How long can I ride my bike to equal 10,000 steps? This has been a reoccurring question from fitness enthusiasts and bicycle lovers. Several people and health experts, consider that walking 10,000 steps a day is beneficial for your health and should be the goal if you are striving for an optimal lifestyle. And we understand that this is very important for your overall wellbeing that’s why this article will be answering it.
Speaking on the surface, without using any means of conversation, it will take you 46 minutes of cycling to equal 10,000 steps which are like 5 miles. Now we know this can be difficult to achieve with your regular office job and daily activities that is why cycling is here to save your day.
Read also: The Best Women’s Cycling Communities To Join For Support And Encouragement
Having all these in mind, it’s also important to know how to calculate the steps even while riding, so, below are a few methods on how you can calculate it to keep you abreast with how well you are doing.
1. The Fitness Tracker Hack
To do this, you will need to strap your fitness band to your ankle so that it can give you a reading. While doing this, you need to note that it may not give you an accurate reading, but it can do the basic measurement. You also need to note that cycling and walking are different motions so the tracker may not pick up when your leg is moving or it can pick up the movement too much and over track your steps. If you have to use this method, it is advisable to set it to a workout on your tracker and then convert the miles to steps.
2. Your Stride Calculation
This method is a bit complicated because you will be needing things like a measuring tape and a marker. When you have them, follow these guidelines to get your accurate calculations.
- Spread your feet so that they are in line with your hips. Using the marker pen, log your position.
- Take 10 steps forward.
- Mark the position where you stopped.
- Measure the distance between the two points.
- Now you can work out your stride length. Let’s say that the distance covered by those 10 steps was 20 feet. Divide 20 by the number of steps taken, in this case, 10. 20/10 = 2 feet.
With this, you can now convert miles covered on your exercise bike into feet.
3. The Approximation Method
While this method is simple, it is not the most accurate as all it does is give you an easy workout method. Running on the understanding that one hour of cycling at a moderate pace equates to approximately 10,000 steps, it becomes an easy way to convert your cycling time into several steps. The same goes with if you clock up 30 minutes on your portable turbo trainer, you can count that as doing 5,000 steps, then if you double these times, you can double your steps.
Read also: Empowering Women In Cycling: Inspiring Stories Of Female Cyclists
4. The PEHP Conversion Chart
The PEHP Health Benefits created an Activities to Steps Conversion Chart is a conversion chart that considers an hour on the bike, at an average pace of 10mph to be the equivalent of 8000 steps. It calculates that cycling at an easy pace of 10mph is the same as walking 133 steps a minute so 133 * 60 = 7980 steps. So, imagine you cycle at a pace of 13mph, this will be around 178 steps a minute. Picking up the pace again to an average of 15mph that would be 222 steps a minute.
5. Conversion With A Fitness Tracker
You can do this conversation method with your smartwatch or fitness tracker if you have one. Ordinarily, walking 10,000 steps is equivalent to burning around 300 – 400 calories. Being able to see how many calories you have burned on your fitness tracking device can help you calculate when you have done the equivalent distance on your exercise bike. While this may not be a fully accurate method, the fitness tracker or smartwatch is a tool to have that can help you monitor your progress.
With these methods, you can easily keep track of and convert your steps while you cycle. Note that just like it was stated, some of these methods are not 100 percent accurate, but they can at least give you 95 percent of what you need.
Read also: The Most Common Bike-Fitting Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
FAQ
- How many steps is 1 mile on a bike?
Roughly, for every mile that you are cycling, you can equate it to roughly 440 steps.
2. How do I convert cycling to steps?
Properly go through the article again and you will find how to convert it there.
3. What other exercise is equivalent to 10000 steps?
Running or jogging two and a half miles is equivalent to walking 10,000 steps.
4. Which exercise is better walking or riding a bike?
Cycling can be better for burning more calories while walking may help with bone density and tends to cost less than cycling.