75,000 cal/year
burned on a 10-mile round trip, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year — about 1,500 a week, or roughly 21 lbs of fat. That is the site's published example; yours depends on your distance, your weight and how much assist you use.
A week of commuting vs a week at the gym
The 10-mile example commute against 3 typical gym sessions
Gym session assumed at 400 calories. Commute figures at 30 calories per mile, moderate pedal assist.
Does the motor not defeat the point?
It is the first thing everyone asks, and it is a fair question. Pedal assist lowers the effort per mile — that is what it is for. But it lowers it rather than removing it: you are still pedalling, and most measurements put eBike riding squarely in the moderate-intensity band that public health guidance is written around. At roughly 30 calories a mile you are working at maybe half the rate of an unassisted bike, not zero.
The more interesting effect is behavioural. People with eBikes ride more often and go further than they did without one, because the hill on the way home and the prospect of arriving sweaty stop being reasons not to go. Half the intensity across three times the distance is more total activity, not less. An unassisted bike that stays in the garage burns nothing at all.
The part that is really worth something is the time
Calories are the easy thing to count, so they get counted. But the reason a commute beats a gym membership is not that it burns more — it is that it costs no extra time. 3 gym trips a week at 75 minutes door to door, including changing and getting there, is about 195 hours a year carved out of your evenings. The commute takes none, because you were going to work regardless.
That is also why it survives contact with a busy month. Exercise you have to schedule is the first thing that goes when work gets heavy; exercise attached to a trip you are making anyway does not need defending in your calendar.
30 cal
per mile at moderate assist
0 min
of extra time in your week
Moderate
intensity band, most of the ride
What it does not do
It is cardio, and only cardio. It will not build or maintain muscle mass, and it does nothing for upper body strength — if you lift, keep lifting. Treat the commute as the aerobic base that frees your gym time up for the work that actually needs a gym.
The calorie figures on this page are estimates from average bodies and average effort. Your weight, your terrain, your assist level and how hard you feel like pedalling on a given morning all move the number, sometimes a lot. The calorie calculator takes all of those as inputs if you want a figure built from your own numbers rather than a national average.
Keep going
See it for your own commute
Map your route once and every calculator on the site works from your distance, your weight and your assist level.
Map your commute