Here is a video of me averaging 21.81 mph for 10kms on my morning commute on a mountain bike with a flat bar and stubby bar ends. 26 inch wheels with 1.5 inch slicks at 80psi. A 11-32 mountain bike cassette with a 44 tooth big ring. The gearing is all wrong for this kind of riding. The 13 was too small for much of the time and the 11 was too big most of the time. If I had a 12 tooth I think I could of averaged 23 to 24mph that morning.

You can do it on a 700C bike with a flat bar no problem. You just have to be willing to do some hard riding to get there.


If you want to know I can give you a sample of a week of 'training' I do.

I think a lot of people can do 20+ sustained on a road bike while on the hoods which doesn't strike me as that different a riding position as on a flat bar road bike if you position your hands on the bars such that they're about shoulder width apart.

As far as how long it takes to get there, I think it would depend on how hard you work. Build up some base miles and then start doing some intervals.

depends on the rider. On the hoods I still tend to ride pretty low and my bars are shoulder width. A flat bar will be like riding the tops and upright

True - 20mph sustained average solo mtn bike for an hour is difficult.

I can time-trial at 24mph for an hour on my TT/road bike, and holding 20 on a solo mountain bike (I've only done the solo bit for 30 mins) feels very similar to 24mph solo road bike. That's not easy - most road cyclists cannot do that unless they train for awhile with intensity.

But 20mph right off the get-go on a road bike is definitely easy stuff requiring minimal serious training for most racing club roadies.

Lately on the way home I like to sprint... it's mostly flat and only four miles. It's a ***** if there is a headwind though. But I can usually sustain 20mph...

Obviously people have varying abilities and experiences which accounts for some of the differences in the answers. Part of my difficulty in giving a good answer is understanding what the OP means exactly by "sustained". Does that mean not dropping below 20 for a mile? 2 miles? 20 miles? Does that mean averaging 20 mph over a longer distance?

I am not a particularly fast guy. But, on a plain-jane 80's steel road bike, it did not take very long at all before I could maintain 20+ for a mile or two. I had to work to do that, but I didn't have to kill myself. Fact is though that there's almost always some wind. Further, though Minneapolis is not a hilly place, you can't go long without encountering some moderate incline or decline, - even if it doesn't look like one.

So if your goal is to keep it above 20 for an extended distance, that could take awhile. If it's to keep it above 20 for a mile or two, that should be doable within a short period of time. That's on a standard road bike. Not sure how much difference the flat bar is gonna make.

i try not to pay too much attention to average speed since it depends on so many things
yesterday i rode my road bike for 26 miles- the majority of the ride was between 19-20 mph but when i arrived
at home my average was 17. this i think had alot to do with the number of traffic lights i hit and having to slow down and
get back up to speed since very few of them can i run. of course it could have alot to do with me being
extremely slow, who knows

You'll get stronger, don't worry. I think 20 mph is a bit high of a goal for a flat bar road bike, unless the bar is low & narrow, and the bike is light.

To me, a sustained 16 mph is a good pace on my drop bar cyclocross bike.

On my Simple City, I'm more like 14 mph.

Saturday, I was riding with a fellow bike forumer for around 30 miles. (barrettSCV) In the last couple of miles, he was leading on his titanium drop bar road bike at 22-23 mph on the flat. I drafted him and we kept this pace for a couple of miles. I couldn't have done it myself, but I could've done 20. But only for a couple miles. That is high effort stuff. For most of that 30 miles, we were going 16-17 mph. (no drafting, drop bar bikes) That keep the pulse pounding without being overkill for me. Again, with a flat bar bike, take off a couple mph. (unless the bar is low & narrow, in which case it comes down more to tires than the bar)

What width & tread pattern tires are you using?

not long at all to spin up to 20mph sustained on level ground. The big key is your position in regards to your crouch. But if you have wind at your back, just lean up. I tend to ride on my largest chain ring until I can't so I reach 20 and sustain it for maybe half a mile or so on a regular basis. (that was when I had my flatbars on the bike) Since I have changed to the drops, it's a whole other story. To me a half mile is not really sustaining a speed though. Around here, there is not enough flat land to sustain anything anyways.

As a point of reference, the average speed in the Tour de France is 25 mph. Those are the world's strongest riders on the world's lightest bikes. 20 mph average is a good goal, for a road bike, IMO.

For commuting, average (as measured by a cycle computer) is going to be slower, as mentioned above, due to starting & stopping. You could probably gain 1 mph average just by stopping quickly instead of rolling to a stop. (they usually measure moving average, so 0 mph doesn't hurt your average, but 1-5 mph kills it.)

This is too much focus on numbers, in my opinion. Especially for commuters. I like to think of it like this. 12-15 mph is 4 to 5 times faster than I could walk it, it uses no gas, and keeps me fit.

I am just jealous that some riders have the ability to actually push themselves speed wise. I usually use a MUP to commute, but even if I ride on the road (which I do more and more frequently), I just wouldn't feel comfortable gunning it with the traffic lights, cars leaving/entering the road and all of the other random hurdles one faces in a busy street.

Correct me if I'm wrong, ladies & gents, but I bet most of the people who are talking about 20 mph averages are rerferring more to their fun rides than commutes. Or if they're commutes, they're probably in a lot less urban environments than Sentinel and I.

My average commute speed is about 17.5, over varied surfaces, hills, gravel road, etc. I don't really pay much attention to my speed, but it's not unusual if I don't have a headwind (I seem to always have a headwind) to look at my comp when I'm on the level and see it reading 20+ MPH. But I'm not really trying that hard, and I don't pay any attention to my speed most of the time, I'm sure that someone who was actually training and paying attention should certainly be able to do it.

Those people probably don't have flat bar bikes though. My bike is a Giant Cypress hybrid, flat bars, 700c x 32 Marathon tires, pretty heavy (35 pounds without cargo, the one time I checked).

I kind of just keep pedaling along. Over 2 miles, I do about 17.5 MPH. Over 20 miles, 17.5. 50 miles, 17.5. I've never done more than 70 miles, but the few times I've done that, it was around 17 MPH.

My commutes are my only rides. I only use the bike to get places (same as the car). But yeah, almost entirely rural, 2 lane, no significant traffic. Packs of 3 cars or so passing me perhaps every 2 minutes.

Just to clarify my speeds in Post #33, when I commute, I'm usually going 14-15 mph. But when it is done, the average is more like 11-12 mph.

Seriously, 20mph on a MTB hardtail with smooth tires, good road and no wind should be possible, although tiring for long time.

Well, since you bring it up. On a flat with no headwind I can maintain 20 easily. Dualie MTB with all-terrain 26x2.1" tires.



I average around 14 over a week though. That includes some hills, and the usual stop signs, red lights, and waiting to pass on the MUP until it's safe to do so. Average speed for commuting is meaningless unless we're all riding the exact same route.

Define 'maintain.'

If your definition of 'maintain' is like mine, then you should quit your day job and race bicycles for a living. You would drop Lance like a bad habit.

People put flat bars on road bikes?

\I kid, I kid...

Huh? Maintaining 20mph on a mtb for several and more miles solo or tens of miles with a group on flat ground with minimal wind is not hard at all. Nothing like the speeds, sustained power, bursts of power, etc. required even for amateur racing.

In the summer when my fitness level is at its highest, I can sustain 20+ mph on my road bike on the flat. I've been passed by or had trouble keeping up with people on flat bar road bikes, mountain bikes with slicks, and once, a guy on a full suspension mountain bike with knobbies. He was putting a lot of effort into making the bike bounce up and down, but he was still managing to keep his speed around 20 mph.

LOL... In my case, the Giant came with a flat bar. I thought having a hybrid was the greatest thing as I used it for commuting, touring, recreational, and could somewhat keep up with some of the roadies. Then when I started playing around with some drop bars, I remember how much fun they were. Now, the bike is drop bar converted, but it served amazingly well as a flatbar (w/ extenders) road bike for much of the usual stuff.

sounds like the realistic answer is "no" and certainly not commuting

A couple weeks back my mom was telling me how she and her brother (my uncle) used to ride a lot as teenagers. She said that she could do about 35 mph on flat ground but she was slow because she had a mountain bike with fat tires. Her brother had a road bike with skinny tires so he could ride a lot faster, more like 45 mph. I just said, "No mom, you did not ride that fast."

With 2" knobbies? Nope, I'm not buying it. It is either exagerrating or flat out one-upsmanship.