Originally Posted by
merlinextraligh
And the average speeds usually understate how fast the riders are going; One, depending on how a race develops there will lulls where its below the average speed, and surges where its well above, and Two, corners slow down the average (particulary in lower categories)
Very good points.
And in the race I posted above, it was not a dead-flat 4 corner industrial park course; it was 6-corner L in a mostly residential area with a false flat (1-2% for most of the first half of the lap, a 3-4% bit for about 1/10 of a mile, then a gradual decline for the remainder of the lap into the s/f and the first corner.
I don't know how the official timers computer average speed but I suppose since we are snaking around the course using the whole road my speed and the reported speed don't completely agree. My computer shows 26.4mph for the cat 3 race. The first few laps were a bit slower, and a few of the laps were in the 28mph range, and there was a peak 2 minute period in the middle at 29mph.