Originally Posted by
cyclinfool
George,
The Garmin will help. I have an old forerunner and record my morning training rides. It's the same route two or three mornings/week during riding season. There are two good hills and the ride is about 17 miles long so it takes about 1hr +/-. There are several measures I make, the average speed for the ride not including the warm up and cool down, the speed up the hills and speed I am able to sustain on the intervals I do on the flats. During the early season I use an HRM so I don't get stuck in Z3 and push on to Z4 & Z5 at the right times.
I'm not sure if this is the right thing to look at but I have years of data to compare these points to and can see the trend. I don't get too hung up on it but I do see if I am making progress.
That's basically what I'm doing, is keeping a record to see where I'm at. I was getting tired on staying in zone 3 and I wanted to start trying to get faster. I'm not trying to race or anything, but I'd like to average 18 when I want to.
I see where I have to go well over 20 to average 18 though. When I average 15 or 16, I have to ride 18 to 20 mph. That's after warm up and traffic lights and a couple of stop signs, before I can get going.