true... you can't average 20mph for a more than 5mile commute in NYC with a CAR... let alone a bike and follow the "minimum" traffic rules.

If a motor vehicle can legally/safely travel >20 then a cyclist should be able to as well. It only potentially becomes unsafe if one needs to take risks to travel faster than the normal flow of traffic.

I exclude waiting at lights when I compute my "average speed". (Actually my computer excludes that time automatically.) I don't have control over it so there's no point penalizing my times for it, although I do get penalized for start and stop times, and any slow rolling.

Please clarify whether you mean pedaling average or trip average. I (used to) routinely get 19-20.2 mph pedaling averages over a 10 mile commute with 17 lights.

It that's not what the OP meant maybe I'm off topic.

In this case it is trip total time, not moving time only.
For my commute on average for the past 7 years my total time is 1.08 moving time.

No, speed is not as important as safety. I'm not going to be ******** just for a little extra average speed!

I average about 15 miles/hour on a 7 mile commute. 20 miles an hour is really fast and i think impossible in most situations due to traffic lights, other bicyclists, etc. If you have a long stretch of road or if you are really strong you might average 17-18 miles an hour and maybe on a good day 20 but i think not 5 days a week.

I make about an 18mph speed with 14 stops over an 11-14mile commute. It takes me 45min to cover 11 miles with traffic

LOL. We should move this to the E-bike forum and see what those guys think. :)

Or we put it in the car forum, see if they can manage 20mph in traffic ;)

I usually average 16 mph on the flattest 6.5 mile route to my work due to traffic lights. One day I got incredibly lucky - I was able to draft a truck on a long stretch, and I hit all green lights. Made the 6.5 miles in under 20 minutes, just barely 20 mph.

In my car, I don't average much faster - maybe 26 mph.

As mentioned above I was flirting with 20mph average speeds on a 25 mile two-way commute (most trips were ~40min saddle time, some ~35min.).
cyclist5 you are a high performance commuter in my book.

Actually, I think I'm somewhat unique in that I include all the time. It's not like the waiting at lights magically doesn't make me later for work. I'm thinking of changing it up, though, because I'm curious how much of my variance in elapsed time is due to me, and how much to the lights.

Just skipping time spent at lights isn't enough to compensate for them since you're also spending significant time decelerating for them and accelerating from a stop.

For example on one morning commute I took 47:38 of wall clock time to cover my 11.8 miles of which only 6.6 minutes were at zero speed although 10.9 minutes were at zero cadence and 12 minutes were at zero power (I spin the cranks a little to down shift approaching lights).

Looking at the ride plot one acceleration from 0-20 MPH takes about 18 seconds which wouldn't be bad; although the route includes 10 stop signs and 24 traffic lights of which only one is a right turn where I can proceed when the light is red. That ride seems to include 17 stops which would be 306 seconds accelerating or another 5 minutes that aren't at full speed.

Then there are indirect effects - stopping lets you recover and go harder when you restart; but stress is roughly proportional to the square of power so accelerating at 2-3X your one hour power is 4-9X as hard as just cruising along for the same time period.

Yeah, for me, traffic lights, and one stop sign at a busy street were a significant source of variation. Probably the worst case was +4min on my usual route, as there was only one each potentially long light & stop sign. Only other significant source of variation was wind. Just the same, the elapsed times I logged for my own reference and posted in this thread were from setting out at the beginning to dismounting at the end of my trip.

Why thanks! I just love riding fast :) I had to invest some cash to get faster though.

this is sooooooooooooooooooo true. my usual commute takes an hour, about 53m of moving and 7m of waiting at various intersections. then last Saturday I took off early when there was no traffic and didn't have to stop the entire 13 miles. made it in 45:30.

I have found that if I make loads more effort I get an extra mph or 2 and only cut 2 minutes off my time. So I might as well take it a bit easier and relax more!

Even so since riding fixed gear all winter, I can now easily average 20mph+ on some sections of my commute - which is fun :)

Agreed, increased effort yields diminishing returns. I put out the effort that I'm comfortable with (commuting being part of my exercise regimen); that resulted in my ~20mph average speed on my previous commute. My new (yet untried) commute will be ~25 miles 1-way; thankfully little elevation change, but probably some waiting at lights in the city end of it.

Cyclist5, IMO the cheapest ways to go faster are, in order of importance (Assuming you have a decent road/touring bike to begin with):

• get in better shape
• ride on the drops as much as possible & lower them as much as you comfortably can
• minimize weight & bulk of items carried along with you on commute
• optimize tires & pressure for your route
• evaluate your gearing and if necessary, re-configure the ratios to optimize them for your route & riding style

After the above, getting faster by upgrading equipment will get real expensive.

Well I found getting fitter came after getting better equipment. And by equipment I meant a road bike, kevlar slicks, and cycling clothes. I'd say it went from 10mph top to 22mph average. That and going from 40lbs to 20lbs of books and emergency gear :)