My average has been up to 23mph....





Over 1.5miles:p

Avg. speed 20.2 mph, right here.

Why would you want to do your commute in 20mph? You will end up sweaty, and that is absolutely not my goal while commuting. My goal while commuting is getting to work using my favourite kind of transportation in a really enjoyable way!

Everyone's commuting goal is different. For me, a big part of riding into work is the idea that it counts as 30 minutes in the gym. It helps that I have a locker room at work where I can shower and change.

Talking of the gym, isn't there a thing that sensible people do before trying to ride fast called a warm-up? Try to ride fast as possible without doing one and you risk ending up with a injury - maybe not on Day 1, but it isn't just Day 1 that counts.

Reaching a 20mph average on a 10 mile (?) ride gets even harder if you allow for 5 minutes at 15mph to warm up, but you should. Riding at 20mph will take twice the energy of riding at 15mph; it's a bigger physiological difference than it sounds. A commuting 20mph, which might be made up of repeated sprints up to 25mph, needs a warm up even more. I'd really advise the OP not to push harder than he is already doing for those first 5 minutes.

And why do you want to rush your commute? :eek:

215' elevation gain. I wish! Even my "flat" old commute had 150' more than that. I'd have to hit the velodrome and stick the blue line to keep a 10 miler under 300' around here. :(

My round trip commute has over 3000 ft of elevation gain. No wonder I'm so slow. ;)

Please try not to make generalizations based on your own physiology. What are you basing the OP physical limitation on? When I warm up, I am usually pushing into the mid to upper 20's. 17-20 IS my warm up. Plus when it's 6am and 30F, I push the pace as I can to get warmed up. noodling along at a slow pace just doesn't cut it (for me). Mostly I keep it in the small ring and just spin out at 95-100rpm till I warm up. Even so, it's easy on the flats to keep it around 20mph while "warming up".

Oh and I said it is possible--meaning possible for those who are in the right kind of shape.

One can travel fast without being in a rush/hurry.

Why go fast?
Saves time.
Will get hot and sweaty anyway going slower.
Have showers at work.
Get a different type of workout.
Because it will make going fast easier in the long run.
Enjoyable.
etc.

So I can get 4 hard hours a week + 2 easy ones during my commute and be in-transit six hours instead of loosing eight hours to commuting and needing to fit those four hard hours in at other times.

I averaged 19.62 once, but that is with a computer that stops the clock when you are not moving. You still get slowed down from decelerating/accelerating around lights and stopsigns, but time spend not moving doesn't count against you. Normally, I get 15-16mph averages. Thats with only about 400ft of climbing total over 10mi. If you could average 20mph on total time, I think that would be a pretty impressive feat if you have any stop signs or red lights on your commute.

Just go for a 30kph average. Sounds more impressive and won't be as hard.

I can beat that. 59 feet in 43 miles.

I have gotten my 4 mile commute in at 10 minutes before. That means busting ass and drafting every SUV and truck on the way. It's generally downhill (on the way to work). At least half of it is on one street with timed 40 kmph lights which is a big help. There is one intersection that might stop me, and two intersections that are more like T junctions where I can usually squeeze by.

Wait, are you talking about 30 minutes "pedaling time" or "trip time"? My bike computer only counts pedaling time (it stops counting when I'm fully stopped at a light). A 30 minute "trip time" would be very, very hard to achieve in city traffic, but I think it's within the bounds of the laws of physics. I think a 30 minute "pedaling time" is more reasonable - within the physiological limits of most people, although it represents excellent fitness.

My best "trip time" is 1:07 for my 20 mile round trip commute, which I was doing 3 days a week. Minus the lights, that registered at 20.2mph average on my computer. My "cruising speed" on flat ground with no wind was around 21-22mph back then. I was no athlete - amateur racers should be able to cruise at 22-25mph for an hour on a road bike. I ride a mid-low-end road bike with panniers.

(Right now I only commute 1 day a week due to the baby and the toddler, and my average is now 17-18. No routine = no endurance.)

Get a heart-rate monitor and learn to do intervals. When you do intervals one day, back off the next day for recovery. A chest-strap hear-rate monitor is inexpensive ($40 for mine), and it is worth owning, even if you don't intend to race, although the physiological feedback is not as precise as a power meter (or so I've been told).

Any red lights on that course? :lol:

Obviously, the key here is that you have to commute in that helmet.

18 minutes. Holy crap. My best is 22:30 for 10 miles. That is flying.

Much like Alleycats, high speed commuting comes down to how much you value your life.

Not at all.

The average temperature threw me, until I realized that ride was from last September. Still pretty warm for September, though.

I never even look at my computer's mph. The average it shows is much lower than my usual cruising speed. Given that I live in NYC, with all the traffic and lights, average speed is pretty meaningless. When I was training about 5 years ago now, I was able to average, by my computer, over 20mph doing non-stop loops of Prospect Park, over about 15 miles. This was with resetting the computer when I arrived in the park and already rolling. This was also solo riding. That is a VERY difficult pace to maintain for an average rider. A fit rider like myself at the time could do it, but NEVER on the streets. That's suicide. I can no longer maintain that pace even though I continue to ride (I'm 56 now, so not so young anymore).

+1! At least if you do it in urban traffic.

High speed commuting is not fundamentally unsafe. Put safety first and get a road bike and push yourself. Add bright clothing, reflectors, helmet mounted P7 LED, and the sharpest eye. Don't take chances to make numbers.

The whole reason I bike instead of drive is that I want a good workout. The value is halved if it isn't going to be a good vigorous workout, IMHO.

I would say that it is situational. A commute I had years ago had a section that was congested and the cars were only doing about 20-25. I found out that I felt a lot more safe by pushing hard during that section, taking the lane and going with the speed of traffic. If you are going a lot faster than surrounding traffic, then you are setting up some potential saftey situations, and of course things like rocks, potholes, mechanical breakdowns are amplified by speed.

I live in L.A.,I can't do that in a car....

Instead of "bragging" in a separate thread, I thought I'd post this here. Just made my commute at an 18.1 mph average. But that's just over 6 miles. First time for me on a commute, though. I got to the edge of campus, reset my computer and suddenly got a fire lit up under me for no reason. I still had to go slower than I wanted to at points. There were a couple of school zones in a section that I could have easily done 23 or more mph, so cars slowed me down (imagine that...) and I hit 3 freakin' lights on the last really long leg. I saw my average go down from 18.7 to 18.1 at one stop light because I was trying not to come to a complete stop. I'm usually a little tired in the morning and riding home in the dark at night, so on good days, I'm usually closer to 16 mph at a more comfortable pace. I would like to see if I could hit the magic 20 mph mark. Maybe if I time the lights right one day or something.

I'd say if you had a nice, open route with few lights and little traffic and a set of aero bars, a reasonably healthy person could pull 20 mph averages, but maybe not every day.

Saw this, and I had to post it up...

http://biseekell.blogspot.com/2010/0...versation.html

My point was that if you want to go as fast as possible in a city, you will be running lights often with traffic going through them and using every other dirty trick out there to keep your speed up.