Beginners tips for increasing average speed.
 

Well I have been riding for about a month now and it seems like I am stuck at a 12-14mph average over mostly flat/very mild incline ground. It just seems like every time I up it to 14 mph, the next day I am only able to manage 12.5, then by the time I manage to get to 14 again, I can only manage 12 the next day.
I'm wondering if maybe I am doing something wrong? Should I be trying other exercises instead of just riding? I am limited on strength training, because I have an umbilical hernia...
I've been riding 4-5 days a week usually about 12-17 miles. My main goal right now is to lose some more weight, but it would be nice to see some speed increases too. Is my train of thought flawed in thinking I can make any significant performance increases, while my body is in a mostly catabolic state?

My goal would be to be able to average 17mph over flat ground for an hour by the end of this year? Is that realistic?

There are two ways to go faster:

1) Pedal faster (higher cadence, usually lower gears),
2) Mash harder (lower cadence, higher gears).

1) Uses your heart and lungs to increase speed,
2) Uses your legs to increase speed.

To go faster, you need to improve the fitness of the systems you're using. If you're a spinner, you need to work on your heart and lungs. Spinning is a good way to do that, but any cardio activity will help, including treadmills, walking, running, and elliptical workouts and you will, eventually, begin to realize performance increases. If you're a masher, you will build leg strength, and any exercises that assist with leg strength (squats, leg extension machines, stair climbing) will increase the strength of your quads and glutes, giving you more muscle mass to push those pedals down.

Ideally, you'll work towards a balanced approach, using high cadence spinning where appropriate (long, tortuous climbs), and mashing when appropriate (just got passed by a girl!).

In the end, if your heart and lungs can't supply fuel and oxygen, it won't matter how strong your legs are; you'll still fade. It may not seem like much in the way of help, but you need to work on everything, including your upper body and core, to be the best cyclist you can be. Do the exercises that help you to lose weight, but mix in some strength and cardio, too.

I think your goal of 27 kmh by the end of the year is reasonable, given regular work, a decent mount, and no headwind! Go for it!

What he said ^^^^^^

ultimately, just set reasonable and attainable goals. Look at your prior ride speeds and try to up the average by say, .5mph at a time. I've found that hill climbing helps me and my speed on flatter ground as well.

bend way over to reduce your bodies air resistance (2x speed = 4x air resistance)

wheel suck behind faster riders..

One thing that really made a change for me when starting out was to have a bike computer with cadence. Once I knew what cadence I was actually turning, I would work on trying to stay at around 90RPM. That simple metric taught me a great deal about RPE, pacing, appropriate gears, and really helped me to up my game whether on flats or climbs. YMMV

I've been working toward that sweet spot where my legs aren't burning too much and I'm not huffing and puffing. I'd say currently I'm a little faster when I rely more on cardio and ride at a higher cadence. Do you think it would be more beneficial for me to focus on increasing cardio, or since my cardio is already a little better, would I maybe get more benefit from training my leg muscles?

I guess I am just trying to figure out which area would be best to focus on first.

Maybe I should look into local riding clubs? At first I didn't think I'd be into that kind of thing, but it is starting to seem like it makes sense to help push myself harder.

Put a second magnet on your wheel. You'll have to pay a small weight penalty but after you factor it in you'll almost double your speed.

Or

You're having some days where you're pretty quick, but they seem to set you back because the next day you're always slower than your baseline. What that sounds like, is you need rest days. You go out and exercise, you stress your body, your body decides to get stronger in response, but the actual getting stronger happens while you rest.

Go a little easier. Since you're new to cycling, you probably need to build fitness. Go for long but moderately intense rides, don't do any (or at least much) sprinting, just put a lot of miles down and keep pedaling the whole time. Do a lot of that, with occasional hard days (lots of hills, lots of sprints) and occasional rest days. Give it some time. Notice your body get stronger.

It sounds like you are aware of the balance between cardio and leg power and are getting a good ride in each time you go out.
Maybe mix in a longer ride a bit out of your comfort zone once a week and push it a bit harder on your normal rides.
When I started riding again to get back in shape I knew what cadence worked for me so I simply rode each day where I was pushing myself just enough so that I was working hard enough that I would not be able to hold a conversation without being out of breath.
I did 15-20 miles per ride back then and after a short time was averaging around 17 mph. I was on a new aluminum road bike though so if you are on something naturally slower like a mountain or hybrid with bigger tires you should expect to be a bit slower.

I've read that you should push yourself to the point that you are just barely able to converse without puffing and wheezing. That gives your heart and lungs the best workout. Maintain that pace for a long period (30 minutes, or more), and you'll quickly build the fitness to start driving your legs. Don't neglect your strength training, in the meantime. Do your lifting, and your core workouts, so that your muscles and joints are prepared for the spanking your heart and lungs will give them. You should continue to work on your cardio fitness. Without a strong heart and lungs, you won't be able to train your legs. Don't pick one over the other, though. You need all of it.

Join with a local riding club, and see how it goes. You may find that you get dropped in the first couple of miles, but you can still complete the course and get the workout in. After a few weeks, you'll start keeping up with the pack, and, a few months later, you'll be hanging with the leaders. You can't skip any of the steps, in between. Just don't stop. That's what matters, the most.

Probably.

The mistake most folks who wanting to go faster make is doing the same workout day after day. You need hard days to break your body down followed by easy days to allow it to build itself back up. Most riders don't try hard enough on the hard days and go too hard on the easy days.

This right here ^^^

I see most roadies riding on the hoods with straight elbows. It's a comfortable position, I get it. But if your goal is to ride at a faster pace, get down on the hooks and get your shoulders down.

I find it easier to spin at high speeds (I'm not a masher). Interestingly, Lisa (my better half) started working with Zwift this winter and it's helped her focus on cadence; she's noticing differences right away. But this will challenge your heart and lungs to get stronger, spinning is cardio intensive.

A month at 60-80 miles a week is hardly any time on the bike, you're not going to see substantial improvements until you've put in way more time than that.

Ride more.

Lots of good advice here.

You are only a month in. Stick with it, and you'll see good gains by the end of summer.

Speed vs power
Boosting an average speed by a couple of mph is no easy task.

It takes a lot more power to go just a little faster. For example, see this bike speed calculator. Taking the default settings, 85 watts gives 14 mph. It takes 138 watts to reach 17 mph. That's 60% more power to go 20% faster! And doubling the power to 170 watts only gets to 18.5 mph.

Being more aero helps somewhat. The same calculator shows 85 watts in the drops gives 15 mph.

So, realize that each small speed increase is a good milestone, and you are making progress!

Riding
Try a little of everything, and skip a day or do an easy ride after a long or hard ride. Do some longer rides, maybe 2 hours to start with, and see how you do sitting on the bike that long. More riding time is probably more helpful than more hard efforts.

On another day, try some short, fast efforts with easy pedaling in between. Even better, find some (easy to moderate) hills to climb--I have more motivation to push on hills, instead of random flat road sprinting. It's all good.

Working on a faster cadence is helpful. Try riding at one rear shift easier than you would normally do. I counted right side pedal strokes for 20 seconds and multiplied by 3, just to get an idea of what cadences I was using.

Group rides
Group rides can be good motivation to work harder than on a solo ride. The ride seems to go by quickly, and it's fun. It's my main motivation to ride every week, I have to stay in shape to keep up! And the groups know a lot of good routes.

But a lot of group rides can be intimidating or too hard for beginners. On the faster rides, most riders have been riding for years and can ride efficiently for long distances, and are good at recovering in the draft. They can put out short, hard efforts to stay with the group, and then recover quickly.

Find a more casual paced ride. Ask at bike stores, or look for local bike clubs. They may post average speeds for the ride, but note that sometimes the speeds creep up during the year as riders get more fit. And an average speed is often 3 to 4 mph slower than the typical flat road speeds of the group, since hills and stop lights will slow the average speed a lot. Contact the ride leader to see what the ride is like. These rides typically don't do any close drafting, and are a good intro for new riders.

With more fitness and group experience, the faster rides are a blast. The draft behind a half dozen riders can be a 30% savings in power to go that speed.

This is exactly where I want to be. I think I would feel accomplished if I could up my average to 17mph. About how long did that take you?
I'm on a flat bar road bike with 28c tires, so it's pretty quick but you really do start feeling some wind resistance once I get it to around 16mph. I still feel like I should be able to average 17mph on it though

That's a really good point. I think you may be spot on with that. I notice my 14mph days are always after I've gotten in two days off. I also notice that I'm going for a high average speed every ride instead of taking it easy some days. I will make it a point to vary my intensity more.


The problem is it's a flat bar road bike. I'm already thinking about the possibility of purchasing a road bike and using it for group rides and keeping the flat bar for everyday riding, since I didn't pay much for it.

In general, go faster and your speed will increase. The footrest (pedals, in precise terminology) spin around, and the faster they spin, as a rule ....

Intervals: Ride like a maniac for 30-60 seconds, recover until you are just slightly panting, and as soon as you can, do it again, half a dozen times ... barely catch your breath, and do it again.

Also, practice shifting down a gear and spinning faster until you are out of breath/heart rate spikes, alternated with shifting up a gear or two and pushing real hard until your legs won't turn. This develops different muscles and different physical systems.

On days when you don't feel like pushing, just enjoy the ride. Nothing wrong with just enjoying riding a bike. But on some days when you feel okay, keep thinking "I am out here riding to improve," and make sure you Are pushing, all the time, just a little. On those days you might run out of energy a mile or two from home, but the ten-twelve miles before that will work you ought (even beat you up a little) and in the long run you will get stronger.

Then, just keep riding. Your mileage will increase, your strength and speed will increase. it is just physiology. Stressing over it actually slows down the process.

If you are Really motivated ... google all this and you will find bicycle training techniques, in words, picture, and video, in abundance. there are all kinds of exercises and drill and whole training systems out the on the Interwebz, just waiting for you.

Most of all, lighten up and enjoy the ride. Plenty of us have to kill themselves for the kinds of gains you youngsters make just by waking up each day.

Even if the bar is flat, I would bet that you could still bend your elbows a bit more.

A drop bar road bike will help with higher speeds right out of the gate. Recently, Lisa made the transition from flat-bar road bike to drop-bar road bike. She notices a 1-2 mph increase right away.

Also, think about tires. I forgot to say this in my post, but narrower tires with less tread (modified slicks) will help too.

Recovery is important. There are a lot of ways to build recovery in to your program.

You can do intervals during your ride - pop up to a higher speed for a short time - then recover at your regular cruising speed.
One endurance sports trainer I've read advocates doing 80% of your training at an easy aerobic pace (one indicator of this - you can talk normally) - and the other 20% in intervals at a higher level of effort. There are arguments about exactly how to accomplish this, but you can try intervals such as 1 or 2 minutes at a near max effort then recovering at an easy pace for 4-6 minutes. As your fitness builds, you can do longer intervals at the higher effort, or shorten your recovery times, or raise the bar higher on your "high effort" intervals.

Also as noted you can't push yourself every day. Take some days off cycling do do another kind of exercise, or just have an "easy day" of cycling where you don't push your pace at all.

In my bike/swim/run group, they also have "recovery week" every third week, where we cut volume by about 20-30% and don't do any higher intensity intervals - it's all "easy aerobic."

Every exercise you do has a benefit and it also has a cost.

I was moseying down the road one day at about 19 mph, feeling good and some guy on a mountain bike went flying by me. It was pretty flat, not windy and he sailed on by and kept going. Mountain bike. I imagine if he were on a road bike, he'd have sailed by even faster but the fact remains, the bike is not the problem. he looked like he had some shop kit on, so he probably raced in his spare time but still, mountain bike.

Get a lot of miles in your legs before you start obsessing about speed (say, 500-1000 miles). It will come.

Great thread! I'm just getting into this whole biking experience at a ripe old age of 59yr and am trying to improve mph and also my fitness just as the OP has mentioned.

This quote on tires picked my interest due to just picking up a cyclocross type bike with semi-knobbie tires and was wondering it I should invest in some smoother tires for the road. I usually do 80% road and 20% gravel and would like to go faster on both. I have looked into smoother tires that would do well on gavel too but was wondering if is worth it? Can someone quantify this? Would speed/efficiency increase by XX% amount? Right now I think it would help a bit because I can hear wind resistance from my knobby tires going downhill. Just wondering...

Better aerodynamics are a winner .. in a recumbent, streamlined body Velomobile you can be more comfortable and faster ..

(but they cost like a decent Used Car)

yea slick tires are better than Knobby ones on Pavement. and Expensive , better than Cheap ones (Its in the casing design)

I would keep your CX tires for off-road riding (80% gravel & 20% on-road). I have Clement X'PLOR USH for gravel rides and CX events; however, when I'm going to be riding roads and limestone trails, I convert to 700x28 Panaracer T-servers. You should expect to move faster and work less with a semi-slick tire. And you'd be surprise how well semi-slick tires work on non-paved surfaces. I have used the T-serves for gravel road century rides with lower pressures; one of these races was just fine, the other one was stressful because of fresh/loose gravel. Heck, Lisa rides her road bike with 700x23 Continental Ultra Sports on 80% road and 20% limestone.

So, you can convert tires to make it easier to go fast and not worry too much about riding non-paved surfaces.

That's what I tell the wife about my 12 oz. curls!