Originally Posted by
bluefoxicy
Well the watch reports 170-176bpm when I'm cruising at 15-16mph. Pushing 20 or pushing up hills, my heart might reach 180; but it seems to climb REALLY FAST until it breaks 165-170 and then slow down, hitting asymptotic inflection at 174. It rarely passes 174, and it's really hard to nudge it even 1bpm higher even under heavy load.
Don't know how to interpret that. Unless I'm maxing it out, my heart rate slides up and down rapidly. Start pedaling easier? I lose 15bpm in 2 seconds, I'll crash down 30bpm in under 10, and when I come to a stop at a light I drop right to around 115-125bpm in under 10 seconds. It looks like my lower bound hovers around 110... I'll float above that until I've rested for a minute, then it just slowly starts counting back... it doesn't immediately drop lower.
So it looks like once my body's operating, it idles around 110-115, redlines around 170-175, and just revs in between basically on demand with no stability. My normal resting is around 70-75 before I go do any work, by the way.
Odd.
No, not odd. You're just a typical American, totally out of shape. My normal standing heart rate is 55-65, my sitting resting is around 50. Cruising at 18 mph, it's around 120. It's all about the mileage, like Machka says. Get out and ride. Ride 100 miles/week for 3 months and you'll see a definite difference. You should see what womens' legs look like in countries where the bicycle is the normal means of locomotion. Heck, you should see my wife's legs and she's 63. The USA is physically corrupt.