Papa Tom

Yes, my speed has improved. I have managed to slow waaaaayyyy down and enjoy the ride much more.

Gnosis

It’s been 4+ years that I’ve been commuting exclusively via bicycle and my speeds have continued to increase. I achieved a 19.4 MH average speed coming home from church last week via my 32.6 pound Giant Rincon mountain bike. The distance was 2.384 miles traversed in a time of just 7:23.

Prior to that, my highest average speed via that same route and same bike had been 18.7 MPH.

rmfnla

Same here; with only 3.5 miles each way a couple of lights can really make a difference...

caloso

It doesn't matter whether I ride my commuterized MTB, my fixed gear, or my carbon race bike. Commute is going to take roughly 20 minutes door to door.

Johnny Mullet

I just started riding last year and just started commuting in March of this year. After a long, cold winter off my first coupe weeks commuting took almost 30 minutes for a 4.9 mile commute. Now since commuting almost every day and doing my long weekend rides, I can make my commute in 22 minutes! I also noticed my average speed recorded on my computer went up gradually. I am still a clyde, but losing weight at a good clip.

unterhausen

my commute is too short for much of a training effect.

MZilliox

No doubt you become faster if that is your goal. I'm always spinning, plus recovering form a knee injury so training a bit, and I ride with my wife to her work every day. I used to have trouble keeping up with her. I now hold back, then fly home. if you are riding most of the week, it doesn't take long. keep riding.

pdlamb

underhausen the randonneur -- you'd have to commute to, what, Harrisburg to get a training effect?

unterhausen

really doesn't have to be that much more than double my one-way commute to be good training. But if all I do is my commute, I get slower. It's about 7 miles each way

wphamilton

It's good that you bring that up. It might have sounded like I claim that my speed improved just from commuting, but that's not true. My commuting speed has improved over the years from a lot of work in addition to commuting.

spare_wheel

I guess you don't do VO2 interval training...

spare_wheel

When I started racing my sprint/attack speed increased quite a bit but my commute/in the pack speed did not change much. In other words, most people who consider themselves fast commuters never exceed FTP. I think some here are confusing endurance and speed. Moreover, I would argue that even short commutes are enough to develop endurance and speed (if you are willing to suffer).

unterhausen

I'm a randonneur, it takes me 100 miles to warm up

caloso

I agree. https://www.strava.com/activities/53444923/analysis

spare_wheel

And I'm a climber so it takes me a thousand feet to warm up.

vol

I don't ride fast on city street even if I could, but it seems frequent commuting helps improve climbing uphill.

Gresp15C

All I do is try to make a little more effort from week to week. No reason, just a way to make it more interesting. But commuting is my only exercise, and I doubt that 8 miles per day will ever turn me into a racer.

Alaraine

i average about 11 mph on my schwinn 9-10 on my wife's trek, the schwinn is lighter and i ride it more when i don't have to carry anything. my commute to the college is 4.9 miles each way and it takes me about 30 minutes, i haven't specifically timed it but i always leave about an hour before my classes begin and get there with about 25-35 minutes before they begin. i do that so that i clean up before going into the classes. even when i take it easy i get really sweaty and my long hair sticks to my face and overall its not a pretty sight. i do prefer the wife's trek overall though, the frame fits me better and it has a rack for saddle bags.

Compared to when i first started my speed has improved some, and my endurance, when i first started riding for commute regularly i was always so winded and felt like my legs were rubber when i got to where i was going, now not winded, no rubber feeling legs. Still sweat like crazy though.

snow_echo_NY

my manhattan to brooklyn time had gone down further from 23 minutes to sub-20 minutes (like 19:50) -
my brooklyn to manhattan time had gone from 20 to 19 minutes. this was for a period of maybe 2 weeks...i was pretty blown away.
but then i saw an uptick in time recently. so that 22 minutes is pretty normal. mostly i think due to nicer weather conditions... saw more car traffic congestion in bike paths and more cyclists. totally happy with going slower and seeing more cyclists! but hubs and i did see more injured peds and cyclists on our routes (basically fire engines helping the injured and ambulances arriving onto the scene). as soon as the weather got nice, it got crazy here. thankfully the craziness hasn't stayed and it hasn't been too bad lately.

bovine

My commuter weighs anywhere from 75 lbs (unloaded) to 250 lbs (loaded and w/ all three boys on it) so my speed varies greatly. I do know that if I get on my, now rackless, cyclocross bike I absolutely fly compared to when I used it to commute. My commute has gone down by 30 minutes since moving to the cargo bike though, because I used to walk the oldest to school in a wagon, walk the youngest two back to the house in the same wagon, load them in the car to drive to preschool, drive back to the house, and then leave to go to work on the bike. Now I just bike them all to school and go directly to work.

I've lost ~8-10 pounds since moving to the cargo bike for commuting, and that's off an already somewhat lean frame (was 6'2 188, now 178-180) from commuting for years on the cyclocross. I imagine/hope I'll lose another 5 lbs or so once the Texas summer hits.

thxxx

I was curious about this thread, because my times have plateaued. At the moment I am blaming it on the weather and the fact the wind is forever in my face at this time of year, whereas last year when I finished for the winter I was much faster than I am now, despite having been cycling for three months again this year. I'm quite lucky on my commute, not many stops, only a few roundabouts (UK) and have showers at work, so I get fully kitted up and properly go for it about 3 times a week.

2014
To work, 13 miles, fastest time 41 mins
From work, 13 miles (just the reverse) 36 mins as it is more downhill

2015
to work, 44 mins
From work, 39 mins

So basically three min's slower, but getting any faster is really really hard. I've been doing 65(ish) milers at the weekend in prep for two 100milers coming up, but my commute just doesnt seem to change. I'm beginning to think it may be a fuelling issue...

no motor?

I was finally able to resume commuting when the rains stopped long enough and rode by one of those big brother speed monitoring boxes. I thought I was just kind of taking it easy and saw I was going 16 mph. That's better than I thought I was doing.

devianb

Depends on what time I leave the house. Speed decreases if I leave early, but increases if I leave late.

jman0war

Never really timed it, but yeah of course.
You start to intuitively get to know the road and gear-up gear-down accordingly to maximize energy-to-momentum ratio.

jman0war

Ok i need 8 more posts to reach the 50 threshold.
Make that 7