Your Garmin help, please

The last few weeks I've gone out for four or five rides, all pretty much equal in terms of climbing, distance, time and average and max speed. The first rides my Garmin 800 showed as ~3000 calories burned on each ride. Today I did the same but with a HRM on and it showed as only ~300 calories burned. Some online calorie calculators show that based on the time/effort/my build the ~3000 number should be fairly accurate, so I'm a bit baffled as to why today's ride came in so much lower. Anyone experienced similar?

3000 calories is a lot. Like: 80km at race pace, give or take.

Well the rides were all in the region of 80km long but with an average speed of around 28/29 km/h so hardly race pace. Each ride had somewhere between 3-4000 ft elevation gain, so pretty lumpy and I was definitely riding at pace as opposed to pootling. Which is why in my mind the figure of 3000 seems more accurate than the 300 quoted on the last of the rides. I just don't understand such a huge discrepancy

300 calories is ~30min at commute pace for me. There's no way it's for 80k.
Welcome to the wonderful world of completely horseshit estimated calorie counts.

185 calories for my 30 minute commute
#hippyisfat

I ride my commute at Z1-Z2 so only 400W NP or so.

#beefcake

Well the rides were all in the region of 80km long but with an average speed of around 28/29 km/h so hardly race pace.

The faster you go the more calories but the less time you're riding for. It pretty much averages out so the speed is not an important factor, only the distance (and elevation change).

Was the HRM working properly? With an HRM the Garmin will attempt to use that for the bulk of the calorie calculations based on the notion that an individual heartbeat correlates quite well to a specific calorie usage figure.

Cycling is generally 450-750 calories per hour, so 300kcal for the whole thing is woefully inaccurate.

I don’t know what this means. I try to ride fast

There is no try, there is only do.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I had a hidden motor a la Cancellara on the last ride and didn't even have my feet on the pedals for most of the ride... I always thought the calorie estimation was pretty wobbly science at best but had hoped for a vague bit of accuracy. Maybe I'll give the HRM a few more tests see what's up

The calorie counting and recovery advice on Garmins is ridiculous.

I've recorded a 3km ride to Sainsburys at 20kph which my Garmin has advised warrants a 17 hour recovery period.

Thanks for the advice, this all sounds quite true. I don't know how I'd know if the HRM was working properly, it states my average heart rate as 137 with a max of 205. I was going at a bit of a lick but not exactly as if my life depended on it. I can live without knowing the exact numbers, but I'm curious as to what would explain the discrepancy all the same

but I'm curious as to what would explain the discrepancy all the same

It's a Garmin.

That's because it knows you just went to Sainos for 4 bottles of whisky and a bag of NOS bottles...

I've recorded a 3km ride to Sainsburys at 20kph which my Garmin has advised warrants a 17 hour recovery period.

Some of that might be based on the HRV being measured and it picking up a precursor to illness. The device assumes that it may not be worn/used for every activity, so it tries to infer your physical state from the little data it sees.

If no HRM being worn then it's just random Garmin bollocks.

Ha!

:)

Also, climbing a 33% hill somewhere on the Pendle at the weekend, the Performance Condition thing flashed up 'POOR' - yeah how about don't rub it in Garmin, I could easily lob you in the next river I ride past

the Performance Condition thing flashed up 'POOR'

It was probably referring to its own performance as a GPS

Garmin out front mount for 22.2 bars. Does such a thing even exist?

@pit There are shims, I have one, you’re welcome to it

How wide is it? There's about 15mm of flat space on my bars. Otherwise I'd use a stem shim.

Anyone seen this before?

It started out as a few black horizontal lines and then became a larger black dead spot?

I’ve had it a little over three years now so it’s out of warranty but it still doesn’t seem a reasonable life span for quite an expensive device.

Garmin have no real interest and made a standard offer - I can send them my unit, and £200 and they’ll send me a refurbished unit with a 90 day warranty.

Current best plan is to replace screen myself for £35 then when the time comes to replace the unit, buy a wahoo :-/

1 Attachment

Looks like it has burned? Mine has some lines across it but has been functional with these for the last few years, they're not really an issue.

Anyone seen this before

Yes, on inumerable laptops. Glass elements of the LCD damaged by impact, usually a sharp object, allowing the liquid to leak.

The colour fringe is a side effect of polarization.

I've not seen the issue, but that seems like a stingy offer from Garmin. They've sold me a refurb Edge 1000 for 75 - 85 quid twice before. One of those times was my own fault - I crashed and smashed the screen. I'd try pushing them for a better deal on a refurb (or jump ship to Wahoo if you're waiting for an excuse to do that anyway).