Well I tried some of the suggestions above today. I went out with a friend who has recently started racing in Triathlon Sprints. He usually pushes 17 or 18 miles per hour as an overall average and I figured riding with someone faster than me would be likely to improve my personal performance. I also focused on riding in a lower gear than I would normally, and spin faster than my normal ~ 60 rpm. I wasn't able to get myself up to 90 and stay there for any length of time, but I did maintain 75 rpm for much longer periods than I would had I been in the higher gear turning 60 rpm.

We went 13.86 miles which isn't a long ride. We averaged 13.1 miles per hour which isn't my best, but it's better than I normally do. We also had a lot of stop signs to contend with, and a MUP that required we average ~ 10mph for a good portion of the ride because of walkers.

All in all, when we were moving I was holding in the 16-18 mph range which is good for me. We even did about a mile at 27.6 miles per hour which was mostly flat... that got the legs burning On my commute on Tuesday where I'm not trying to pace another rider, I'm going to see if I can get my cadence a bit higher still and see how that goes.

Thanks again for the help!