Originally Posted by atl_biker

Hello everyone. This is my first post. I have been lurking for a while.

I have been biking on and off since I was a little kid. My first intense period of biking was when I was in Canada 10 years back and I spent an entire year without owning a car or using public transport. I literally went everywhere on my bike and even did most of the local trails. Even though I had a $100 Walmart bike and I had next to no knowledge about bikes and biking in general, I had fun. I never had a bike computer (didn't even know what it was) and never knew my speed. It was mostly flat terrain (Ottawa, capital of Canada, in case you are wondering) and whatever small hills there were didn't bother me that much.

I got married and had 4 kids and stopped biking other than a couple of times here and there every year. In the last couple of months, I bought my first ever proper road bike (a used 2005 Trek 1000C from Craigslist) and started learning more about biking in detail. I got a bike computer and paid attention to my speed. I live in hilly Atlanta and I can barely manage an average speed of 12mph over both short and long distances.

On flat roads, I can go up to 18-19 mph and maintain it for 10-15 minutes. But hills totally kill me. I go down to 5 or 6 mph. And the most I have tackled so far are 8-10% gradients anyway.

I am not too bad in regards to endurance. I can do 50 miles easily. I did my first century on the Silver Comet Trail the other day and averaged 11mph. I struggled but I made some mistakes (didn't eat anything until mile 60) and didn't plan my trip properly. So I am not too worried about my endurance.

I have been biking for 2 months now and I see some improvement but too little to my satisfaction. Today I went up some hills in from of my house and I managed to maintain my speed above 7 mph over those relatively tough gradients (11% at some places) whereas before I was barely doing 4 or 5 mph.

I do have a medical condition -- my hemoglobin levels are low causing anemia. It may be Thalassemia but it's not officially diagnosed yet. But still, I read about people hitting 15 mph on mountain bikes (on roads, not off-road) when they are still rookies (i.e. not after a year of biking and training heavily) and I wonder why I am so slow.

Any degree of hard effort climbing or going fast results in me breathing through my mouth and gasping for air. Is this normal?

By the way, I am fully aware that average speed is not an important metric. Power is more important. But I still need to be able to do at least 15-17 mph to join decent club rides here in Atlanta. Also, I can go farther with a higher average speed and that matters to me a lot since I like to go long distances.

Other info: Age 33, male, 128 lbs, 5' 4 inches. Asian descent.

Any advice and/or thoughts are appreciated.