Calculator
What the Cycling Calorie Calculator does
Cycling Calorie Calculator: calculates Calories Burned, Burn Rate (kcal/hour) and MET Used from Your Weight, Duration and Intensity (MET). Example: your weight 70 kg, duration 30 minutes and intensity (MET) 7.5 gives calories burned 262.5.
Point it at Your Weight, Duration and Intensity (MET) and it returns Calories Burned, Burn Rate (kcal/hour) and MET Used. Edit a field and the answer updates in place.
Typical users are someone starting a new plan. A single number is most useful as a trend over time rather than a one-off judgement.
Everything happens inside this page. Nothing you type is sent to a server, and there is nothing for us to store.
The sections that follow cover the fields, the method, and one full example computed from the defaults.
What do the Cycling Calorie Calculator fields mean?
The Cycling Calorie Calculator uses 3 inputs. Each input has a default that makes sense on its own, so a partial edit still gives a valid result.
| Field | What to enter | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Your Weight | measured in kg; accepts 30 to 200 | 70 |
| Duration | measured in minutes; accepts 1 to 480 | 30 |
| Intensity (MET) | accepts 1 to 20 | 7.5 |
How does the Cycling Calorie Calculator work?
Each output is derived from the inputs above in a single pass; there is no hidden state carried between runs, so the same inputs always give the same calculation.
Range checks come first, so the formula only ever sees values it can handle.
Worked example
These are the values the Cycling Calorie Calculator loads by default, and the result it produces from them. Here is the calculation as it stands the moment the page loads.
| Your Weight | 70 kg |
|---|---|
| Duration | 30 minutes |
| Intensity (MET) | 7.5 |
| Calories Burned | 262.5 |
|---|---|
| Burn Rate (kcal/hour) | 525 |
| MET Used | 7.5 |
| Summary | About 263 kcal burned in 30 min of Cycling. |
MET values for cycling
Cycling cost rises with the cube of speed, not linearly, because air resistance dominates above roughly 20 km/h. That is why the MET values climb so steeply at the top of the table.
| Cycling | MET | 30 min at 70 kg |
|---|---|---|
| Leisure, under 16 km/h (10 mph) | 4.0 | 147 kcal |
| Light effort, 16-19 km/h | 6.8 | 250 kcal |
| Moderate, 19-22 km/h | 8.0 | 294 kcal |
| Vigorous, 22-25 km/h | 10.0 | 368 kcal |
| Racing, 25-30 km/h | 12.0 | 441 kcal |
| Racing, over 32 km/h | 15.8 | 581 kcal |
| Mountain biking, general | 8.5 | 312 kcal |
MET values are from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al., Med Sci Sports Exerc 43(8):1575-81). One MET is the energy cost of sitting quietly, roughly 3.5 ml of oxygen per kilogram per minute.
What changes the number
- Above about 20 km/h, most of your power goes into pushing air aside. Going 10% faster costs roughly 33% more power.
- Drafting behind another rider cuts effort by 20-40% at speed, which is why the MET table assumes riding alone.
- Terrain and wind change the real figure enormously. A headwind can double the cost of a flat ride.
- Because you are supported by the bike, body mass matters less on the flat and much more when climbing.
These figures are population averages. Individual variation of 10–20% is normal, and the compendium itself is drawn from studies with modest sample sizes. Use the result to compare activities against each other, which it does well, rather than as an exact measure of what you personally burned.
Read next: BMR and TDEE: Why Every Calculator Gives You a Different Number
How to use it
- Enter Your Weight in kg (30 to 200).
- Set Duration in minutes (1 to 480).
- Put Intensity (MET) (1 to 20).
- Each keystroke triggers a fresh calculation, which is cheap because it happens locally.
- You get Calories Burned, Burn Rate (kcal/hour), MET Used and Summary back.
- Copy Link is the quickest way to send the exact scenario to someone else.
What this tool does not do
- Body composition, ethnicity and age all shift what a "normal" result means.
- These formulas come from population averages and cannot account for your medical history.
- The result reflects the moment you ran it; anything that changes over time is not tracked.
- Results are only as good as the inputs. Check your units before reading anything into the output.
Frequently asked questions
Enter Your Weight in kg and Duration in minutes. Look for the unit beside each label; the result is reported in a stated unit as well.
Your Weight accepts 30 to 200 kg. Out-of-range entries are refused up front, which is safer than silently clamping them.
With the values loaded when the page opens, calories burned comes out as 262.5. Any edit re-runs the calculation, so there is no stale number on screen.
It is not stored or transmitted. The calculation happens locally and leaves no trace with us.
Nothing at all. There is no registration, no paywall and no per-use quota.
Treat it as an estimate. It uses general population formulas that cannot account for your medical history, medication or body composition, useful for orientation, not for decisions. Talk to a clinician before acting on it.