rm -rf

This is excellent advice.

I've never been one to do structured training, with timings and repetitions. I like the term "fartlek", which has been defined as "a system of training for distance runners in which the terrain and pace are continually varied to eliminate boredom and enhance psychological aspects of conditioning." In other words, hit some small hills hard, or sprint to the next telephone pole, or whatever else you feel like doing.

Average speed
Averages can really be affected by stop signs or hills. Or wind.

And, from my comment in another thread, Beginners tips for increasing average speed. Lots of good comments there.So, even small average speed increases are significant.

Nstoltzner

Thanks for pointing that out. I never realized that gaining a little bit of speed took so much effort in terms of watts.

jethro56 

Unless you're willing to spend this winter on a trainer then don't worry about this.

PatrickR400

My way of improving is to use my head unit (Garmin Edge 520), and Strava Live Segments; you get near the starting, and it lets you know.

It tells you GO when you it the starting point, and after that, if the box is red you are slower than your goal/PR, so pedal harder. Compete against yourself.

The likelihood of something horrible happening, like having your tongue caught in the front derailleur, is pretty low except if you're Gene Simmons from Kiss...

Nstoltzner

Looking at getting a Garmin fairly soon. I figured out why I felt so discouraged...what I thought was around 80 in terms of cadence was more like 100 plus which means I was wasting energy for nothing. I finally went out with an experienced friend that pointed out my error, my cleats are also positioned slight wrong. Did a 22 mile ride...new milestone!

Black wallnut 

Fast spinning is not a waste of energy. How did you establish your cleat placement is off a little? Not questioning the validity at all just curious how you know.

Nstoltzner

For cleat placement I never realized it but my legs essentially flare outward when I am spinning, causing a wind tunnel. Being such a new rider, I really rely on the advice of other's (sometimes more than I should perhaps). I will say that spinning slightly slower and in a higher gear I did feel better and I was maintaining a much higher speed overall. I never knew there was so dang much to cycling.

chaadster

What is a "waste" is a matter of what is one's goal, but certainly high speed pedaling can be counterproductive to going faster if pedal torque is also significantly reduced.

Particularly for Clydes like me, with big legs, throwing them around at speed really taxes the cardiovascular system, and will quickly elevate my heartrate. Which is fine...if I'm actually pushing on the pedals and doing some work, but if I'm, say, doing 105rpm producing 230w with a heartrate of 150bpm, I know from my training that I can increase my power in that gear by driving HR higher, or I can increase power by shifting down a gear, dropping cadence, increasing torque, while maintaining the same HR.

Personally, I run pretty sweet between 85-100rpm when I'm "on the gas." I conserve high cadence pedaling, i.e. 100+ for my highest wattage efforts; I'll wind up a 30mph sprint with 115-120rpm, but I wouldn't cruise at 20mph at that leg speed both because it would be exhausting, and because I'd be unable to react with leg speed and power to a surge, because I'd be effectively maxed out.

scroungetech

I'm 6'3" & 270 lbs. I used to really get down on myself thinking that my average speed was some small percentage of a car's highway driving speed. But when I think about how many times faster than walking my speed is, I feel pretty awesome. "Holy cow! 9mph is 3x faster than walking!" I'm more impressed with myself when it comes to total ride time rather than miles covered...

cyccommute 

I think you are doing just fine. It takes time to develop strength and endurance. I've been riding for 35+ years and I ride 3000 to 5000 miles per year. My average speed over those miles is a depressingly low 12 mph. A lot of that has to do with where I ride, as well. I do a lot of urban riding and the constant stopping and starting takes a toll on your average speed.

On the other hand, starting from a stop a lot helps you develop your sprint

Also be aware that people who claim 20 or 25 or even 30 mph averages are probably telling fish tales. You can hit a high speed on a downhill for a short period of time but climbing to the top of the hill is going to slow your average a lot. rm-rf is spot on about how increasing speed takes a lot of energy.

ChuckD6421 

Group rides, if you want to get faster. No question. In my distant past I raced, alot. Most of my training was long miles on back roads with lots of hills. But what made me faster was getting together with groups, or just racing. With a group, even those of your own level, when you would normally back off to take it easy, inevitably someone wants to take off making you either work to keep up or suffer the indignity of being dropped (but in truth a good group won't just drop you).

bmthom.gis

Want to get fast? Build up your base miles, make sure you can ride for an hour and a half - 2 hours at your current pace. Then start speed workouts. Interval training and hill repeats, combined with long rides will give you leg speed. After a few years, I can now average 17/18 mph on my long, hilly rides. It's taken awhile to get there, and I'm not always in that range. Just once I finished our club's loop at 19.1 mph avg. Haven't repeated that level of effort yet but I know I will. Keep riding!

bmthom.gis

20 mph I can believe, even as high as 22/23 depending on the terrain. I know enough people who can do that. 25-30....yeah probably not an actual average. More like they were cruising on a slight downhill when they happened to check their speed.

I love climbing....even when it takes me down to 5 mph for the duration.

DrIsotope

I used to be skeptical of anyone claiming 20mph averages. Then I remembered that Zwift and Florida are things that exist. There's a guy in one of the Strava groups who does nothing but Zwift all year, so his "average speed" is like 23-24mph. And it seems like guys in Florida are all above 20mph, because the "tall mountains" in the state are like 300 feet tall. I have to climb 58 feet to cover the 0.4 miles to the end of my street.

cyccommute 

25mph average is the average for professionals in the Tour. I can believe an instantaneous speed that is quite high...I regularly top out over 40 mph...but I'm dubious when someone claims that they can average just slightly less than the professionals do.

I'm not all that trusting of the mobile devices use to measure speed and distance. I'm not saying that they are always wrong but they can be spectacularly wrong at times. While using a tracking app on my phone, it clocked me as going 55mph on the downhill side of New Found Gap in North Carolina. My wired computer gave me a maximum speed of 45 on the route and I'm reasonably certain that the 55 mph was in error since it was raining cats and dogs. I am stupid...45mph in the rain on a loaded touring bike is stupid...but I'm not that stupid!

I, on the other hand, don't live where it's that flat. Going up takes a horrible toll on your average speed but going down doesn't add too much to it. For example, I have a 365ft climb over the last 3.2 miles of my commute and a 365ft drop over the same 3.2 miles. My average speed going down is 18.7 mph but my average speed going up is 8.9mph. Measuring from the same point for start and finish, my average speed for the 6.4 miles is a depressing 11.9 mph.

Even on a ride that is 42 miles of pure downhill...Aspen to Glenwood Springs...my fastest pace is only 15.5mph. Part of that is due to slowing down a little to ride with my wife but we were both moving along at a really good clip.

I will say that although my average seems low for what many people report, I'm not getting passed by other bicyclists all the time. I'm usually the one doing the passing but my average is still only about 12 mph.

DrIsotope

I'm with you on that one. I routinely see GPS errors with iOS/Android Strava apps putting riders well past 50mph, or having the GPS trace look like a lightning bolt rather than a line.

Ain't that the truth. My ride this Wednesday got me about 5000 feet of climbing-- the big section, from the Ranger Station to the campground, maintains nearly a 6% average for it's entire length.

10.3 miles, 3,115ft up, ascent time: 1 hour 48 minutes, 7.2mph
10.3 miles, 3,115ft down, descent time: 18 minutes 49 seconds, 33.7mph

So while the descent speed is great, it's still 20.6 miles in about 2 hours 7 minutes, for blistering 12mph average.

bakes1

I am fairly certain that 20-22 mph average is not that uncommon for experienced recreational cyclists.
I have only been cycling for around 15 months and I average between 18-19 mph on my 20 mile routes. That average includes the occasional red light/stop sign and is with an average elevation gain of around 800'
I am a 51 year old clyde on an entry level aluminum bike with platform pedals.

DrIsotope

The problem is, going from 20 to 21 miles an hour requires an increase in power of about 15%. Going from 20 to 22 requires a 25% increase in output. At 25mph, over 80% of your power output is just to overcome drag. Aerodynamic drag is merciless.

I made an effort to complete 60 miles in 3 hours-- maintaining that elusive 20mph average-- only to miss it by a few minutes. A 20mph mile takes 3 minutes. I averaged 3.04, and those 4 seconds per mile added up to 4 minutes, which resulted in a 19.6mph average. I've done 20mph a scant handful of times on efforts of 60-80 minutes or so. Managing 20mph over any distance is hard. At least for me. I don't even think about anything beyond 20mph. That day was 255W average for 3 hours, burning over 1,000kcal per hour. That was all the gas I had in the tank.

Btw, my typical endurance pace is 17.6mph, over rides of up to century length. That takes half the power to maintain as 22mph. For me to go 33% faster would require 100% more power-- in the mid/upper 300W range (above my FTP.) Alas, I am merely mortal.

gear64

Why worry? I see improvement. With more riding I would expect to see at least a little more improvement with very little effort, just consistent mileage. Beyond that you would likely need to transition to a training attitude. I'm perfectly happy with an average of 14+ on a good day, some days only 10. My attitude is laid back wanderer. You can make cycling a challenge if that's your personality, but it doesn't need to be.

bakes1

Assuming the Dr's numbers are correct, I think I may be overestimating the amount of rec riders averaging over 21-22 mph. That's brutal

chaadster

The important thing about "average speed" is not what your cyclocomputer turns in at the end of a ride, but rather how fast a pace you're keeping out on the open road.

There are tons of variables which affect overall average speed, from stop signs and intersections, to traffic volume, to rest stops, terrain and road surface, all of which are variable depending on location, that it's a meaningless number, really.

For many of us, it's typical to have a slower ride when going in and out of a heavily trafficked urban environment and to have the ride "start" once we're clear of town. If you drive to a ride start or live in a well-situated location where you can go without interruption right out your front door, those kinds of factors will dramatically impact a calculated average.

For example, you might average 15mph for 5mi weaving through town, then hit a 30mi open road loop at 20mph with only a handful of stop signs before heading back in through town for another 5 miles at 15mph. That's 4mins/mile for the town section, and 3mins/mile for the open road, so 38mi diivided by 2.16hr netting an average of 17.56mph.

17.5mph average doesn't sound bad, right? But you see the problem: to hang on that ride you have to average 20mph for 30 miles. That's the important part. Anyone can cruise through town at 15mph, so big deal, but averaging 20mph over 30 miles takes some doing, and most likely it isn't steady state, so you'll be surging well north of 20mph at times.

So, does anyone want to do the math on how far behind an 18mph average open road rider falls behind on our 17.5mph average ride?

cyccommute 

Ginsberg's Theorem

cyccommute 

I have to disagree. The "average speed" is just that...the average of all the speeds you cover over a given distance and time. You can't pick and choose the best bits and then ignore the other ones.

I can't, for example, say that I "averaged" 18.7 mph on my commute just because I do that speed over the best part of the route. I could say that I "averaged" 18.7 mph over a 3.2 mile portion of my ride but even that would be dubious if I didn't include the fact that it's a good downhill.

bmthom.gis

And here is where I think a lot of people inflate their averages.

chaadster

You seem more concerned with comparing numbers than keeping up the ride!

Call it how you want, but my only concern is with intensity, and given my example above, you may feel you "need" to say it's a 17.5mph average, but that's simply trivial, and just not going to give you an understanding of hard and fast the ride is going to be.

I like to be honest with people, so I'd say that's a 20mph ride. There's just no point in accounting for warm up and cool down, or just getting out of town, in average speed. Even for the around town rides we used to do, the "lightburning," or drag sprints between lights, we never talked of average speed, but rather max speed required to stay in the running; if you couldn't sprint around 30mph, you weren't in the running.

It really seems silly and pointless to me to hold total ride average speed sacrosanct, because it tells you very little to nothing about ride intensity, and obviously, if you can't match the intensity, you're OTB.