Heart rate monitor that’s easy to use

[Salted_Peanut]

What’s your advice on an affordable, simple and easy-to-use heart rate monitor? Bar mounted? Alerts to keep me in the correct training zone would be helpful.

[Dracoro]

Do you have as bike computer such as Wahoo, Garmin, etc. as they show HR if you have a monitor (e.g. from your smart watch, although not Apple Watch - one reason I no longer have AW).

I have a Wahoo Roam with Garmin watch HR, what;s good about this setup is that the Wahoo as well as showing HR figure (which I don’t pay much attention to) but does show colour coded (green/amber/red) for HR zone (which is easy to pay attention to).

Alternatively to a watch , a few chest strap monitors (again Wahoo/Garmin do good ones as I recall).

Not sure if there’s a bar mounted HR screen but I suspect if there was, it;s much of the way in terms of cost as a proper bike computer which would do a whole lot more.

Edited by Dracoro on Sunday 7th January 21:24

[Paul Drawmer]

A chest strap type monitor is many times better than a bar mounted one.

I've had one for for 5 years and it just works. New battery every year and that's it.

For a session that's got any meaning, I have to wear the right cloths, and putting on the HR strap is no effort.

[eyebeebe]

Wrist based HR for cycling is notoriously inaccurate. You need a chest strap or an optical sensor eg Polar OH1 on your upper arm for decent accuracy.

[Salted_Peanut]

What about a Polar M460 with a chest strap?

[ecs]

What's your budget? Hammerhead have 50% off their heartrate monitor when you buy one of their units. More expensive than the Polar, but you get more features (which you may or may not want).

[DE1975]

I got a boggo halfords chest strap HRM for £20 which works fine with my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt head unit.

https://www.halfords.com/cycling-technology/heart-...

For less than the Polar unit above, I'd probably get a Garmin 130 plus which can be had for under £140. Either with a basic chest HRM like the Halfords one or you can bundle the Garmin 130 with their own chest HRM for about £170.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08JHBKVS6/ref=twister...

Personally though, I'd pay a bit more for an Garmin Edge 530 with more features and colour screen for £190, and pair it with any chest strap HRM

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Cycling-Unisex-Adu...

Edited by DE1975 on Monday 8th January 10:08

[Daveyraveygravey]

DE1975 said:

I got a boggo halfords chest strap HRM for £20 which works fine with my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt head unit.

https://www.halfords.com/cycling-technology/heart-...

For less than the Polar unit above, I'd probably get a Garmin 130 plus which can be had for under £140. Either with a basic chest HRM like the Halfords one or you can bundle the Garmin 130 with their own chest HRM for about £170.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08JHBKVS6/ref=twister...

Personally though, I'd pay a bit more for an Garmin Edge 530 with more features and colour screen for £190, and pair it with any chest strap HRM

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Cycling-Unisex-Adu...

Edited by DE1975 on Monday 8th January 10:08

I have a Bryton 750 which does what the Garmin does for a bit less, depending on offers. Halfords have them for £140 right now, Ebay a bit less but probably secondhand.

Training with HR out on real roads is quite difficult. You have to set up your zones, and there are several ways of doing that. Some people and companies have 5 zones - Strava for example - but others have 6 or 7 zones. Z1 will include your resting hr and normal day to day life and some light exercise, z5 should be anaerobic, so very high, not sustainable. That leaves 3 zones in the middle which will be quite small. Just riding in one zone can be difficult, every slight gradient change or wind change even a surface change can add 5-10 beats to your current HR. If you're a bit sick or hungover, your figures will be different to "normal". It's a bit of research and a bit of trial and error, finding what works for you.

[stargazer30]

You can get a Garmin dual heart rate monitor and chest strap for about £50. The Wahoo ones are similar priced. Its a cheap and easy option to help you pace your rides (I assume you already have a cycle computer?). A power meter is obviously better but a lot more expensive.

The HR zones are not really that complex. Do a few max power runs and all out rides and log them to find your max heart rate, set it in your Strava profile and it will do the rest. In basic terms..

Zone 1 - Endurance - Meh - not doing much - keep this for those 100mile rides
Zone 2 - Moderate - Your best friend, stay in this zone as much as you can
Zone 3 - Tempo - Your working! Did you hit a hill?
Zone 4 - Threshold - Working hard, you shouldn't stay in this zone for long periods
Zone 5 - Anaerobic - should not possible to stay in this zone for very long, max power for sprints etc..

[BunkMoreland]

Also worth considering buying ultrasound lube if you're wearing a chest strap. Improves accuracy as they need to be wet on the pads and lets be honest spitting on the strap gets old quickly!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ultrasound-gel/s?k=ultras...

A little goes a LONG way so a 250ml bottle will last forever

[okgo]

If you’re serious about training I would go for a power meter as well. If you’re not, don’t bother with any of it.

[ecs]

Oh also, you can connect an Ant+ monitor to some Garmin watches (if you have/want one of those). I do this for gym workouts when I'm trying to target a specific zone. I don't wear watches tightly so the sensor on the watch doesn't work very well.

[eyebeebe]

ecs said:

Oh also, you can connect an Ant+ monitor to some Garmin watches (if you have/want one of those). I do this for gym workouts when I'm trying to target a specific zone. I don't wear watches tightly so the sensor on the watch doesn't work very well.

AFAIK you can connect an ANT+ strap to any Garmin watch or bike computer. They lead the ANT+ standards board I think. Most recent bike computers from other brands should support it too. Their specs will say.

[YorkshireStu]

Wrist HR is fine for casual use, where you just want an idea of how many calories you might be burning vs an algorithm alone which are entirely inaccurate. As are gym monitors you hold on to - wildly inaccurate.

Chest HR if you want to work to your HR zones since they are more accurate, to between 10-20% for the best ones.

Of course, HR isn’t ideal for in-training work either since your HR doesn’t reflect how good or bad your legs are, work load you can still manage etc nor is it very accurate. HR is a better tool for measuring recovery and response.

But, for most of us, chest HR is ok vs nothing albeit a lot can be said for simply old skool, how we feel approach. I ditched my HR monitor awhile ago.

Best is a Power Meter. That will get you to within 5% accuracy for Zones and a truer reflection of work plus calories burned etc. Unfortunately, expensive so unless really wanting to know, unnecessary.

I use PM’s on my bikes but not religiously, as in, I like to review how I did more than hold a Zone in training. That said, they are far superior to HR when determining what you can physically manage when trying to work out how much you can take during a hard session, time trial, race etc.

So…in the absence of a PM, to answer your question, chest HR linked to a bike computer. Wahoo, Garmin, Hammerhead…all good.

[Salted_Peanut]

Thanks for everyone's helpful advice

YorkshireStu said:

for most of us, chest HR is ok vs nothing albeit a lot can be said for simply old skool, how we feel approach. I ditched my HR monitor awhile ago.

The problem I’m trying to solve is how to train at a low heart rate (zone 1-2), which I find tricky, particularly on routes that inevitably involve some hills. I thought a heart rate monitor could help, but I welcome others’ advice.

[okgo]

What do you hope to train in said zones?

[Dracoro]

Salted_Peanut said:

Thanks for everyone's helpful advice

YorkshireStu said:

for most of us, chest HR is ok vs nothing albeit a lot can be said for simply old skool, how we feel approach. I ditched my HR monitor awhile ago.

The problem I’m trying to solve is how to train at a low heart rate (zone 1-2), which I find tricky, particularly on routes that inevitably involve some hills. I thought a heart rate monitor could help, but I welcome others’ advice.

My view is that if doing a zone 2 (or whatever zone) ride, you want to keep in zone for for MOST the ride. I'm not sure it matters if you go into higher zones during that ride for the odd climb. Obviously that's assuming as generally flat-ish ride of course! Not sure how easy to stay in zone 2 if you've got as 5 mile 15% climb up a steep mountain

[oddball1313]

I use a myzone mz-switch over my left bicep which gives pretty good data post ride. Syncs with my garmin head unit so i know my heart rate at any moment im interested

https://www.myzone.org/

Edited by oddball1313 on Tuesday 9th January 20:46