EagleEye

Just curious on people's average MPH and RPM for 30 miles.

I'm doing about 17.5 - 18 mph average with a candence of 95-100 rpm.

What is everybody doing for 30 miles on this forum doing? This is not a macho thing, I just want to get a cross-section of the riders here.

fubar5

hehe..I did 21 MPH for 89 miles just this past saturday, and that included 2 stops, and several putzing along waiting for people sessions, and a crash. I'm sure a good sized paceline on flatland had absolutely nothing do to with.

EagleEye

Man, I can't even imagine going that fast for 10 miles, let alone 89 miles. Awsome!

Bikedud

January - 14-16 mph for 30 - 50 miles
March - 15-17 mph for 40 -50 miles
May - 16-18 mph for 50-60 miles
June - 17-20 mph for anything up to a century depending on terrain and fellow cyclist.

velocipedio

which 30 miles?

a typical group ride of 80-100 km will have about a 30 - 35 km/h average. an easy group ride of the same distance will be around 25 - 30 km/h. on a 120+ km ride yesterday, our average was about 25 km/h... but you have to remember that a whole lot of rides of any significant length start slowly and end slowly. on a 100 km ride, there will be 10 km of warm-up at the start, and 10 km of doodling at the end. if there are sprints and attacks, the overaall average will go down dramatically, as people crank up to 50 km for an attack and force the group to charge, catch and recover.

there was a significant portion of yesterday's ride, about the distance from just outside greenfield park down to st-jean-sur-richelieu [34 km] that took a bit less than an hour and averaged about 36 km/h. there were only three of us, though, and i'm pretty sure we could have done it a lot faster if we'd had a few more people and a smooth rotation.

in other words, it all depends. if you're regularly doing substantial rides at 30 km/h, then you're doing okay.

pgreene

17-20, depending on all the variables. one ride i do is closer to 15, because it's up hill the whole way. group rides, probably 20 or so.

Paul L.

Between 17 and 19 mile and hour depending on wind.

SteveE

Typically 17.5 - 18.5 for my regular 40 mi. ride over rolling terrain without a group. I usually keep my cadence at around 95-100 rpm. If my ride takes in serious climbs then my avg. speed will drop as most the the descents are rather twisty and can't be taken at full speed. Last Sunday's ride was basically uphill for 15 mi., downhill 15, uphill 15, and downhill 15., chilly with a mixture of light rain and fog. My average speed was only 14.6 mph.

the BIG cheese

21 mph, 62miles. first road ride with alot of people. last ride before the bike was lost in a tragic rack accident going 75mph

SamDaBikinMan

Posting average speeds can be deceiving. I do not claim averages from group rides when I am trying to describe my capabilities to others. If I had pulled the group the entire ride then maybe.

This is where I really admire triatheletes. They ride alone most of the time. If they tell you they average 22 mph it most likely was not due to a group pulling them along for 75% of the ride.

Typically I consider myself in the condition I like to be in when I can do my 20 mile time trial loop (which is slightly hilly) in under 57:00 minutes. Until I bust 57 I am out of shape. This works out to a little better than 21MPH average.

easyrider

Don't most tri-geek events allow drafting now? I thought that there was a major rule change on that a few years back. It seems that I remember a bunch of those guys piling up in the Olympics because they were all drafting while riding the aero bars.

lsd87

Depends on road conditions and terrain. Good roads, mostly flat and light wind...about 15-16 mph. My problem is trying to get those conditions all the time. So normally about 14 mph.

ParamountScapin 

Flatland in a paceline I can do the 18-20. With lots of hills and the occasional paceline I can do 14-16. My goal is to do the 18 mph average in the hills, as well. Means lots of commuting into the Philadelphia area to find some hills. It is a great help that my daughter lives there. Our hills by the coast consist of going over the bridges. Gets pretty repetitious after 50 trips back and forth.

belfast-biker

Tri-geek? I don't get it..why?

SinGate

I have the same caidence but average in the 18 to 19 range when riding solo...but I aspire to do better.

Joe Gardner

More and more of tri events are becoming draft legal every year. There are a few thoughts behind this:

1) Draft legal events are more TV friendly. I honestly believe this is why you saw the Olympics run a draft legal event. It is also much funner to watch in person a draft legal event.

2) To stop the head judge from deciding the end result. At last years Ironman, I personally had to bust two riders for drafting. One was caught by another marshal 20 miles down the road, and was not allowed to go on the run.

3) You could also have the bike on a loop course, rather then an out and back course like most current roads. We tied up traffic all day, and had to close 112 miles of road. Draft legal can be run on a smaller circut, say a 10 or 20 mile loop. T1 and T2 could be at the same spot for beter viewing.

If you think about it, drafting is legal in the swim and run, why not on the bike? I think the no-drafting events will soon all but disappear.


Back on topic....

I usualy ride a 32 mile out and bike ride, with two major hills each way. I avg around 16.8mph solo. Last year I did the ride with one other cyclists, and we finished with a 18.5 avg. I am sure with a real group of cyclists we could up that to 21 - 23mph. My cadence usualy hovers around 93rpm.

SamDaBikinMan

I'll have to look into it. one of my training partners back in the mid 90's was a tri and drafting got you docked time or disqualified then.

belfast-biker

Quickie - what is drafting and why is it bad?

SamDaBikinMan

Belfast, drafting is when you get in line behind another rider and use him to block the wind. It makes the effort to maintain his/her pace much lower.

Consider that once you are over about 15mph the resistance you fight is air. Rolling resistance does not really change just the amount of air you are pushing.

caloso

On Monday, my buddy and I cranked out a 30 miler averaging 20.6mph. We rode abreast so no drafting but did get a slight tailwind on one section. I was pretty spent and maxed my HR at 189 in the last mile. We have a standing goal of averaging 20mph for the 30 mile ride. I think that may be the first time this year we've done it.

I don't do a lot of big group rides so I don't draft much. But when I do it's weird to see 135 on my heart rate monitor and 19mph on my speedometer. Gotta love that.

Once in a tri I got yelled at for drafting (luckily I wasn't cited) and I was just trying to pass a guy but I didn't have enough in the tank.

Duffy

I did 17 miles today and averaged 17.55. About a month ago I was averaging 16.5 on the same trek. I am 43 years old,5'10' and 195. Need to lose about 10 lbs(am having trouble getting the weight down). My goal is to be consistently above 18 by the middle of the summer. One thing I have noticed is that whichever direction I ride,it is always into the wind!

dexmax

i ride alone and average about 18.75mph... i ride uphill most of the time (75% of the ride)... on the downhill i average 34mph(a bit bumpy at times)..

nathank

i agree with Joe's answer. the reason they made the rule change was to make it more spectator friendly which means more viewers which means more advertising which means more $$$ - ah the whole world revolves around money, duh!

anway, while it may be more viewer-friendly, here's why it sucks:

it makes cycling very UNIMPORTANT and puts emphasis on
a) a swim fast enough to start with the fast riders --- i.e. if you come late out of the water and miss the fast group of drafting riders you are screwed b/c a solo guy cannot catch a group - no way. but on the other hand fast swimmers get screwed too b/c they will be riding solo and caught by the drafting riders (who might even be resting in the paceline)
b) a FAST run because the bike drafting creates big groups so that everyone stay together and makes for a sprint at the finish

of course the fact that everybody stays together and it's a sprint at the finish is why it's more "exciting" for spectators and TV.

most everyone here should know how much EASIER it is to draft. you can ride a good 5-10km/h faster!

i am not a real traithlete, i just did a few, but for most of the athletes it sucks: i am a horrible swimmer and only a decent runner, so the bike is where i have to make time. with the drafting all the other guys can sit on my wheel and i don't gain much --- the draft effect in swimming is less and in running is almost non-existent.

crappy swimmers miss the pack. good swimmers waste energy/effort and get caught on the bike. slow and average cyclists are ok b/c they can draft. fast cyclists end up pulling the others so waste energy/effort and IF they break will usually use so much energy they get caught on the run. slow and average runners cannot with the sprint at the end b/c they cannot make a big enough gap on the bike. so the winners will be: average swimmers and average (or even weak!) cyclists with a great run.

although the drafting disqualification is a pain, the tradtional triathlon is a much better TRUE athletic test. to see this, think about how different the race outcome would be if you switched the event order: without drafting the differences would be light basically just people would be more fresh on the run and less on another, whereas with drafting the WHOLE thing would be different if the bike were first or especially last b/c of having different drafting possibilities.

it sucks that we live in a world run by advertising and money, but so it is they also made a bunch of rule changes to volleyball (one of my other big sports although i play less now) in the last 5 years almost all to increase spectator friendliness (against the wishes of most of the athletes). but maybe it will make the sports more popular so in the long run be a good thing?

trmcgeehan

Joe G. Question: I never heard of drafting while swimming/running. How can you draft at such low speeds? Back to the original question. At age 64 and 195 pounds on a 32 pound road bike, I am doing real good to average 13 mph over 25 miles on a hilly course. Every year, I seem to slow down 1-2%, which means in 20 years I will have to be riding my route on a motor scooter.

Ed Holland

I tend to ride solo, commuting 8 miles to and from work, plus weekend rides. The last big ride was a shade over 50 miles (one 5 min stop) and the computer claimed 17.5 mph.
On the commute, according to traffic hold ups (or lack of them) I can get close to 20 mph average.

Pretty good for me!

Cheers,

Ed