how long do you hold 29 mph?

I can do 25-27 on the flats for a little while before my legs and heart scream at me.

how the heck did my reply to your post end up on top?

Depends on how long the downhill is.

Uh-oh. We got us a time warp on our hands.

Time to re-index the databases!!!

Let's dooooooo the timewarp again!!!!

Okay, now that my first century is behind me and that whole long-distance thing isn't a big winner with me, I got back to a rock solid fast ride over the weekend, going the fastest I have ever gone in a paceline.

Three of us....a couple of old buds I have not ridden with for a while (hammers) and we did a hilly 40 miles.

There was a flat stretch when the lead guy picked up the pace....JESUS, Sweet Jesus, I hadn't ridden in a tight line like that as 29 mph ever....very cool!

Not sure how you guys do that on a regular basis!

Not a downhil...just flat....slight tail to cross wind.

Three guys, all working hard in a tight line.

How long?

Best estimate was just under a mile.

Our tuesday night ride is 28-30mph for an hour. But it's flat and its a large group.

That's awesome.
I found that I needed every ounce of attention at that speed. You have to stay real close, but not TOO close....you have to sense when you are falling off just a big, and at times hit it hard but at other times sort of soft pedal for a while....always thinking. Very cool.

yeah, and I could pull that large group for about 5 seconds

Depends:

With a tailwind I've done 25 miles at an average of 29mph --mostly flat course.

Without a tailwind - not very long.

Into a KS 30 mph headwind - probably not at all.

I could do 29 mph for a mile only if something with razor sharp teeth was chasing me.

Never done anything like that. Most I've done is 15 miles with a random roadie who I met the same day at a steady 25 mph. He pulled probably 4/5ths of the way.

Where is this?

I've ridden in large groups (4 cyclists wide) before, our max was 34 MPH.

With wind not factoring in, I can draft pretty comfortably at 27ish for a long time. Much above that and my time is limited. I am not a powerhouse puller for sure. 23mph is my comfort zone for a extended pull up front.

I've been on the end of pacelines where the guy in front is pulling at 32 mph and you've got to do a full SPRINT to get on again after pulling.

Fun stuff, eh?

Way above my head now though.

jw

the Tuesday night open road ride in Jacksonville Fl.

Here's a typical night. The 26mph average includes slowing down for stop signs, stop lights, and slow through neighborhood sections


.

What is the topography of your rides? There is no way I could have a 28+ average on a 40 mile ride on PA river hills..... must be nice to have flat stretches of road


Does anybody have the link to avg. climbing speeds of pros, Cat1, 2 etc? ... it was posted before but the search is disabled.

The Saturday morning Pasadena ride gets that fast. They drop me after about 10-12 miles.

I'm going out on a limb here and saying your computer has auto start/stop that doesn't include stoplights/stop signs, etc/ and obviously doesn't include breaks (if any).

My handicap race last night in Portland, which involves category chasing and results in cat 1-4 field sprint, averaged 27.5 on a flat track for 1 hour and half the field was dropped. We had a hella wind as well, which tends to diminish your average, so it should have been 28+.

The tailwind backside lap I was pedaling flat out in my 50-11 to stay on. With some accelerations, not hotspot sprints, above 33 and the Broadmark Capital guys up front were barely breaking a sweat! I've had a few cat 4 wins this year, but man was I humbled.

If your computer doesn't have start/stop, then I bow down and assume everyone in the group is a cat 1-3.

It depends....some sections I can easily maintain 23-26 mph for a stretch (solo).....other areas I feel like I'm gonna die pushing 21-22 mph after awhile. Really depends on the wind, road surface, and gradient (varies too much around here to find a really "flat" stretch for any sort of distance).

Like yesterday for example....went riding with a Cat 3 guy at work, and this one section we were hammering along between 24-28 mph for a few miles (we weren't drafting each other or anything during the ride), including some slight uphill and downhill gradients (but mostly flat), and had a GREAT road surface. If that road kept going like that, I felt like I could've gone for an hour at that rate.

From the context of his post I think he meant that it does have start/stop--but even though the computer factors out the actual stop time, the resultant slowing due to having to make the stop certainly factors into the average.

--Steve

I'm am in no way calling BS but I'm wondering if you have a cyclocomputer that records all of the datapoints along the way (for later download to a computer for further analysis) or if you're using the "spot-check" method of glancing down from time to time.

--Steve

The strongest day in recent memory on a bike was one day STP when I pulled for stretches at 24-25 mph throughout the 200 miles. We had a slight tailwind for the first 100 miles then a hella tailwind for the last 30 of the 200 total miles. I remember doin 27-28 solo the last 30 mile stretch and thinking about what a feeling of accomplishment to be able to handle all my nutrition/hydration/mental aspects of the 200 mile ride very well.

Only if I forget to turn off the Garmin after packing the bike in the car.