Weighing in late to the average speed party.
Just an age 47 newbie, been riding all my life, never competitively, nothing like AdelaaR pacing Andy Schleck's Specialized racer in anger. Just installed a Cat Eye wired cadence computer.
Two trips - there and back, 11:30 - 15:00, spent an hour and a half visiting then returned.
16.6 mi [26.7 km] each way, 33.2 mi [53.4 km] total;
1:08:10 to reach destination, 1:09:56 to return;
Average Speed 14.4 mph [23.2 km/h];
Max Speed 26.3 mph [42.3 km/h].
Very smooth city roads & boulevards, not many stops, quite flat, biggest elevation change was ~50 feet [15 m] for downtown bridge over river.
Ever so slight tailwind going there, mild headwind coming back. Bright sun, hot and somewhat humid, 88 deg F [31 deg C] to start, 93 deg F [34 deg C] on return.
Went through about 1.5 liter of ice water on arrival there, and about .75 liter of Gatorade on way back.
Bike is 1995 Cannondale hardtail mtb, no suspension, Continental 26 x 1.50 [iso 559 x 38] Comfort Contacts that are more like 34mm wide, Sugino XD-600 crank, Truvativ Husselfelt platform pedals, with some other performance-degrading accessories/ maintenance replacements.
Last edited by Suburban Grind; 09-11-10 at 03:15 PM.
Reason: on edit: corrected poor use of html.