Originally Posted by ohsmily
I haven't been cycling for very long,
At least you've got that part right. Average speeds generally should not be judged without taking a good look at the course and conditions. There's a course near my house that I would absolutely love to average 15 mph on (miles of >5 perecent grades), but I haven't been able to. And then there's a course down lower which I usually can hold a nice 20-21 mph on. It's all relative.