cbdds

This is my first post on this forum. I have been riding my "comfort" bike, a Trek Navigator 2.0 and am ready to take the leap and buy a road bike. I'm currently riding about 20-25 miles averaging about 16-17 mph on the Trek. What type of speed increase could I anticipate on a road bike? I'd like to begin riding with a group, but I'm not sure if I can keep up with them. Any help would be appreciated.

umd

https://www.noping.net/english/

This is a good side that illustrates how changing parameters affect power and speed. Enter in all your stats and speed and click calculate and it will tell you how much power (roughly) is required. Then blank out the speed (keep the power), change the bike type, and press calculate again and it will tell you how fast (roughly) you will go. It's just a rough estimate, it makes a lot of assumptions about drag and rolling resitance, but it should give you an idea.

Also keep in mind that in a group, you are drafting, and can go faster than you would have otherwise been able to. Your best bet is to just try riding with the group and see.

Blackdays

I hear drafting is like riding an ebike.

marcosbullock

Wow...that site showed me to have a 3MPH increase in time if I went from up on a road bike to on a triathlon bike. Nice

Bacciagalupe

Sounds about right, for the aero position. Of course you can't spend the whole time on the aero bars, and you can't use 'em in a group etc.

Homebrew01

You'll probably gain about 2 mph. I don't usually care about average speed. But out of curiosity, I did one comparison between my road bike & mtn bike over the same course

Phil85207

Welcome to the forum, you already found it to be informative. Good luck with your new bike, and visit often.

cbdds

Thanks to all who replied. UMD, that is an interesting calculator. It suggested a 6mph increase in speed for me from the Trek to a road bike. I realize this is only an estimate but it does give me some encouragement that I can hang with the group averaging 20 mph. This is an awesome forum.

umd

That seems a little high... But I would say the bike combined with the drafting effect, riding with the group should not be a problem.

mollusk

Let me be the "Negative Nellie" in this thread.

In my experience i have seen many riders go from hybrid or "comfort" bikes to road bikes expecting to see huge gains in average speed immediaetly. And they didn't get them. "Why?", you might ask. Well, when they got their new road bikes they had them set up with the bars up high so that they were in nearly the same exact riding position that they were in before. They got a small increase in speed due to lower rolling resistance and drivetrain loses, but precious little aerodynamic improvement.

The biggest gains you will see in going to a road bike only come after gaining the flexibility to ride in an aerodynamic position. It is close to impossible to do that on a hybrid, but it is far from automatic on a road bike. It will take time and training.

And even if you have that flexibility you will have to learn how to pedal powerfully in this new body position. This is not something that can be achieved in just a few minutes. again, time and training are required.

The same thing is true going from a road bike to a TT bike.

Velo Dog

FWIW, this is about the same thing I found in a similar comparison.

bajadock

UMD, thanks for the calculator. Mountain biking friend of mine asked me about mtn v. road bike. I guessed approx 15-20%, but, didn't get into all of the variables.

Homebrew01

Very unlikely. My comparison was a mtn bike with big fat knobbies. Your comfort bike most likely has faster tires than my mtn bike.

PaulRivers

Well, I'm going to disagree a little. Switching between my mountain bike and my road bike, both of which I've used for a while now and gotten comfortable on, there's no doubt I'm like a sail on my mountain bike, while it is impossible to get into that sail-like position on my road bike. I don't need to do stretches, or do anything special on my road bike for this to happen.

I have also seen people switch from a heavier bike to a road bike and not see a big improvement until several rides later - my guess has been that it doesn't have to do with aerodynamics as much as it breaking in slightly different muscles that you use on the road bike vs the hybrid. I suppose there's a little bit of the adjusting to a different position in there to, but in my opinion that has a lot more to do with the muscles getting used to the new position and working together than it does with aerodynamics.

tntyz

I just checked my records covering my switchover from a hybrid (Trek 7500) to a road bike (Madone 4.5). Granted, there was a few month lay-off because of winter in Wisconsin, but I only saw a couple mph speed increase over comparable rides. After more conditioning, however, I saw an average speed increase of more than 4 mph.

The aero position on a road bike is a big help, but I found the pedal position to be big, too. I was much more "on top" of my pedals on the hybrid which led to more of an up-and-down pumping motion. On the road bike I am further behind the pedals (knee slightly behind KOPS) and get more muscles involved.