Fifty Plus (50+) - increasing speed

I'm a 54 year old very fit woman who rides approximately 120-160 miles per week (road bike). I want to increase my speed. Any suggestions? I probably average about 13 miles per hour. Thanks

Make sure your tire pressure is at the maximum?
Is the seat adjusted to the optimum height for YOU?

Do you have gearing that is appropriate for your riding? IF, for example, all your riding is on flat, smooth pavement and your cassette is something like an 11-34, then a cassette change to something like an 11-23 or 12-25 might give you better gear selection in the ranges you actually use. That depends a lot on exactly what kind of gearing you currently have and your riding conditions. IF you have steep hills, you obviously have to keep a "bail out" gear.

I'm a 54 year old very fit woman who rides approximately 120-160 miles per week (road bike). I want to increase my speed. Any suggestions? I probably average about 13 miles per hour. Thanks

Shona,

Sounds like you're already on the right track. Have you ever seen a book, "Cycling Past 50" by Joe Friel? Joe is a widely published and respected cycling coach who set up this book specifically for older or returning bikers, but other than that it's a lot of normal and good training knowledge. He definitely has workouts and programs for increasing speed in that book!

I'm not really an expert (tho I play one whenever I can!), but I am working with this book and a coach to set up myo owne training plan for a century next summer. I know it has something that will help.

Road Fan

If you're riding 160 per week you should have a pretty good aerobic base. You might want to try using weights to build up your quads and glutes for more power and maybe include some short sprints in higher gears till you see how your kness hold out. Good luck

I'm a 54 year old very fit woman who rides approximately 120-160 miles per week (road bike). I want to increase my speed. Any suggestions? I probably average about 13 miles per hour. Thanks
First of all you are logging the miles so you must be fit. If you live in an area with a lot of hills your average may not be all that off from a good pace but assuming this is not the case then here are some suggestions:
1) Do a tough hill climb once or twice a week - hills will make you faster on the flats.
2) Ride with a club of good riders, you may not be able to keep up at first but it will make you try and this will make you faster.
3) Don't overtrain, for every two days where you push yourself, take a short relaxing ride day just to spin the muscles. Take a couple of days off the bike during the week as well.
4) Pace yourself, know how much fuel you have in the tank and don't burn it all at once. A strong average speed comes from maintaining a strong average speed, not short fast sprints.
5) Some people advocate cross training with another activity - I suspect this is would be very positive.

Being faster takes a willingness to push yourself hard. What I find is that the best riders, the ones I like to pace are women, for a women to be in a club ride averaging 18 to 20 mph for 65 miles means she is in the top of her group, she has good form, knows how to pace herself and can ride a consistant ride. They usually bury me after about 20 miles or so.

Keep working at it - you will get faster.

I would think that if you are riding that much per week you should be faster than that just by the amount of saddle time as long as you are doing everything "right" ( cadence, using the right gear, keeping track of your heart rate). Some people use too big a gear and ride at a slow pace not knowing "how to go faster". More info on your riding habits might help but a good training program is in order. I like cyclo-core but there is many out there.

If you want to ride faster, you have to ride faster. If you are riding that many miles, you have the fitness if not the power. If you always ride within your comfort zone, that is where you will stay. Try occasional bursts of speed beyond what you are currently riding. You have to work harder to get faster.

Get a heart rate monitor and a book on how to use it.

Start doing time trials.
Go on a short ride, solo; but go full tilt for a half hour . . . Repeat about twice a week.
After a couple weeks, extend your time trial to 45 minutes, then eventually to a full hour.
You'll get faster; then, when riding with a group, it'll seem so easy!
It takes concentration and is both mental and physical. Set your computer so it will give your average speed during that half hour . . . keep average speed up! Keep a log on your progress. It WILL work!

If you want to ride faster, you have to ride faster. If you are riding that many miles, you have the fitness if not the power. If you always ride within your comfort zone, that is where you will stay. Try occasional bursts of speed beyond what you are currently riding. You have to work harder to get faster.


We have a winner!!!!

If you want to ride faster, you have to train faster. Do some kind of intervals, find a group a bit faster than you and hang on as long as you can. After a number of weeks you will find your average speed going up and your ability to hang on without getting dropped or even managing your way through rotation to end up in front pulling for a spell.

I pick a long flat stretch where you can go as fast as you can and just try to keep up a fast pace (perhaps 27, 28+ mph depending) or whatever is fast for you for as long as you possibly can and do this regularly. Also, jam every hill you come to.

OK, after a while of doing this, you go test yourself. Pick some hotshots doing some speed work and try to stay with them, you don't have to get in their pack but perhaps 30 feet behind, especially on hills. Soon, they will notice they can't drop you (hopefully).

To ride faster, you have to ride faster. Seriously, doing all your miles at a comfortable speed trains you to ride all day at that speed. See Friel's book (somebody else mentioned it) on the intensity of training and on adding intervals to your workout. It's hard, and I hate it, and that's why I ride all over at 14mph.

Getting faster is about building strength as well as aerobic capacity. You have to push hard until your legs are going to cook off the bone. Until your lungs have caught fire and then exploded. Until your vision starts going gray around the edges. OK, maybe not that last one. The thing with the HRM is that it'll tell you how hard you're working, not how hard you think you're working. Max-HR intervals will do wonders, but that's not all. A heart rate monitor will also give you permission to go nice and easy on recovery days. If you get an HRM and use it by the book, you will see significant results in 2-3 of weeks.

As we all stand in a circle and shout advice at you, let's not forget attitude. Getting faster will, simply said, hurt at times. You may frequently wish for a third lung and bionic thighs. Noticable progress by looking at the numbers on computer & HRM will bring a smile to your face even when things feel pretty uncomfortable. Keep your eyes on the prize and set short and long term goals and don't be discouraged if you plateau. And don't get so compulsive that you don't work on recovering as hard as you work on pushing yourself.

And keep us all posted on your progress.........your weekly mileage is already pretty impressive!

Interval training. For those who aren't familiar with the term, interval training refers to workouts which alternate short periods of intense effort with short recovery periods. For example, after warming up, do 30 sec. of flat-out sprinting, followed by 30 sec. of easy spinning. Repeat 6-10 times, followed by 10 min. of easy spinning. Do a total of 2-3 sets.

Interval workouts, done properly, are HARD! You'll find that they wipe you out worse than a hard, steady pace ride of twice the duration. You have to be careful to allow sufficient recovery time between interval workouts. You probably won't want (or need) to do them more often than 2-3 times a week.

Carmichael's book, The Ultimate Ride (http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Ride-Chris-Carmichael/dp/0425196011/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7816432-8280628?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194849047&sr=1-1), describes about a dozen different types of interval workouts, covering everything from raw strength builders to high cadence exercises.

Keep on eye on the current speed on your cyclometer, too. Make yourself speed up a defined amount and verify that you do.

I'm a 54 year old very fit woman who rides approximately 120-160 miles per week (road bike). I want to increase my speed. Any suggestions? I probably average about 13 miles per hour. Thanks

I asked the same question of the fast group I ride with - or I should say, I start rides with!

Their advice was - buy a very expensive bicycle

Rationale - either

It'll be a more efficient machine, because sometimes it IS about the bike OR
I'll enjoy it more, as a good bit of kit is a pleasure, so I'll ride it more and harder OR
I'll feel obliged to justify the purchase, by riding it more and harder

So far, all 3 are occurring! :D

The advice on all the messages above seems to be very useful. When I was a keen runner, I did too many 'junk miles' that just trained me to be a slow runner. The training effect came from fewer but harder.
However, I fully enjoyed my junk miles.

+1 on the intervals advice and don't short yourself on warm-up. [I'm 57 and] I give myself 10-12 miles to get stuff moving* which invariably translates to more time in the saddle with intervals. Winter takes more warm-up miles [go figg'r] and sometimes I never 'get there'. . .which I've learned is an unambiguous sign that it's too blessed cold for training.

* - This also gives be time to enjoy the 'flowers that bloom in the Spring, tra-la' kind of outdoor experience. . .which any coyote will tell you is important.

I'm a 54 year old very fit woman who rides approximately 120-160 miles per week (road bike). I want to increase my speed. Any suggestions? I probably average about 13 miles per hour. Thanks

I don't mean to be trite but, push harder on the pedals.
The cost of speed is effort. Increase yours and you'll go faster.
And yes it will hurt.

2) Ride with a club of good riders, you may not be able to keep up at first but it will make you try and this will make you faster.

This is the best advice. Call it our competitive nature or whatever if you start riding with better riders it will make you a better rider. We often split our group ride to slower and faster riders after about 15-20 miles. I will allways join the faster group no matter how strong some of the riders are. This alone has made me a better rider. One of my 2007 goals was to finish 60 mile rides with the stronger riders and I met that goal this year. You have the endurance but just need to build on the technique parts of your riding.

Don't know what sort of bike you have, what sort of riding you do, or how hilly the route is. I am happy with a 14mph average on a lot of my routes and very happy with 11 on the hilly ones.

Then there is- Do you ride with other people? I do a particular metric most years. Normally average 16mph on that one unless the weather is against me. From an average of 14 on a similar type of route in my home area- The only reason for the increase in speed is the fact that it is an organised ride with other riders. I always find some-one to ride with that I think is my pace. Riding with others that are just above your standard will increase your speed no end.

No pain, No gain.

A couple of months ago, I was exactly the same as you: 54 years old, in great physical shape, logging a ton of miles every week, and stuck at lucky 13. I found that when it comes to logging miles, it's about quality, not quantity. I reduced it to 120 a week and did more intervals, wind sprints, used a faster cadence, and bought a better bike. Now I'm at 14.5 mph over 50 hilly miles and I keep getting faster. Good luck!

+1 on the suggestions re: intervals and time trials to measure your progress (there's a 5 mile stretch of bike trail I've used as a benchmark for years) and group riding. Maybe find a supportive women's group ride - there are several in this area (DC) and several women riders I know speak highly of them. Friel's Cycling Past 50 is a good resource, too.

What I did this past season to ride a century faster was use the 10-week program Bicycling published in their June issue. The info online is here: http://www.bicycling.com/article/1,6610,s1-4-443-16114-1,00.html and here: http://www.bicycling.com/fastcentury/century.pdf I think it worked for me - I was able to move up to the next faster group in the local weeknight group ride, and I almost broke 7hrs riding for a local moderately hilly (5,500-6,000 ft of climbing) century last August. (I'm 52yo, about 2600 miles for the year so far and this is the 3rd year I've been riding seriously.)

Good luck!