General Cycling Discussion - What speed are you riding

I am curious as to what average speeds you guys are turning on different types of bikes and distances on the road.

Here is my info. I do a 20 mile workout ride after work. I am on a mountain bike with Specialized Amadillos (slicks). This is in Florida so it is very flat with the exception of going over a high bridge each way. I rarely get passed and I pass a lot of people. Not bragging, I just wonder how I am stacking up.

My personal best is an average speed of 20.94mph. (Friday :D ) There was no drafting at all.

Oh yeah. I am 39 years old.

that's pretty fast! :) you should get a road bike, then you'll go even faster.

anyways, in a couple minutes people are gonna yell at you for puffing your chest in public. they don't take too kindly to that around here.

I went too fast last weekend ... crashed and messed up my knee. It's growing back now. :)

I am thinking about a road bike......hmmmmmmmmm.
I am not trying to puff up. I am really curious about what speeds people are doing and what I could expect to see on a road bike. I haven't been on a group ride since living in Miami for 10 months. I am sure that there are guys here that would think I need training wheels.

What speed does a good tandem team run? I have never seen one on the road. I did see one guy on a recumbant about four months ago that was wicked fast. (What speeds do you guy do?) I usually see them just cruising. This guy passed me. I drafted for about three miles, then he dropped me like a bad habit.

Flying solo, I usually average between 17 and 19 depending on the wind. I did 40, very windy, miles on Sunday and averaged 16.9mph. Group rides are much faster. Get yourself a roadie, my friend. Since crossing over to the tarmac, I hardly ever ride the dirt anymore. It is an obsession.

I'm 54, been riding for 15 months (was a couch potato before that). I presently ride a Bianchi Volpe road bike with 700x25 tires.

My typical ride is 12.5 miles. The first 3.5 miles have hills. The rest is basically flat. I'm almost always riding into the wind which typically are 10-25 mph and I have 57 traffic lights to deal with. I don't count stop time, but slowing down and speeding up reduces the average anyway.

My very best was to average 18.05 mph. More typically I average 15.5 - 17.5. My present goal is to someday have a top run averaging 20 mph and more typicaly average 17-18.5.

Bob

I average around 15-17 mph. I ride just about everyday. Each ride is about 30-35 miles, done in around two hours. Its never flat where I live, so Im either riding up or down hill. Id get a road bike, but I dont have $800 cash on me.

BTW, I just found that my computer on my bike was set to kilo's, thats why the figures from my other thread were so wrong. my bad



:D

I'm 42, and have been riding since late January of this year. On my commute to work I average about 14.5 MPH. On some of the flats I'll roll along between 17 - 18 MPH. On some of the hills I'll huff and puff up them at around 10 MPH :)

Zack

Originally posted by Chi
I went too fast last weekend ... crashed and messed up my knee. It's growing back now. :)

Hope you had your legs shaved before it happened??? :confused:

My commute to work today, I averaged 16.9 mph for 12.5 miles. There are many hills that I have to climb :( and a few down hills. :D There is very little flat land.

I'm averaging 15 mph on my commute. On good days I can get that to 16. On really good days I can get that to 16.6 or so.

Originally posted by pletcgm
My commute to work today, I averaged 16.9 mph for 12.5 miles. There are many hills that I have to climb :( and a few down hills. :D There is very little flat land. Are you on a road or MT bike?

Giant Road bike

avg'd 14.2 mph today at work,did 25 deliveries and 62 miles in an 8.5 hr workshift,rode SS mtb today....yes I spend as much time in bldgs as on street riding !! When off work I usually run about 20mph or so on SS mtb here in the flatlands,bout 21-22mph on fixed gear.Ive done TT's in mid 20's,but its hard to avg that for long on the street.If youve got traffic and lights to deal with avg'ing 20mph is really moving.

I ride wind and a lot of hills. My average is 16.5 mph to 17.9 mph by myself. I need to get into a club. I miss the days of screaming by at 20 + mph as everyone takes a turn at the front. The hills slow you down going up, but you make it up going back down.:D

Chi, your knee is growing back? Do you have salamander in you?:D

5 to 10 km an hour I would guess. Its hard to tell when you are riding technical terrain and just barely trying to stay upright :)

there is one trail I can barely get over 2km an hour :)

I normally go anwhere between 28-35km/h on the 100km ride that I do - mainly flat. Love the tail wind, often cruising around 40km/h, but hate head winds where i'm struggling to maintain 25km/h (makes the pastries worth it after tho!)

I am so sick and tired of the wind and rain. Here in Birmingham,Al. we have had 18" of rain just in May. I have been able to ride most days but always with a good wind. Yesterday did 15.5 miles and averaged 17.03 mph. First time on a ride over 15 miles that my average was above 17 mph. There are a few moderate hills but it always seems as if I am riding into the wind. Did a short ride the other day of 8 miles on mostly flat terrain and averaged 18.7 mph. Yes ,there was that pain in the ass wind. I will be 43 in July.

I usually ride between 18-20. Recently on a two-day double century I averaged 16.9 for day 1 and 14.9 for day 2. It depends on how much talking I do and how hard I push the small hills. I did notice a 2 mph increase when switching from a hybrid to a road bike last year.

On my tourer average between 14 and 15 mph for a 13 mile commute, but involves a lot of stops and starts.

fastest I've done it, still through traffic was at an average of just under 23 mph (with a slight tailwind)

On a solo run for 20 or 30 miles my average will be mid to high teens. Touring, maybe 12 moh but that's because I spend the time yakking to my lovely wife.

I can ride 20mph on my road bike, for at least an hour. Last year I did that a lot but when I went on longer rides I always felt like maybe I wasn't rested that well.

This year I quit trying to ride 20mph all the time. Now I just "tell myself" to take it easy and "try harder" on hills etc.... I end up riding about 18mph but think I am getting faster... just remember if you try to ride fast everyday, it's hard to get faster....

Originally posted by Duffy
I am so sick and tired of the wind and rain. Here in Birmingham,Al. we have had 18" of rain just in May. I

Duffy, I feel your pain. NW Ga. is starting to feel like the Pacific NW. Missed many miles due to really foul weather.

Did manage to do the Rome century last weekend. Averaged 16.6mph for 62 miles. Really windy and of course hilly riding in, out, and over of the Pocket and John's MTN. About 1mph slower than last year.

On yesterday's commute, I averaged just over 12mph. The first 10 miles of the commute is relatively flat and the last 10 miles has lots of hills. I did about 12mph for the 40 miles total.


As a point of comparison, I was cycling a little more slowly than Khalid Khannouchi's marathon race pace.

Dan

Sometimes I cruise along at 27 mph. On the way home, I might struggle to push 14, 12, or even 10.

:D

Originally posted by Pete Clark
Sometimes I cruise along at 27 mph. On the way home, I might struggle to push 14, 12, or even 10.

:D

Of course, my average speed rarely tops 15 mph. and my average average speed is probably about 13.6 mph.

:beer:

All the miles(447) the past 6 weeks must be paying off. Did 18 plus today at an all time best of 17.89 mph. Had a quartering wind for most of the ride. Felt really good after the ride. Mountain has been in the shop for about 3 weeks. Had a problem with Rock Shox fork which they warrantied and has taken this long to get the new one. That is why all the road miles lately. Going to the beach for the long weekend. Going to give up cycling for fishing for a few days.

My commute usually averages 17.5-19.5; tonight I had 20.9 (was gunning for 21, dang it!). Road rides in a group usually average 18-19. This is all on my wacked out Roubaix special (Yeti Road project with a RS Judy-was waiting on a Reynolds but they never came through for me so Alpha Q it will be).

My average is about 18km/h on a 30km route... and well, I was riding a DH bike on 2.6" tires... :)

http://www.mtbgallery.com/albums/NewUploads/Urban_056.jpg

I really need to get a road bike for commuting!!

Joe

I am averaging 16.15, today it was less at 15.9 mph. I did do a 20 miler today, instead of the usual 14.

on my 6.5 mile commute to work i average about 26km/h (16mph) but that is with stops and lots of lights...

average speed on mountain bikes rides is pretty irrelevant. on asphalt i usually average about 32km/h (20mph) when i am cranking (for say 30-60 minutes)

today i took the road bike out by myself... and my odometer average speed for my 1:45 ride was 30.5km/h (19mph), but i figure my actual average speed was almost 35km/h (22mph) --- at the turnaround point my average was 28.9 and after the 2nd part and before most of the stops it was 32-something, so i had to be averaging at least 2 km/h faster.... on the flat stretchs i was between 33 and 37km/h (20 - 23mph)

3 years ago when i used to ride criterium in Portland (Cat IV) we would avergae about 27-29mph... but that is with constant drafting.

and in my triathlons i have done (none in the last 3 years) i have usually averaged about 22mph...

i now ride about 90% mountain bike...

Hi Guys

My wfie and I went out on a run with our tandem this afternoon. We are taking part in a 60km road race tomorrow. There was a terible wind blowing and suffered a lot going out. When we turned it was totally different !!!! with the wind behind us we reached a topspeed of 59 km/h (36,6 mph) on a flat section of road. A tandem is awesome on the flats and downhill. Our topspeed on a downhill is 98 km/h (60,8 mph). We normally average between 35 km/h and 28 km/h during race conditions. We are total amateurs and have only been racing the tandem now for a year and a half, we spent about a year before that on "half" bikes. Not bad I think for two early fifty year young people. We decided to join Weighless this coming week. If I can lose the last 25 kg my bike will weigh nothing.!!!!!!!! By the way my tandem mentor and his brother regularly average speeds of between 38km/h and 45km/h in race conditions depending on the terrain. If only I was young again!!!!

Keep those wheels spinning !!!!

Big H

I ride a MTB with full knobblies, most recently on the road. I recently recorded a 20 mile at an average of 18mph, a 30 mile at an average of 17.9mph, a 40 mile at an average of 17.7mph, and a 50 mile at an average of 16.9mph. All routes involve some minor hills, although the 50 mile ride had one medium hill.

I've been riding seven months now and my goals are to complete a century (in miles) and to complete a 20 mile route in or under an hour (obviously averaging 20mph or greater).

top speed ever- 39 downhill with tailwind on knobbies.

My top speed (http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/albums/visual_tao_of_cycling/FlightyDeck.jpg). :D Seriously though, the fastest I've ever gone (although I do it semi-regularly) was down a 12% hill near my house. I usually hit around 55MPH. My normal average speed on the flats is around 20MPH. Usually on longer more liesurely rides (more than 50 miles) I'll try and maintain an average speed of somewhere between 16 to 18 MPH.

Average speed doesn't mean all that much to me.

On my solo training rides, I rarely average faster than 18 mph or so when its all said and done. However I'm always mixing up the pace.. during a fast interval I may go 30 mph, but then I'll probably tool along at 15 mph on the recovery. On my easy rides I usually leave the computer at home and just putt around spinning in a small gear.

We have a tuesday nighter training race series in my area, and in the first group we often average 27+ mph. But that's race intensity and drafting in a big pack. I did a hilly time trial (solo of course) in a stage race a couple of weeks back and averaged about 25 mph, which was good for me.. being a beefy sprinter type. :)

So.. I basically don't know how to answer what my average speed is! lol I guess it depends.. :D

Ron in Boise:beer:

I just got back into riding about a year ago. At that time I could barely keep a 14 mph average going on the flat. Now that I'm 55 lbs lighter and much stronger, I can average 20 mph for 1 1/2 hours on the flat.

I don't know how you guys do it. Ill go all out for 10 miles on flat and barely reach 17mph average.

I pray that its mostly cause of the bike I have, (old beat up roadbike) but I doubt thats the MAIN reason.

I just finished my first "metric" century of the year yesterday and averaged 30 km/hr on the dot. I think this works out to close to 19 mph for a 63 mile ride. I was happy about it!:D

We did our 60 km (37 miles) ride today (we had a public holiday - youth day). The race was in Benoni east of Johannesburg. We are in mid winter and it was bitterly cold (nothing compared to the American and European winters but still cold for sunny South Africa). We were still able to do an average of 30,6 km/h (19 mph). The course was fairly flat with long never ending drags. We are both recovering form a bout of flu. Cannot wait to join Weighless and loose the last 25 Kg.!!!!!! then you will see us go!!!

Keep those wheels spinning!!!!!

Big H

I just have started getting back into the road routine again. Last two rally's I have attended I have averaged around 19.5-21 mph on a 55 and 75 mile route. Usually when I ride solo I tend to keep it around 16-18 for the easy recovery ride and 18-20 for my hard day. =)

I think my average speed drops during rides with other people. Then again I don't race so riding with others means being highly social and chatting a lot which I find isn't as conducive for maintaining constant speeds/cadences. Or oftentimes we'll see something interesting and stop. In large group rides, I average somewhere in the 14 to 16 MPH range I think.

Man... you guys and girls must commute on empty roads. Since I commute in Midtown Manhattan, there is NO WAY I'm going to do 20 mph! I think the average speed must be around 3 to 8 miles per hour. Seriously. It's closer to walking but traveling above 12 mph requires you to ride like a bike messenger which means riding in the middle of the street, sliding between two buses side by side, skitching onto light trucks etc.

With so much traffic, there is NO way I'm risking my life to go to work.

My computer av speed has sat at 20.6km/h for the entire spring, that includes trail riding as well, so this year we have seriously been kicking ass.