brookstrb

I am new to road cycling and I'm trying to get an idea of how I'm doing.

I did a couple of longish rides last year, upto 90miles. My bike computer was set up wrong though so I'm not sure about speed etc from these rides.

I've just started again. I did a ride of 100km (I'm in Europe now) = 60ish miles. My ave speed was 25kph/15mph. I have no experience about what is considered a decent days ride for serious cyclists. I have distant dreams of doing a long trip in Europe and I'm trying to get an idea of what people try to average.

I have a Scott Magnum 2.0 bike, which I bought second hand last year.

Any advice welcomed!

Cheers.

Cyclebum

Welcome to BF. Be careful or you'll get addicted to touring and have to go into rehab.

First off, forget about what others 'try to average.' Concentrate on what you find is comfortable and/or suits your mood on any particular day. Pushing yourself past what works well for YOU takes the fun out of riding. I'm talking about cycle touring, not wanna be racing dudes, which is a whole nother hemisphere.

FWIW tho, the average for loaded touring(serious cyclists)seems to be about 50 miles/day@about 12mph, wind and hills not factored.

All there is to know about touring can be found here.

Have fun. See you on the road.

Big Lew

x2! Set a pedal pace and energy output that you're comfortable with that you can maintain throughout the day, considering your breaks. Don't worry yourself with your speedo or odometer, just keep to your pace and you'll not only enjoy the ride, scenery and such, you'll be amazed at how far you've traveled. Unless I'm racing downhill, I only use my speedo to test which gear is right for my maintained comfortable energy output. (sometimes a higher gear will actually be slower than the ideal lower one)

Machka 

Touring isn't racing (and you're in the touring forum right now). Touring can mean different things to different people. Some want the challenge of crossing a country quickly. Others prefer to ride short distances and stop to "smell the roses" along the way. So a "decent days ride" for a cycletourist could be long, short, or anywhere in between depending on what that particular cycletourist wants to accomplish. And as for speed, again, it just depends on what the goals of the particular cycletourist are. If you're a "smell the roses" type of cycletourist, you may take 8 hours to cover 40 km, and that's OK because you've seen a lot along the way.

If you are thinking more about competitive cycling ... go check out the Road Forum or Racing Forum. If you're thinking more about long distance cycling like randonneuring etc., check out the Long Distance Forum.

But if you're thinking of doing your own personal tour of Europe, ride however you like to ride.

brookstrb

Thanks for the advice.

At the moment I'm just enjoying travelling distances I didn't think I would be able to do. Once I got to around 100 miles I started thinking about how to do 1000miles, and where that would take me, and if I could do it before anyone missed me. At the moment I'm just going to keep trying to build what I can cover in a day and see where it takes me.

I've been using the speedo to try to find and set a comfortable pace, at the moment I try to aim for 25kph. Can you work out pedal pace and energy output without any extra equipment?

Thanks for the link!

valygrl

1) you should post in the road forum, not the touring forum, it's a better match for what you are talking about. the touring forum is for people going on multi-day to multi-month camping trips on their bikes

2) your pace is fine for a relative beginner

3) your body will tell you what a comfortable pace is better than a speedometer

4) no you can't accurately tell your energy output (calories or watts) without a powermeter which is very expensive, but it really doesn't matter unless you are training/racing. If you are looking for some measure of how hard you are working at any given moment, a heart rate monitor is a fairly inexpensive and fairly accurate tool.

5) enjoy your riding!

brookstrb

Thanks for your advice!