Originally Posted by WhyFi

I get that people think that average speed is a meaningless metric, but I'd argue that, outside of a race, most metrics are meaningless unless and until we ascribe some personal meaning to them. If someone pushes harder and improves their fitness or efficiency because they're trying to edge up over XX mph, then that's not at all meaningless - quite the opposite. Sure, there are a lot of factors that go in to average speed, and that makes it a horrible yardstick from region to region, person to person and sometimes even from day to day, but that doesn't mean that it can't be useful and motivating to people.