Originally Posted by
achoo
I've averaged 160W for 7 hours doing a double-metric century, which comes out to be almost 5,000 cal. And I'm not exactly fast - there are a lot of riders who are faster and put out more power (burn more calories) than me for longer times.
A typical 75-mile day for a bicycle tourist and doing double-metic centuries aren't really comparable. Yes, you can have a 5K calorie day if you work hard enough, but most riders aren't remotely fit enough to do it. In the TDF, the riders consume about 4-5K during the race proper. We can nitpick the numbers, but the point is that most of the sources seem to dramatically overestimate calories burned in everyday normal riding. If you're assuming 800+/hr and not racing, you're not being realistic. And if you eat these calories every night assuming you'll burn them off, you'll gain weight.
- Mark