how many miles of cycling equivalent to 1 mile of running?

5:1

2.5 on a mountain bike

3 on a road bike

This thread has been done a thousand times and is of course going to be a debate of opinion.

0.

x miles of cycling equals zero miles of running.

WTF??! wrote:

0.

x miles of cycling equals zero miles of running.

How many cups of sugar is equivalent to one box of broken glass?

Time is equal for both of them. People coast WAY too much when cycling which is where those skewed ratios come from.

Having ridden 140 miles which only got hard near the end there is absolutely no chance it's a 1 to 3 ratio. Even in running shape 45+ miles would of been impossible.

Personally an hour cycling 20 miles would be equivalent to a 4/5 mile jog.

I think this is the most accurate. AS someone who does both, biking is relatively easy and recovery from a bike ride is insanely fast,

biketranslater wrote:

Assume that the heartrate percentage and intensities are the same, what is the ratio of cycling miles to runnning miles?

Obviously there is no such comparison when it comes to fitness terms. You can cycling 25 hours a week with good training and still not be as running fit as you could on a solid 4-5 hours running 40mpw. Specificity and all.

It's also a poor question because it depends massively on the terrain, as well as the speed. The only way I think the question even remotely makes sense is if you attempt to look at it from a calories perspective. So lets take a hypothetical 65kg guy who burns maybe 100-110 cal/mile running.

In cycling your calories per mile vary significantly with the wind. At 10mph you might burn approximately 15 cal/mile assuming flat ground. We'll assume a decent, typical position on the hoods from a drag perspective. Bring that up to 15mph and you're looking at 20-25 cal/mile. 20mph and you're looking at 35 cal/mile. Drilling it at 25mph you start to approach 50 cal/mile, and at an eyeballs out 30mph that would be almost 75 cal/mile.

So, as a very rough guideline on flat ground, you need about 3-3.5 miles of cycling for the same amount of mechanical work as you do running. Any variance from this though and the numbers can change drastically. Even a 5mph wind can have a significant effect on the energy needed.

For a 65kg rider, climbing a hill around 8% gradient would burn roughly the same calories per mile riding as running.

Londonpp wrote:

Having ridden 140 miles which only got hard near the end there is absolutely no chance it's a 1 to 3 ratio. Even in running shape 45+ miles would of been impossible.

Personally an hour cycling 20 miles would be equivalent to a 4/5 mile jog.

From a "how long does it take to recover from perspective" this is probably roughly correct. I'd probably peg an hour doing 17-18mph as closer to a 5M jog, but that's just me. Unless it's super flat the effort needed to go 20 is usually a bit more than the effort for a casual 5 mile easy run.

Yeah I'd go with that as terrain makes it so subjective. Time wise an average 8 hour training week cycling would roughly translate to 4 on foot for me.

I certainly don't miss the time it used to take to get out the door - all the clothing, sorting the bike, cleaning it all the time.

An endurance 'long ride' would need to be at least 3 hours whereas my 'long' runs are only 90 minutes.

Being a elder cyclist, my goal when I am in condition (when the weather is optimal), I like to make sure I get under 2 hours for about the distance

of a marathon. I am never slower than 2 hour and 11, as a result of wind conditions.

As a midpacker tryathlete, I use a ballpark figure of 4:1 biking to running miles when comparing myself to pure runners

It seems about right

Example: if I bike 60mpw and run 20 mpw, I am about as fit as a 35 mpw runner with skewed tendencies to be a little worse performing in distances over 5k owing lack of sufficient long runs/tempo workouts primarily.

Most of my biking is junk miles. Thanks to injury (running) I've replaced the long slow run with a long bike ride (2-ish hours)