Calories Burned Biking Calculator

Calculate the calories you burn biking given your body weight, cycling intensity, and duration.

How Many Calories Does Biking Burn?

Biking is a great cardio and strength-building exercise that can burn a significant number of calories. Another great thing about biking, or cycling, is that it can take on many forms.

You can burn a high number of calories riding your bike down the road, mountain biking over trails, or taking Spin classes at your gym.

Along with burning calories and helping you maintain a healthy weight, biking also has many health benefits, including a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Plus, cycling is considered to be a low impact activity, meaning it is more gentle on your joints than running or sports that involve jumping. This decreases the risk of injury or putting unnecessary stress on your joints.

The amount of calories you burn will vary depending on the workout, intensity, duration of work, and your body weight. The following chart shows approximately how many calories a typical 150-pound person would burn during various 60-minute cycling workouts.

Approximate number of calories burned in 60 minutes for various forms of cycling and different intensity levels for a person weighing 150 pounds.

Intensity	Calories Burned in 60 Minutes
Road Cycling
6 mph pace	250 calories
8 mph pace	415 calories
10 mph pace	485 calories
12 mph pace	570 calories
14 mph pace	715 calories
16 mph pace	850 calories
Mountain Biking
moderate effort	610 calories
vigorous effort	1000 calories
Stationary Bike (Spin)
very light effort	250 calories
light effort	345 calories
moderate effort	485 calories
vigorous effort	630 calories
very vigorous effort	785 calories

How to Calculate Calories Burned

You can get an estimate of the calories you burn from biking by using a MET calculator like the one above. When you add your calories burned through your cycling workouts to your basal metabolic rate, you can estimate how many calories you should consume each day to match your energy output.

You can also estimate calories burned using the same formulas that a MET calculator uses in a few easy steps.

Find the MET Value

To calculate calories burned during biking, you first need to determine the MET value based on the intensity of your cycling session. This will be based on both the intensity of your bike workouts and the form of biking you perform.

A MET, or metabolic equivalent of a task, is the energy burned during an activity that is expressed as a standardized number. For example, one MET would be how much energy you expend while sitting quietly; six METs would be over six times this amount of energy, which would be a vigorous activity.

There is a MET value for nearly every type of physical activity. These numbers are a ratio of the metabolic rate during that specific exercise compared to the metabolic rate at rest.

This is also defined as the amount of oxygen consumed while exercising compared to sitting at rest; this is necessary, since your muscles need that oxygen in order to effectively move your body.

The MET associated with your resting metabolic rate is equivalent to the amount of oxygen you burn at rest. This is estimated to be about 3.5 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute, which is equivalent to one MET.^[1]

As you exercise, you consume more oxygen. This means more intense activities have MET values above one.

METs are a simple way to estimate how many calories you burn during a number of different physical activities and exercises, including biking. A complete list can be found in the Compendium of Physical Activities.^[2]

Calories Burned Biking Formula

Once you determine the effort of your bike session, you can use the MET value to determine how many calories you will burn based on the amount of time spent cycling at that pace.

calories burned = time [min] × (MET × 3.5) × weight [kg] / 200

MET Values for Biking and Cycling

From this table, you can see that when you increase the intensity and bike at a higher effort, more energy is expended, and more calories are burned.

MET values for various biking and cycling intensities (from the Compendium of Physical Activities)

Bike Effort	MET Value
General Biking Outdoors
Leisurely/Low Effort	3.5 – 6.8
Moderate Effort	8.0 – 10.0
Vigorous Effort	10.0 – 15.8
Mountain Biking
Moderate Effort	8.5-14.0
Vigorous Effort	14.0-16.0
Stationary Bike
Low Effort	3.5-4.8
Moderate Effort	4.8-6.8
Vigorous Effort	6.8-11.0

Even for the same effort, you can actually burn more calories mountain biking as compared to stationary biking. This is because mountain biking typically requires a greater effort as you navigate trails and hills.

Research has even found that downhill mountain biking has a positive correlation effect on the physiological demands of the body, which can improve several components of health and wellness.^[3] This explains the slightly higher caloric expenditure as well.

Spin Workouts

While mountain biking requires a high energy expenditure, stationary biking can also burn a considerable number of calories, especially during challenging workouts. For example, a study found that Spinning workouts provide a high heart rate response and high caloric expenditure in just a 40-minute cycling class.^[4]

So even if you don’t have a road bike at home, you can still burn some serious calories doing Spin workouts on a stationary bike, especially during more vigorous sessions.

Biking To Burn Calories: Formal Exercise, Commuting, or a Leisurely Activity

Biking is an awesome activity that can be done as a leisurely ride with your family, an intense mountain biking ride along challenging trails, or even as a vigorous spin class at your gym. In addition, biking can be a way to commute to work to burn calories and save money on gas!

Studies have discovered numerous health benefits from those choosing to cycle commute to work. In one 2017 study, biking to work was linked to a decreased risk of developing heart disease as well as cancers.^[5]

Commuting to work is just one more way to add exercise into your day to increase physical activity and burn more calories.

From intense outdoor or indoor bike workouts to leisurely rides with friends, cycling is a great way to burn calories, improve your overall health, and have fun all at the same time.

This biking calorie calculator will help you estimate how many calories you burn based on the effort of your workout sessions and the form of cycling that you perform.