I averaged a whisker over 30mph on my ride yesterday. Admittedly that was measuring from the top of a big hill for a mile (specifically to the point I had to stop at a red traffic light) but... you know... it's a nice big number and if I retell the story enough times I might look like I gave Mark Cavendish a good run for his money.

input your computer in a wheel size half of what it is,

it will tell you a white lie, but you may feel faster.. :innocent:

Doesn't work, I use a GPS. Although it did clock me at 243mph very briefly, after I emerged from a long tunnel.

Hell, for me, 10mph average is tough to do :lol:

http://runkeeper.com/user/coreyr/activity/47919711

no sweat riding
 

I’ve checked my speeds against Google maps and they use around 19Kph for calculating times. This is very reasonable considering that many of us commute in urban settings. I don’t know about you, but I tend to time the lights so I’m always riding on green. Depending on” line of sight” conditions, this allows me to conserve my momentum. Grade can affect this as well. A drop of 4 or 5 feet over a mile can reduce rolling resistance, considerably, and make for a sweet ride without breaking a sweat. These postings are great and give me food for thought when calculating traffic volume issues. Now, if someone can design a bike route that goes downhill both ways, you’re on to something. Come to think about it, when you consider the amount of earth they move making roadways for motorized vehicles, designing a roadway with a 4 or 5 foot drop would be cheap and very encouraging for “low wattage” riders.

the fastest overall average i've mustered for my 14 mile commute is 19 mph. and that was with a really nice tailwind, hitting all of the greens on the 3 super-long lights along my route, and really, really exerting myself. to get up to a 20 mph overall average, i'd have to find a way to shave 2 entire minutes off of my fastest ever time, and i just don't think that's possible for me along my given route, even if everything goes right.

20.1 MPH was my average on the way home last night...I had a light tailwind helping me but it was still a struggle. My fastest time ever is 50 minutes...and I was at 51 minutes last night. I usually roll right around an hour for my 17.3 miles...to get up over 20mph for an average I have to constantly remind myself to go faster and that gets harder to do as the week goes on.

I had a very copacetic bike trail/bike lane commute in Colorado with only one traffic light forcing me to stop for any length of time. My ride home was always about 5min faster than the ride to; probably due to favorable net elevation change and having more vigour, in the afternoon. Anyway, except in adverse conditions, my homeward ride was typically 35-40 min. gross elapsed time on a 13 mile distance. There were 3 significant hills along the way, and though it seems counter-intuitive, I think now they made me faster overall due to the long-term strengthening effect. The reason I say that is now I have a basically flat bike trail commute in MI, again with only one significant traffic light, and a distance of 11.5 mi, and I think my fastest elapsed time so far is around 39 min, with 40-42 being more typical. To be fair, there is one area of bridge construction where I have to slow way down, but I doubt that is even costing a full minute.
My conclusion is either that the distances reported by GoogleMaps are not accurate, or more likely that I have not built up to the condition that I was in in CO, in my current MI commute.

Yeah, I take google times, and subtract 30%. If they say the ride is 1 1/2 hours, I figure it will take me an hour. Your milage may vary...

I average right around 14mph on my 10 mile commute to work...and I'm riding a mountain bike with 2.1" tires and I weigh ~280lb.

Coming home I take it easy and average around 12.5-13.0mph.

My commute is pretty much flat except for a couple of freeway overpasses.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7...0elevation.jpg

I also commute with my LHT and 13 to 15 mph is about what I can do. My standard commute route is about 9 mi. I've done a 15.6 mph ride home but along a different route. Longer (12 mi) but with longer stretches of open road. I'd like push my average up but it's hard. Maybe if I train but then it's work!

I've thought about buying a light road bike to see if my average would improve. My LHT is weighted down with racks (front and back), fenders, panniers (same sort of stuff PeregrineA1 has) and fitted with 26x1.5 tires. But maybe it's just wishful thinking.

At my age, I just want to ride. Not injure myself trying to do something my knees are not capable of.

AMEN! Stop and smell the sqrlz!

Yep. I learned the hard way (knee injury) and had to take it easy. Until I looked for other validation than trying to beat the number, was pretty boring riding. Now, I sort of realized what I had been missing.

J.

I can't do moving average because I have no bike computers. I usually do about 13 mph average (including time stopped in traffic). I think my fastest trip was 18 mph (I was late for a Habitat for Humanity meeting.... but when I got there, it turned out I was on time!) Heading through some sketchy neighborhoods to get there probably helped my sprint at the end of the ride.
'

Some days My Wind Speed is a lot faster,
but the ground speed drops off to compensate.

If you want to ride fast you need to get a decent sub 25 lb bike, get a real crank and casette (e.g. 52-39 and 11-23/25), run high pressure skinnies (23-25 @ 110-130 psi), go clipless, and learn to spin. It also helps to have a healthy disrespect for minor car-centric traffic laws!


Commuter A: Orbea Diem, Ultegra drive train, 105 crank, Deore Hydro discs, wellgo spd pedals (326 g).

Commuter B: Trek 7.9 frame (free replacement for 7.5 FX), Ultegra-105 mix, 105 crank, Nashbar CF fork, Front BB7 disc, thomson Stem and Post, wellgo spd pedals (326 g).

My commute is almost exactly 7 miles.

Generally my overall time is about 30 minutes. 240' climbing on the way in and a hundred less riding home. 17 lights & stop signs.

My fastest ride home ever I averaged 20mph ride time. Generally I average 13ish on the way in and 15-16 on the way home. That one fast ride home (I hit all the lights right!) got me kind of stoked for the Sprint Triathlon I have in June (I averaged 18.5mph over 13 miles in my first one last year)

Same here. Before I made my coroplast velomobile, my moving average to school @ 19.7 miles (+585 / -1039 ft) was usually around 15 - 15.5mph on a good day. If I had a headwind, I'd be closer to 14.5mph. Once in a great while I could hit 16, but that was usually with a tailwind helping me out. For the ride home using the shorter route @ 19.8 miles (+1046 / -588 ft) I'd usually be at 12.5 - 13mph moving average.

After making my velo a little over 2 weeks ago, my slowest moving average speed to school has been 16.0mph. My slowest moving average home taking the shorter route is currently 13.3mph. Middle of last week I started taking the longer route home, which bypasses the steeper hill to my house @ 22.2 miles (+1096 / -639 ft). My moving average taking that way has been 13.7 - 14.2mph.

My fastest commute to school ever was last Monday at 17.5mph moving average (15.8mph average including stops) and 39.2mph max: http://ridewithgps.com/trips/456393.

The best I managed on my 11.8 mile commute (24 traffic lights only one of which was a right turn and 10 stop signs) was 42:19 or 16.7 MPH.

2:36 stopped, 5:12 at zero power decelerating for lights, time accelerating, and a pannier which makes for a 20% drag increase and ~2 MPH loss on flat ground did not help in spite of riding painfully hard to compensate.

Bike weight isn't going to make a measurable difference on flat ground. On 6% grades at 250W a 145 pound rider atop a 30 pound bike instead of 25 one is going to drop from about 10.6 to 10.4 MPH. Differences will be less pronounced for flatter terrain and with heavier riders.

I skip wide range cassettes like that (11-23 has no 18 cog with 10 in back, and 11-25 doesn't even include a 16) in favor of tighter cogs in a more useful range. With 9 cogs and 50-34 I like 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23, although I got a 12-23 to go with my upgrade to 10 cogs for a better chain line on the small ring and ordered a 14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23 cassette to see how a 20 cog works probably with a 53-39-30 crank from my bike shelf .

On a fast commute I spend half my time somewhere between 18 and 21 MPH spinning 50x21, 50x19, or 50x18.

On the rare occasion I break 30 MPH where a stop light pedestrian sign is counting down seconds it's using a 50x16.

Bigger gears wouldn't buy anything beyond fewer shifts to and from the small ring.

I also run my 25mm tires at 95-100 psi rear and 90-95 front with my 180 pounds of flab and 15 pound pannier. The rolling resistance increase is negligible and it's more comfortable without being soft enough to pinch flat on potholes or other road imperfections one of which was enough to bend a 400g rim. The pannier makes for a 20% drag increase but is way nicer than having the weight on my back.

My best one way (6.5 miles) commuting average speed was 20.4 mph. Best round trip (13 miles) average speed was 19.1 mph. Everything was perfect both times. Oh, and these were separate days.

Now, with a different bike and different route, I average about 16-17.

>Bike weight isn't going to make a measurable difference on flat ground.
My comment was not really about the weight per se. The geometry of the frame has a significant effect on energy transfer...especially when climbing.

since my commutes are short (5-10 miles one way) i have no problem sprinting at 30-35 mph on interspersed flats. i am more interested in irritating cagers, getting excercise, and maintaining a cadence of 90-120 (so i don't blow my knees) than developing obscene track skilz.

I typically carry a very large ortlieb bag (laptop, tools, gear, lunch, groceries, case of wine) and am a 205 lb clyde with calves thicker than his skull.

I run R500s or cxp33s and have no problem with the higher psi (but both are heavier rims).

I have a 25-mile commute. about 30 traffic lights in total, many, many junctions.

Normal elapsed average (summer) is 17-18mph. One day I had a howling tailwind and without breaking any traffic laws managed to average 20mph (elapsed). I was really caning myself tho' and like I said, howling tailwind.

Interestingly, I've done the route using a GPS as my 'cycle computer' a few times. There isn't much difference between my rolling average and my elapsed-time average. Probable because of my habit of easing off and coasting up to traffic lights that are red or about to change.