Onegun

OK, I've gotta chime in. Here are three other points to consider:

1. "Average speed" is useless for comparison to anyone but yourself or MAYBE, TO SOME DEGREE, those on the exact same ride on the exact same day as you.

2. If you look at your current speed on a flat road in a still wind, and you're cruising comfortably somewhere around 20 -22 mph, then you'll be riding with the vast majority of everyone on the vast majority tandem rides/rallies. If it's 16 -18 mph, you'll still have plenty of people to ride with.

3. If you want to get faster, take the cyclometer off or, at the very least, COMPLETELY IGNORE the average speed except for once a month on a set course with no traffic controls, i.e., your local time trial course.

Average speed depends on SO many variables that it's ridiculous to try and use it to compare much of anything except your own progress on the same ride over a long period of time. Our average speed on our favorite 40 mile "from our door" ride is more a product of how many of the 60 traffic control devices we get to blow thru than it is of how fast we rode.

Everything affects average speed. Lights, stop signs, traffic, wind, terrain, etc. You can train like hell and go back to your favorite ride and end up with an average speed that's a mile an hour slower because the wind was different than the last time you rode it, or there was more traffic, or you caught more lights, etc., etc.! I can improve the average speed on my cyclometer by racing up to every light or stop sign and jamming on the brakes at the last moment, then jump off the light and ride normally afterward! So how useful is it really? It's only real use is as a personal marker over a season or so.

I don't think number two need any further explanation.

As for number three, chasing an average speed is detrimental to getting faster. It is interval work that makes for a fast team. A friend of mine and I penned the training mantra:

Mountains make you strong,
Distance makes you lean,
Intervals make you fast, but
The wind makes you MEAN!!

I repeat that to myself over and over as I'm fighting a headwind, but it's the intervals part I'm talking about here. And not even "formal" intervals where you go out to do 2 x 10's or 2 x 20's, but just the informal intervals we do on every ride .... attacking that climb, chasing that truck or bus, seeing how fast we can go on that downhill, etc.

Those extraordinary efforts are usually followed by a recovery period where you slow down dramatically. As a matter of fact, the recovery speed for "formal" interval days I once saw described as "embarrassingly slow". I relate to that. I HATE to go that slow, but if I want to do intervals correctly, that's the deal.

So what do those efforts do to your "average speed"? They put it in the basement. So if you're "chasing" your average speed you won't do them, and your progress will be much slower and more limited.

So leave average speed to a monthly time trial ride over the same uninterrupted course. That's the appropriate time and place to look at it. Trying to use it for anything else on a personal level is detrimental, and trying to use it to compare to others is completely non-functional.

P.S. Foamy, EXCELLENT ride report!