Hi. Monday friend and I did over 80 miles, longest of year. FWIW I'm 69, weigh 210, 5'11" and in good shape.

Resting heart rate in low 50s and thought max was 165-170 based on earlier efforts. Average of course would be about 150 if 220 less age.

We rode 56 miles averaging 17.2 with little wind. Then turned to come home and the wind picked up strong from East, our direction. For the last 30 miles I ended up pulling for about 25 as partner got cramps. Before a break we had 2 miles straight into wind. I pulled at about 15 MPH and it was tough going but not too much. Guess like a stress test?

Glanced down at Garmin 500 and to my surprise HR read mid-180s! Didn't feel that tired. After resting, HR came back to 115 and we finished up. Felt very strong and could have done century riding solo.

After loading Garmin Connect realized hit 196! WTF? 15% greater than thought was my max.

Interested in your experiences and how unusual this is. Very surprised at the 196. Any other observations?

I would think it was a glitch. If you didn't feel the stress, chances are it was a computer malfunction or something weird interfering with the reading.

I used to get weird reading if I was riding under high voltage wires.

Similar thing happened to me this summer when my Garmin Forerunner reading was (gasp) 243. I thought it was a glitch, too, but it happened again on my next ride coincident with a climb and my HR stayed there for ~40 minutes. Long story very short, turns out it wasn't a glitch at all, rather, supra ventricular tachycardia for which i'm being ablated on 10/20. (It happened again during a treadmill stress test, making it easy for the cardiologist to make her diagnosis.) Hope your reading was, indeed, a glitch!

It'll be a spike in the readings. Have a look on Garmin connect and you'll be able to see how long your HR was supposedly 196. My guess is that it will have been transient. It can be caused by a cycling jersey flapping against the chest strap - if you were riding into a highish wind, that could be it.

I frequently will see my HR jump 30 -35 bpm when doing hard intervals or in races. The first couple times I saw the jump on the monitor I panicked and felt a difference in my chest. My Z4 HR starts around 148 and Z5 begins at 158 with a maximum around 170. I could be doing a Z4 interval and at 153 bpm suddenly the HR jumps to 180 bpm and will stay in that range and reflect any change in intensity by increasing or decreasing. As soon as I begin to recover after the interval or coasting down a hill it will usually drop back to 146- 148 bpm as quickly as it elevated. I think the highest it ever recorded was 193 while doing some high cadence intervals on the trainer last winter. I have taken screen shots of the my HR during workouts where it did the jump thing to my doctor and he seems OK with it for now since the HR reflects my efforts then drops back as soon as recovery is introduced. He told me that it could be an age thing and to just keep an eye for trends. Luckily I do most of my riding and training with a power meter and the data retained to my laptop. I use three different HR monitors, one for the Power Tap, one for the Stages Track Crank and a HR monitor only for mtb riding and the same results happen with all.

Looks like it would be a glitch in the hardware. Maximum VO2 max heart rate for a 65yo male is 155 and 150 for a 70 y.o. I suppose you might be one in a million, but that's a pretty significant deviation from average.

Heart rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

J.

How did you establish what you think is your max HR? It is extremely difficult to hit and impossible to maintain for more than 10-15 seconds. Going as hard as you can won't get there. It takes a few repeated all out efforts until you're cross eyed and feel like you might expire any second. That's your max. You generally won't ever see it while riding normally, even with very hard efforts at times.

I had a similar result on my last ride. It's flapping fabric, low humidity, and static electricity.

Here's the start of an easy to moderate paced ride, but I didn't wet the Garmin HRM strap with the usual two drops of water.

I saw a consistent 175-190 rate, then stopped and wetted the strap sensors, and it dropped to the expected 120-125 range. (My old Polar strap would show 220-230 when flapping in the wind on dry days. The Garmin rarely has these high heartrates if it's wetted beforehand.)

That linked chart is the discredited "220-age" formula. Do a bikeforums search in the 50+ forum and you'll see reports way higher, or sometimes lower, than this calculation.

(The newer formula, HRmax = 205.8 − (0.685 × age) happens to be perhaps 2 to 5 beats low for me. But the wikipedia mention of it says it has a 6.4 beat standard deviation. )

So do you guys think those max HR # using that 220 calculations are really very good?
I'm 58 and those # say I should have a max using 220 = 162 or using the 210-[.5] = 181
I have a real max HR of 204 and on a good hard I'll push 184 - 189 for a good while but will need to recover for a bit, but in the 170 - 178 range I'm fine for the long hall good effort.
Below 159 HR range is a good century pace for me.
I do have a PM but these are my HR #'s

OP may of had a glitch in some way but 180 for a while does not seem like its something to worry about and a max reading of 196 either, as long as his HR is able to recover to that 115 if he stops for a min or 2.
If his HR did not drop and stayed hi for a long period that would be something of concern.
But if OP is really worried about those #'s get it checked and make sure first.
I do think your max is higher than the 165-170 you think it is.

Thanks chasm, Looigi, rf and all who responded. Very helpful and much appreciated.

Learned how to get more details from ride (love this forum), and found average HR below 125 first 2:15; 125-150 from 2:15 to 4:00 hours. Then came East two hard miles where HR went from 145 to 196 over about 10 minutes.

HR rose from 176-196 during last two minutes. Yes there were two brief spikes at end to 196 and again to 179. Not sure but about a minute in length as rose up, down and up again to 179.

Temp 95 during this time on level road. Cadence at about 90 during these 8 minutes and for entire ride.

So.....yes two seeming spikes but still high HR over about last two minutes. Otherwise HR around 170 which is likely my proximate max based on riding Miami hill--bridge to Key Biscayne.

Not sure how long a spike is and Garmin Connect doesn't allow exact times AFAIK.

Thanks again to all. Feeling better already.

Here is an example of my HR jump from a ride done last week with a couple buddies. I know that it was not a dry jersey/strap that caused the spike. In the past when I got the spike due to dryness it would read 220+ Gold = power, Blue = speed, Red = HR At about the 14.5 mile mark I did a significant effort followed by the jump in HR. We are all made up differently.

No.

For a 70 yo male that comes out to 157.8 vs 150 in the old chart. Both are a long way from 196 which, I guess, is my point, that I'd be looking at the hardware instead of the ticker. But who knows?

J.

I was getting way high readings like that on the Devil Mountain Double (Morgan Territory Climb), i.e. 245 - 255 . . . which I knew couldn't be right.

Turns out it was the strap (not the "bean") on my Garmin with two (or more) inner wires touching that can cause that (according to the Garmin Rep on the phone).

I had put the strap in the washing machine, which he told me was the problem. Washer mangles strap, wires touch (too high reading) or don't touch (too low reading).

So that might be it, (unless you always hand-wash your Garmin strap).

Rick / OCRR

I'm 63 and often hit 193....but that's red lined and I can't stay there but a few seconds. My threshold rate is 172 - at least a couple years ago when measured. Resting rate 53. This data would indicate my heart stroke is probably on the shorter side. But there is nothing wrong with it.

Yeah, the 220 - age thing and all the other formulas don't work for a lot of people. But 196 is likely an error anyway. You already know that earlier extreme efforts only bring you to about 170, so another 26 bpm is very unlikely.

If you regularly do efforts that you suspect are close to maximum, your true max heart rate is probably a couple beats higher than that.

+1. I've had this problem with the old Garmin strap with the hard case. I now use the soft strap -- it gets dropouts but I know these are errors.

This. It often happens to me in a strong wind as well where wind helps drying out moisture of the jersey making static easier to happen. The wind also dries your skin which makes the strap contact not as good.

Thanks again to all for your thoughtful contributions.

FWIW I'm in camp of those who say 170 is likely close to my max and the 196 to 179 readings are aberrations for any number of reasons cited. Still first time had a sustained reading around 170.

The other takeaway from my ride is going (relatively) slow is good for long distances. Even an easy 19-20 MPH produced HR at 125 when pulling and 115 when pulled.

Wow.

I've been using a HRM since I got serious about this from the first of the year. This thread got me curious so I went back and reviewed the data.

My average max heart rate monthly average (162) closely agreed with the predicted maximum from the newer formula mentioned above until a few months ago when I started getting religious about getting my cadence up and most of the anomalies could be attributed to equipment issues.

Now into a couple of months of concentrating on spinning and really big hills my average HR is up only slightly but I routinely get transient spikes near 200 and they are almost always at transitions between descending and climbing.

Almost like my body is anticipating the increased work load.

This doesn't surprise me at all. I've been an avid rock climber since my 20's and you get the same effect when your brain tells you body to get ready to bust a big move.

I think you're doing great. If it helps to monitor the ticking of the ticker for training purposes or to make sure you don't overdo it, then you should. I used to use a HRM 20+ years ago. I was passing a pretty young lady during a group ride when the alarm went off to let me know I was above my "Max" HR which I had set according to some formula or other. I don't use a HRM anymore; I will be satisfied if my heart explodes while hiking, biking, or banging. Hey, I'm 62! If I die, at least I won't have to pay any more alimony.

Ha! Very funny!!! Thanks for kind words and "interesting" perspective on uses of HR Monitor. Some of it sounds vaguely familiar but then you are much younger.

Sometimes when riding in wind, the HRM goes whacky. I've seen mine go over 225 and basically refuse to move even as I slowed the pace. Your test would have been to pedal slower and see if the rate dropped in proportion to the less effort.