I have a new, cheap HRM ( Cheap) and it has calories burned function.
How accurate are these things with respect to calories burned.
I'm a male, 130lbs. On 2 rides of approc 25-30 miles, it shows
calories burned of about 1000-1200 calories.

Just for grins, I've been wearing it all day today. So far about 10 hours.
My day started with a 23mile commute to work. I sit at a desk, walk to meetings, etc.
The current reading is 3800 calories. This seems very high given the standard 2000
calories per day shown on all food labels.

Sometimes I ride with a mileage goal in mind, sometimes a time goal,
maybe now I can ride with a goal of N Krispy Cremes.

Al

My day started with a 23mile commute to work. I sit at a desk, walk to meetings, etc.
The current reading is 3800 calories. This seems very high given the standard 2000
calories per day shown on all food labels.

Sometimes I ride with a mileage goal in mind, sometimes a time goal,
maybe now I can ride with a goal of N Krispy Cremes.

Al
I wonder what these things use for baseline references. Did you have to prog. your age/weight info into it I assume?

I'm always kinda sceptical about these sorts of functions, sorta like my Tanita body fat monitor scale. I know from having a float test done at BCSM that I'm only around 18% BF, but the Tanita insists that I'm 29-33% (depending on hydration) due to my unusual bulk for my height and gender, owing to the height / weight BMI tables that they base their programming on. I do use it to track trends, though. My Polar uses a similar caloric function, and I'm never certain how accurate it is. It doesn't seem to really reflect the wattage I put out; i.e. I don't seem to achieve a realistic variance in calories burned for a 3 hour Ward / Lee Hill grovelfest vs. a 3 hour Fruit Loops noodle.

Any of you electrons out there know what sorts of subroutines these things use? (Do I really want to know the whole answer to that...)

Dude, you gonna do the Swift ride tomorrow? If so, I'm probably going to be there, rain or no rain.

This topic has been covered several times and may be available via the search on this forum or on the Racing, Fitness, Nutrion forum. At any rate, the numbers you get from these things are specious at best. They typically significantly overestimate your calorie burn. All they do is take in some info you give regarding weight, or whatever, and then tie your HR to that. While there is arelationship of HR to calorie expenditure, it is individual. IOW, there's no way that you can figure out how many calories someone burns just from their HR. You would have to calibrate the device from known calorie expenditure and HR, and they don't ask for that data.

and i never really thought them reliable. it's nice to get the straight scoop.

Thanks