Oxygen consumption during outdoor recreational cycling

Abstract

The relation between oxygen consumption and cycling speed during outdoor recreational cycling was studied in 20 healthy subjects, men and women aged 20–30 and 50–60 years. They rode a touring bicycle at speeds between 2·8 and 8·3ms⁻¹(10 and 30km h⁻¹). No significant differences in oxygen consumption were found between the sexes and two age groups. The scatter of the oxygen consumption data was least when oxygen consumption was expressed in terms of body surface. Different types of equations were developed for the prediction of oxygen consumption from the cycling speed which all gave approximately equally accurate predictions ( is oxygen consumption in lmin⁻¹ m⁻², Vis, cycling speed in m s⁻¹). The equation may also be applied for cycling in traffic situations if the mean speed is corrected for stop limes.