If you want to poke around on the cheap, chest HRM’s aren’t terribly expensive. Even better secondhand. I started with a $25 Garmin HRM that works fine. There’s also an app called Cyclemeter that’s essentially a bike computer on your phone. Older Magene speed/cadence meters are a cheap way to feed that app additional data. I used this cheapo combo for a year or so before delving deeper into the data and into my pocketbook. Haha.

My pair of Duos arrived from Italy on Friday. Got 'em registered then screwed into cranks on my Tarmac on the trainer. Today I did a shortish, flat run on Rouvy as much for the effort as for trying out the Look-style clips. So far I'm liking the combo more than anything else I've tried.

Next comes figuring out just which device + app I want to use with the PM mech in these new pedals. On my trainer I can 'see' 'em but that's on the same port I use for the trainer so I think Rouvy wouldn't work if I drop trainer in favor of the Duos... somebody enlighten me if there's something I'm missing. Seems better option to use my Garmin head unit for taking data off the Duos, leave my Wahoo trainer feeding data to Rouvy for the route programming.

T'was 50° for the high yesterday here, grey & windy. Overnight a front moved through town, lots of lightning and thunder, but leaving warmer air behind it. It's 72° here now, outdoor season's really coming on quick (I hope!) but with gusts to 26mph I'll be sticking to the trainer for awhile yet.

I have a Coospo heart monitor, and I have fed that into ridewithgps. Interesting at first but then afterwards, it wasn't. It's a bother for me to wear.

I think I am saturated with toys.

I also have an Apple watch, and have worn it on rides with a Polar HRM for comparison. It surprised me how close the two devices were (2-3 BPM difference). Perhaps the Apple watch is too loose on your wrist. At any rate, unless you're racing or (god forbid) dealing with cardiovascular disease, the watch is probably good enough.

I've been using the classic Assioma Duo (Look-style) pedals for about 6 years and I have more than 25,000 miles on them. Yeah, they are pretty worn, but they still work great.

Yes, those are my conclusions for myself. I'm seeing if tightening the strap before a ride makes a difference. No conclusions yet. Accurate enough, I'm sure if it could just keep measuring and not quit. I'm 65, and I see my cardiologist three times a year. He has no serious concerns for me but wants to check often. I have a congenital mitral valve prolapse, and I can't for the life of me understand what risk that poses, and I think I understand that for now, it's not a problem. So I look at the heart rate graph on my rides and see if they make sense, and they do. That old "220 minus age" idea as a maximum seems to hold true. I haven't recently ridden so hard that I have trouble catching my breath, so I'll do that soon to see where my heart rate goes. In theory it should go up to 155, and I think that's about what it does.

I am planning to regain or build some strength, so it might help me a bit there. It will tell me the times when I'm not working as hard as I think and the times when I'm working harder than I know.

Please be careful when you're testing the limits!

I've just turned 77. 'Mild' HA 20 years ago left me with two stents and a changed attitude towards my conditioning, or what passed for such at the time. I see my cardiologist once a year (not the same one who installed the stents then prescribed a statin) who keeps telling me to keep up with whatever it is I'm doing.

With my returning to recreational bicycling in 2023 I've gained some new perspectives on minding what my body's trying to tell me, in no small part because I discovered this Forum (thanks all of you!) as from the benefits of tech that just didn't exist BITD.

That '220-age' seems to work well enough for me also. I set my MHR to 150, can comfortably maintain 140-145 BPM on my trainer w/o having to gasp for every breath. Out riding outside I instead limit myself to 130-135 mostly because of the greater risks from falling at any significant speed when there might not be anyone around to help if I'm unable to continue.

The HR info my Apple Watch provides (a series 7, purchased during the pandemic to monitor blood 02 levels) isn't easily accessed while riding. Instead I use a Wahoo TrackR chest device that feeds data I can monitor from my iPhone (perhaps my Garmin 840? I'm still trying to suss out exactly how I like it configured for outdoor use) which is a lot more convenient. Data from both devices seem to be remarkably consistent over time used.

One other metric I've learned to watch closely is resting heart rate. My watch gives me numbers that have been consistent with my level of conditioning as well as when I've been sidelined by some physical ailment. When I haven't been using my trainer or riding outdoors that RHB # can be up in the mid-60's and it's at those times I know I'm not feeling my very best. Adding regular physical activity that gets my HR up into the 120-130+ range I can see that RHB come down over time. Just recently it's come back to mid- to high-40's, something I hadn't seen since last summer & fall.

At my age I think that's A Good Thing, compared to a 30-something local bicycle legend's 36; he rides a lot more in a week what I'm grateful I can manage in a month!

Those formulas don't work for everyone. About 15 years ago (age 60) I climbed a very steep hill in my area and saw 192 on my Polar HRM (with chest strap). I was breathing hard, but about 30 seconds after cresting the hill I was back in my target zone. I reported this to my internist, who dismissed it as an erroneous reading. He had me get a "stress echocardiogram", which turned out normal. About 2 years ago (age 73), I mentioned to a new internist that I routinely see brief excursions into the 180s. He was skeptical, and prescribed a 7-day cardiac monitor ("Zio"). This was a bit of a pain in the butt; plus it cost me $60. On the second day I went out on my bike and hit the hills. I saw 175 on the HRM, and reported this to my doc, who was skeptical. When I got the results, sure enough there was a 175 max, and otherwise 7 straight days of normal sinus rhythm. Now my doc believes me. According to the formula, my max HR would be 145. I doubt I have the heart of a 45 year-old.
I had to see a cardiologist/vascular medicine specialist about a year later, after I had a pulmonary embolism while visiting my daughter in Boston. Everything resolved well, and three months later an echocardiogram (not "stress") showed normal cardiac function. I was on an anticoagulant for 4 months, and recommended not to ride my bike. This was not OK with me, but I was a good boy. After 4 months and good test results, I was cleared to stop the Eliquis. I still see high heart rates on the bike; this just seems to be normal for me.

Hmm, my resting heart rate is 63. I don't need to do anything about that, do I?

Mid-60s is pretty good according to THIS. At random times during the day, mine is usually in the 60s; occasionally mid-to-upper 50s. If I wear my Apple watch overnight, sometimes I see excursions into the upper 40s... though that's not strictly "resting" heart rate.

I went to the doctor for a physical this past week and the nurse kind of freaked out when I got a 51 pulse rate on that little finger pulse ox thing. Intentionally started breathing a bit faster and the next reading was 63, and she was satisfied with that.

Your cardiologist's the one to answer that for you, he knows you better than any of us here. We're all different, the numbers we get from our kit about what our body's doing may potentially be misleading.

More on topic: I'm liking these SPD-SL Assioma pedals, they're easier to get into and out of than other systems I've tried. Having a pair presents some complexity getting data I can compare to what a single 4iiii-equipped crank arm's been giving me. The apps I use that can take the power data typically can handle just one device. I think there's a setting in the Assioma app where a user can combine L & R data when required, I need to look back at that. Meanwhile I've moved them onto my Diverge in anticipation of a sunny, mild Tuesday day after tomorrow with winds at a more biking-friendly velocity than the 20 - 40 mph stuff we've been having the last few days.

Being able to move them easily between my three bikes was a major feature that convinced me I should acquire a pair.

Last year I tried wearing that Wahoo TrackR at night, just for grins. Whereupon there were some suspiciously high 205's recorded between midnight and 1 AM over the course of a few nights. I've never seen that from the Apple watch, while the experience did cause me to put it to my cardiologist as to what might account for it. He promptly put me on a Holter monitor for seven days, the results from which were entirely normal.

Normal range while I'm awake is 65 - 75 unless I'm at work or on my trainer or out & about on a bike. Right now it's a sedate 58.

On one of my local routes, I would crest a particular hill and my Polar HRM would indicate 275 BPM. This was obviously not right as a quick carotid check indicated. Yet it happened every time I passed this particular point. Eventually it dawned on me that there was a microwave repeater tower that came into straight-line view at that point on the road. At some point, I upgraded to a Polar HRM with the "Own Code" feature, and I never saw the spurious reading again.

This reminds me of another incident with the first Polar HRM. I was riding in the Ore to Shore Mountain Bike Epic in 2001. A portion of the route was along a section of power lines. At a rest stop/fueling station on this stretch, I was receiving a banana from a volunteer when I noticed my indicated pulse was "0". I remarked to the volunteer, "Hmmm... I seem to be clinically dead." He replied, "Sometimes you're better off that way!"

Some of this discussion is digressing from EL&G to T&F, buf...

No 220-age is not a good metric. It may work for some, but I know many more for whom its far from accurate. I'm 64 and my MHR is 181 bpm. 10 years ago it was 184.


Occasionally I do see spurious high readings from my HRM. It had not occurred to me that this could be from microwave repeaters, but it's possible.
My current HRM is the Polar H10. I didn't know about the "coded" version. Will look into it when this one wears out.
Pretty. much every HRM I've owned does something wack from time to time. This includes Garmin, Wahoo, and Polar brands. Spurious high readings, low readings, stuck at some particular reading for minutes at a time, even though I know my effort hasn't been constant. Sometimes moving the HRM around on my chest or wetting it (if conditions are dry and I haven't yet started to perspire) helps. Sometimes it doesn't.
There's been lots of discussion of these kinds of things on BF over the years. My conclusion is that there isn't any HRM that is 100% reliable.

Yeah, that can happen as folks add their input. To me what some view as 'drifting' I look upon as 'depth of field' owing to the wide ranging experiences that bring us all here.

There was something mentioned (elsewhere?) here about 220 - RHR calculation, maybe age-factored? Don't recall just now, need to fire up the Wayback.

Those formulas are guides, not hard & fast rules, apply to some more than others. Commonality being that as we grow older our capacities for various activities, and the energy we can bring to them, begins to diminish.

"Do not go gentle into the night... Rage, rage against the dying of the light...." and all that.

No, disagree strongly. A "guide" that may apply to a population is in not necessarily a guide by which an individual should make a health or fitness evaluation.
If the general rule of MHR can be off easily by 20 bpm for an individual, it doesn't aid individual understanding at all.
Stating the obvious, that older people, as a group, aren't as fast or as strong as younger people, is not a particularly interesting thing that any of us need to be told.
Go to T&N and make the argument that reduced MHR with age correlates directly with an individual's "reduced capacities for various activities and energy". See what response you get.

Shorter: Don't use 220-age to judge anything about yourself. If MHR is something you care about, find a way to gauge it by direct measurement.

Seems the 'newest' calculation for MHR by age is the Tanaka Formula:

MHR = 208 - (0.7 x age) according to various search engines. (This one happens to be suggested by the Mayo Clinic.)

For women it's MHR = 206 - (0.88 x age);

Active individuals may instead want to use MHR = 211 - (0.64 x age);

DownUnder there's MHR = 206.9 - (0.67 x age);

BIG caveat being formulas can vary by as much as +/- 25 BPM so YMMV.

Yup. Another way to look at it is that if you take an active male with a particular MHR and try to estimate their age, you will get their age right within a window of ±40 years (±25 / 0.64). YMMV indeed.

[QUOTE=MinnMan;23730957]Go to T&N and make the argument that reduced MHR with age correlates directly with an individual's "reduced capacities for various activities and energy". See what response you get.[QUOTE]

Different focus there, not as much 'traffic' as here. There's always that Bell Curve when it comes to generalizations.

Indeed that would be best for each of us when motivation goes beyond a more generalized approach.

And if you haven't been in those ranges for a while, best to check with your MD to be safe.

Well, that's also overly simple.

Let's say you have a pretty good idea of your actual MHR. Not by some formula, but from your own data over a significant period of time.

If you one day see a HR that is well above your supposed MHR, the most likely reason is that your HRM is doing something anomalous. But if you have good reason to suspect that the reading is real, then you may be experiencing atrial fibrillation and indeed, you should get it checked out.

If on some other day you are doing a hard effort where you expect to see a HR near your MHR, and you can't get your HR up to any where near the expected value, then you may simply be under-hydrated, over-fatigued, or have some kind of unrecognized illness (something coming on, something that is otherwise mostly asymptomatic, getting over the flu, etc.), I wouldn't run to the doc just for that. Get some rest and see what happens on another day.
If your MHR, well tested under good conditions, suddenly has dropped a bunch (more than 10 bpm, or so) and this is repeatable over a period of time, then maybe think about getting it checked out.

Perhaps so. I was intending to err on the side of safety. You said "find a way to gauge it by direct measurement."
Direct measurement of maximum HR involves performing all-out strenuous exercise while continuously monitoring heart rate.
When I said "if you haven't been in those ranges for a while, best to check with your MD to be safe," I meant that a middle-aged couch potato probably shouldn't go for Max HR without clearance. Almost anytime an increased exercise regimen is recommended, it comes with the advice to check with your personal care provider.
This is not overly simple; it's common sense. There is a lot of undiagnosed obesity, diabetes, heart disease in the general population.
This doesn't necessarily apply to healthy individuals with a solid fitness base, but it doesn't hurt to be careful.
See Jim Fixx and Edmund Burke for a couple relevant examples.

Thanks everyone for your guidance. You've led me to see that I'm in good hands with my cardiologist and that my heart seems to be working well.

Well, I have to eat some of my words about heart rate monitors. I've used a Polar "FT7" for several years. This HRM has a digital "code" which prevents interference from other heart rate monitors and, as I've said, from microwave towers. Or so I thought. Today I went out for a nice, relatively relaxed 20-mile ride (only 600 feet of climbing). Average speed about 11 MPH. Average heart rate about 140, normal for me. But... Maximum was 198! I wasn't watching the screen, but I know I was never running that heart rate. My faith in the FT7 is shaken!