to directly calculate how many calories a single individual burns doing anything. Because it can be variable depending on who you are and your fitness level and how much you weigh and what not.
But in general, there are two rough estimates that I personally use that google/health apps with back up and I was told by an athletic trainer years ago. On average a person will burn about 100 calories walking or running a mile. Slightly more for running, but when you think about it you’re moving your body the same distance, so it takes roughly the same energy.
Biking is much much more efficient, so on average you burn a bit less than half the amount of calories per mile as walking/running. So between 40-50 calories a mile.
But again, I don’t think there is a really a precise way to figure out exactly how many calories you’re burning doing something, to do that I believe requires getting hooked up to all the sensors and breathing in a mask that measures how much CO2 you’re breathing out and other fancy analysis stuff
Also, adding a 30-lb backpack as you mention, would increase the amount of calories you burn significantly. While the weight of the bike doesn’t matter as much.
https://www.calculator.net/calories-burned-calculator.html
What? A bicycle is said to be the one of most efficient methods of land-based locomotion. Are you asking about the backpack because a bike can weigh about 30 pounds? You’re on top of the bicycle and under the backpack. The more important factor is actually time, not distance.
Just use an online calculator. But counting calories for any purpose outside of academia is pointless as the closest you’ll ever get is a really good guess. For an idea though, you burn about 100 calories walking a mile (between 95 and 110 or so at this weight). Biking that would burn probably 25 or so, tops. Bike weight is essentially negligible (though a 30-lb bike is insane), as you aren’t carrying it–it literally rolls on the ground.
You could actually measure it in a lab by collecting your breath in a Douglass bag and analyzing how much CO2 you produced.
My thanks to everyone for your responses. It seems the consensus is that biking doesn’t burn as many calories as walking the same distance. This article may be of interest. It uses time instead of distance. [https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness/cycling-vs-walking](https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness/cycling-vs-walking)
You find a lot of different numbers online and they don’t really agree very well.
For walking, 60 calories is probably in the right ballpark. Faster pace is more, higher weight is more.
Cycling on the flat is really efficient. Maybe 20 calories, maybe less.
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