Old 05-25-11 | 12:44 AM
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Runner 1
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Joined: Apr 2011
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Bikes: Red Huffy, CAAD10 Rival

How much of a difference do hills make for average speed?

Yeah, yeah, don't look at your average speed and just ride blah blah...

But I'm looking at it anyway and am slightly miffed at how low it is compared to everyone else's on here. Some new guy posts and says he's averaging like 19-20 on a mountain bike for 40 miles, or someone who claims to only be a commuter says they were cruising at 22 mph for a 20 mile ride or something.

I would say I am in pretty good shape and I have been riding for awhile, yet my all out effort on a 23 mile route only gave me about 18.4 mph. I've been training a decent bit for competition purposes so I'm a little discouraged when I see commuters averaging 22 or more. I'm riding a road bike too (CAAD10) so it's not a bike issue.

I wouldn't think hills would make more than a 1-2 mph speed difference (avg) but I don't know... has anyone done a comparison between their average on hilly terrain (eg North Georgia) vs flat (Florida)?

Oh, and my speedometer is calibrated correctly as it matches my phone's GPS as well as stopwatch + Google Maps.
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