Road Cycling - How much faster can I expect a road bike to make me?

Okay, I'm riding a Trek 7500 FX right now, and I average about 17.5 to 19mph on my rig. The bike is pretty heavy, but I did replace the 700X35's with 700X25's, and I commute about 40 miles per day on it right now. I'm looking at buying a decent road bike (leaning towards the Trek 2300) so that I could hang with the faster guys on group rides. Could I reasonably expect to be at least 2-3 mph faster on average using a good road bike? Anyone else have any recommendations for a good bike in the under $2K range? Do you think, given my average speed on a heavy hybrid, that I can expect to be much faster?

Assuming you are riding slicks, I think 2-3mph increase in average speed is a reasonable expectation.. 2300 is a nice bike. Steve

A few weeks ago I took my MTB with slicks to my Saturday road race, just for fun plus it was raining very heavy. The front bunch averaged 34kph, and I averaged 28kph. Normally I would finish in the front bunch on my road bike, so the difference is significant. 6kph/3.7mph. Which was about 24minutes over a 60km ride.

CHEERS.

Mark

I doubt it unless you have hills. I went from 38 mm to 25 mm tires and from heavy touring wheels to light, narrow rims (Ultegra hubs with Mavic Open-Pro rims) on my touring bike and got 3 to 4 mph increase into head winds, about 5 to 6 in top speed on slight downhills and 2-3 increase in average speed over 37 miles. According to the bike speed program somewhere on the WEB, this was due in part to a reduction of frontal area by about a half square foot. A reduction of 5 lbs give a theoretical increase of about 5% speed increase up a 7% grade for the same power out for my weight total if I remember correctly.

So it will depend a lot on how much more streamlined and lighter your new bike will be over your existing bike since you've already gone to narrower tires. I guarantee it will be a lot more fun to ride on the road than your mountain bike, so you'll probably go faster just due to that.

Al

I have a 7500 and a road-bike, and find that the difference in speed is totally dependent on the amount of wind. For "general" conditions, I find I'm 1-2 mph faster on the road-bike. In heavy head-winds, I'm 5-7 mph faster. The big difference for me is the difference between the upright riding position and the more aggressive road-bike position. However, I'm quite a bit slower than you to start with, so I don't know if the same speed changes would apply to a faster rider.

Okay, I'm riding a Trek 7500 FX right now, and I average about 17.5 to 19mph on my rig. The bike is pretty heavy, but I did replace the 700X35's with 700X25's, and I commute about 40 miles per day on it right now. I'm looking at buying a decent road bike (leaning towards the Trek 2300) so that I could hang with the faster guys on group rides. Could I reasonably expect to be at least 2-3 mph faster on average using a good road bike? Anyone else have any recommendations for a good bike in the under $2K range? Do you think, given my average speed on a heavy hybrid, that I can expect to be much faster?

I switched from a Trek 7200 to a road bike and increased my speed by at least 2-3 mph. Of course that could also have been because I increased my riding when I got the road bike. I still ride the hybrid occationally and I've noticed that I can't go nearly as fast. But perhaps its just a mental thing.

Dan.

I have a similar question to this. I currently ride a '73 Motobecane but I'm thinking of getting a new ride; something like a Felt 80 (for example). Given the newer technologies in today's bikes, can I expect a speed increase just based on the newer/better(?) equipment?