tsl

When I took up cycling again after 35 years of sedentary living, I too was the slowest guy around. Everyone's different, but it was a couple of years before I measured any real improvement in speed, then a couple of years after that before I was keeping up with everyone. (That's at about 4,500 miles a year.)

The reason it takes so long, as it was explained to me, is that in the beginning year, your body is basically remodeling itself. We generally think of cardio fitness only in terms of the heart, or if you're enlightened, the heart and lungs. But in fact, cardio fitness is a total body experience.

In the first year or so, your body is busy remaking arteries and veins to provide extra capacity, and making tons of new capillaries to service your muscles. Until that infrastructure is built up, you'll not be building a lot of muscle, hence not a lot of speed. Once existing muscle and new muscle can be serviced adequately with a good blood supply, that's when speed, endurance, and hill climbing power can really be built.

Folks here told me that just by riding around without a specific "training program", that I could expect to improve for five years or so before reaching a plateau. It's been seven years now, and I still work hard at improvements, and I'm still improving.

So keep up the good work, and give time time. Soon enough, you'll feel it.

As for the tires, wait until you wear them out, then reconsider. You probably don't need the knobby, but at this stage of the game, that's not what's holding you back.