I'm confused...
 

I did my first 50 miler today, completely by myself. Nobody around, and I liked it. Now where I'm confused is the fact that for the first hour my speed was about 12.5 MPH, which to me is slow (I also think a few of you will agree its slow). Winds were about 8 MPH, so not a real big factor. Now then after that I was able to ride at about 16-18 MPH without any problems. OK going uphill was a tad bit slower.

I stand 6'1" tall and weigh about 205 pounds.

Now what I'm thinking is that I need to do something to warm up before I tackle a long ride again. Any suggestions?

I would like to get to about 20 MPH if I can.

:speedy:

Guessing you have not put many miles on your legs this year.
Fast comes when your legs have some miles on them.
Just have fun.

I have always found that my legs need a little warm-up time before I feel like I am able to get moving at my best. I have never paid attention to speeds. Only my road bike has a computer on it. I wouldn't be surprised if I noticed the same thing. It usually seems to take around 20 minutes for me to loosen up. Everybody's body is different I suppose.

How long after that first hour are you able to keep up the 17 mph pace?

I don't know about you, but my legs aren't always set to run at one speed. Sometimes my legs are tired and I go slower. Sometimes I'm just not mentally focused on speed and I go slower. Sometimes I'm just riding for fun and I ride slower. If you were trying to ride hard and felt like you couldn't, then I'd be concerned about one of the physical variables I mentioned above. However, it could have just been that you weren't thinking about fast at first and then you picked up the pace after looking at your speed. I do that sometimes, especially when riding long distances (like 50+ miles).

road conditions. it doesn't take a large hill to slow you down considerably. i have a few spots on my route where looking straight ahead I don't even know that i'm riding uphill but for whatever reason when I look behind me it becomes very obvious that it is in fact a hill. if you use a gps tracking software, I'd take a look at the data from it. yes it's normal to need some warm up time but warmup shouldn't take an hour. it's also possible that you were holding back some knowing that you were trying to do a longer than normal ride and once you realized you felt good you went faster.

Most of the other 2+ hours, but not the uphills those are bad for me. Except I did get a good sized hill at about 15 (total time was just over 3 hours for the ride). My last 2 miles I was riding at about 18 MPH. (Flat)

I'd say most of the 2 hours + was about a 16.8 + pace, not 100% sure.

I need a gps for it, and something like a Garmin... That will be so funny, The Garmin would be worth more than the bike.. :lol: :twitchy: :twitchy:

if you have a smartphone there are tons of good apps, I use runkeeper.

Interesting, so you seem to be able to keep your pace for a good long while once you get going. I am generally good for about an hour, hour and a half before I get tired and start slowing down if I don't have to battle really heavy winds or a bunch of hills.

Ya know what, I think I know what might have killed me for the start. I ran on the treadmill (1.5 miles), and then was about to leave my house (after a shower) and the brakes let go on my truck, right in the driveway. Then i just decided to take off on the bike, and not worry about anything. Maybe the truck was in my head, and the treadmill work was a little too much ontop of the bike ride, but more on the truck in my head. MAYBE

I'm trying to build up to do my first century. This was my first 50 miler, and IF I knew only 12 more miles would have been a metric century, I would have kept going.

Perhaps the 8 Mph wind died down or changed to a more advantageous direction.