RollCNY

OP, I realize that 92% of NY is considered "Upstate", but where pray tell do you find 40 miles of road without a stop sign? I would love to see if this course is in range of me.

bbbean 

Depends on whether I'm having a bad leg hair day.

on the path

It's been a goal of mine. A sick, twisted goal..

on the path

I didn't give a distance but it was close to 40 miles. I never said there were no stop signs, but if I recall correctly there were only 3. And traffic is so minimal one can easily roll through those, which I did. No stop lights. It's around one of the finger lakes. I'm guessing you are close!!

RollCNY

I have ridden around most of them, and along all of them. I find that even making rights at stop signs, I probably slow down to 8 mph (no corresponding data, estimate only). Have you tried the Highlander course? 11,000 ft in 96 miles, IIRC.

cellery

It's useful for those of us who choose to live in fantasy land. Such as myself.

on the path

I don't know that course. I don't live in this area, just a temporary stay for me. Great cycling around here, if only for the lack of vehicular traffic. Even so, the drivers generally give you room. Road surfaces are typically very good. Nice route around Owasco, decent climbs on either side of the lake, and also a bunch of rollers. I'm here for another 2 weeks..

RollCNY

Owasco is a nice lake. I ride the east side twice a year, cutting over to Skinny. Doesn't circling it take you through Auburn, which is littered with stop lights? I avoid Auburn like the plague. But you are right in general, the lakes are a nice stretch to not have a ton of stops. My bike commute into Syracuse has 21 lights in 11.8 miles.

RollCNY

Hey, so was That Guy in the Finger Lakes area? A cycling club out of Auburn?

WhyFi

Then I mourn for the slipping standards.

woodcraft

"The problem is that most use moving time to figure average speed. This invites all sorts of fudging, if not actual deception."



I'm still not seeing where you find all the fudging and deception.

If, for example, I rode 67 miles in 4:05 rolling time, and I calculate that to be 16.4 MPH, it says nothing about climbing, wind, drafting, length of stops, etc., etc., but where's the fudge?

If I then gave that info to my pal Fred, & he says 'wow', or 'you suck'- so what?

Is it because I rested while drinking my life-shortening Coke or taking a piss? I hope you've got more than that.

WhyFi

Although you've hit the nail on the head, I'll try to explain - the OP is delusional enough to think that a rider's average speed (an any form) means something significant to anyone other than themselves. As such, he's concerned that there are like-minded folks out there that are goosing their numbers on their ride by doing several cycles of going anaerobic, stopping to recover, going anaerobic, stopping to recover, and so on and so forth. We can only assume that someone recently rubbed their superior average speed in his face, and this is an attempt to cast a dubious eye on their accomplishment.

rpenmanparker 

Boom!

on the path

No, That Guy is back in the town where I live. I don't know of any cycling clubs here. In a 2 hour ride I might see 2-5 cyclists, that's about it. I'm at the tip of the lake so I can get out of here without going through lights.

on the path

Actually, I think the opposite. I think that average speed, true or adjusted, doesn't mean all that much as far as comparing different courses or different riders. I may be delusional, but not about this.


Maybe not by the methods that you describe, but there are folks deliberately cooking their numbers. I've seen it on Strava, maybe you have too.


I've warned you about assumptions. In reality, I've gotten some pretty emphatic compliments from friends when they've seen my solo average speeds on Strava (Strava posts true or adjusted avg speeds, it doesn't care). And I still think average speed doesn't mean all that much.

WhyFi

on the path

Some of the folks on here are smart and some are pretty funny. You, ehhh, no..

halfspeed

No kidding.


Not news. DigitalEPO.com

halfspeed

CharlyAlfaRomeo

So, uh, why have you been arguing the merit of so called "true average speed" for six pages now?

Oooooohhhhh I get it.....this was a slow build to the lamest Strava boast ever.

halfspeed

I laughed.

halfspeed

You might be on to something.

Either that or the OP cat sixed a septuagenarian on the local MUP.

CharlyAlfaRomeo

I've gotten some pretty emphatic compliments from friends when they've seen my moving average speed.

rpenmanparker 

What's Strava?

Dan333SP

This thread went well with my morning coffee. OP, your premise is that someone's average speed will be higher if you don't take stopped time into account, right? Maybe in some circumstances, perhaps, but if I do a ride with 0 stops I can guarantee that it will have a higher average than the same ride with multiple stops. If anything, stops "fudge the numbers" down. The closer my moving time is to my elapsed time, the higher the average, the further apart they are, the lower. I guess an exception would be if I took a 50 minute massage and snack break and then got back to time trialing my way down the MUP or something stupid.

If I start a race in the back of a pack and then end up finishing 2nd by a wheel to a guy that started on the front row, do I have your permission to tell him that I'm the "true winner" because I covered slightly more distance in the same elapsed time than him?