umd

My fastest average speed for an entire week was 18.7, the last week of February. 294.7 miles in 15:47 with only 11,800 feet of ascent. There were two races that weekend, one was Baker to Death Valley, an 80 mile RR at 25.3mph and Dash for Cash, a 20 mile crit at 25mph. My grand total for all riding logged with my Garmin is 28,500 miles in 1,760 hours, with 1.54M ft of ascent, for 16.2 mph average. That include recovery rides, casual rides, race etc.

The great thing that I love about the Garmin is that it logs everything. And I can upload a ride to MotionBased to prove anything. I can't lie



20,000 last year , not necessarily very quickly. I'm much faster this year than I was last year with less miles. But I do agree that avergae speed is very inflated, especially because most people don't really understand the concept and report crusing speeds as average.

Fair enough. My fastest non-race solo ride was a 14 mile commute at 22.3 mph. The hardest part is keeping the speed up riding through the university

HDWound

Good grief. Me thinks this is a Pcad ego stroking thread. Ignore average speed. Look at power output instead- FTP for example.

First 22mph on flat ground, no wind is only about 3.25 to 3.5 watts per kilogram for a regular road bike. I live where it's flat, in the middle of BFE, I've done many such multi hour rides and it's repeatable using a powertap for measurement. Fortunately for me, there is almost always a decent amount of wind for resistance.

3.25 to 3.5 watts per kilo gram FTP is absolutely weenie-riffic. Many would say 4 w/kg is as well. (about 24mph on flat ground no wind)

Again, ignore average speed. Get out and do some various rides across the country, and don't forget your powertap. You'll find many riders who don't race at all that are capable of multi hour rides at an effort of at least 4 w/kg and higher. Assuming that you are faster than someone just because they don't race is pretty funny. Don't worry, I have my license so I'm not one of the 7.97 million.

I agree that there's inflation of ave speed on here at times by individuals or they don't tell the whole story like including tailwind, grade or drafting info, but there's also some individuals that live places and ride on terrain where those solo average speed results are really not that difficult to achieve and taken in that context aren't always comparable to where others may live and ride.

umd

W/kg is less signficant for flat riding than it is for hills. Frontal area/aerodynamic resistance does not increase significantly with weight. That is why skinny-ass climbers like me have trouble keeping up with the fatties on the flats. Anyway, anyone who has been following my "Quarq has arrived" thread would know that everyone is telling me that my FTP estimate must be too low because my resulting TSS values are too high. It's currently at about 4 W/kg but as my kg is low, that's only 250 W.

2manybikes

almost nobody.

patentcad

You think?

atomship47

i just got back from a 36 mile ride. i avg'd 18.6 mph. that's my best ever for a ride over 13 miles. had a 10+ mph crosswind most of the ride. i'm in il so there weren't any hills to speak of.

i won't win any races, but i'm proud of the progress i've made the last couple of months. my new goal for this year is to hit 19 mph for a ride.

MONGO!

I never keep track of my average speed on regular rides, only in races, even then it's largely irrelevant to the amount of effort you're putting out.

My last race was 27 miles, av. speed 24 mph.

I'm racing a kermesse today, I expect it to be a lot slower AND a lot harder.

fuzzthebee

I had a nice average speed (aka tempo) ride today. My goal was to do 3 hours, 3000 kJ or 100 km - whichever came first. I chose an almost flat route along the lakeshore. I left early, around 7 am to beat the rain and traffic. Most of the lights were kind to me. My PT file shows I only came to a full stop 12 times. I live right downtown in a major city, so this was a surprise. I did 50 km out-and-back.

Distance - 100 km
Time - 2:45:54 (2:43:51)
Average speed - 36.1 km/h (36.7 km/h)
Work - 2969 kJ
Average power - 303 w
Normalized power - 320 w

The speed ditribution chart shows that I spent 66.7% of the ride at or above 36 km/h (with 24.5% @ 38-40 km/h) - just to average 36 km/h. I also spent two thirds of the ride at or above 300 w (with 29.6% @ 320-360 w) - just to average 300 w.

permanentjaun

Same problem here. Ever since those jerks at ASU got back in town my avg speeds have dropped pretty good.

RoadToNowhere

Not always....

Beth

halfspeed

Often enough that it's probably a big reason there aren't more women in this forum.

TeddyKGB

IT'S A GURL!!!!!!

totally joking. The fact that it's a testosterone fest is probably the reason there aren't more women on these forums.

EDIT: Beaten

ElJamoquio

My last TT, of 800 people, 2 went over 25 MPH.

atomship47

so, out of curiosity;

when an organized ride has a and b groups and gives a speed range for each....are they usually referring to the average cruising speed or the average speed over the course of the entire ride?

patentcad

There you go.

patentcad

That stupid dog of yours slows you down.

But it's worth it.

halfspeed

Average speed over the course of the ride. "Average cruising speed" is only for BSing yourself.

umd

If you look at our local monthly TT resuls, there is usually a few guys that go over 25 mph. The TT is 10 miles, so 24 minutes is 25mph. For example, here 5 out of 55 did it. If you click on the other dates for results, it is important to note that the course changed at some point and now has a net elevation gain of about 100 feet.

Edit: One of the names consistently around 25mph is also a BF member...

Edit 2: pcad, I do not disagree with your premise. There are certainly a lot of fast guys. The fastest ones seem to be really modest about it, and the ones that think they are really fast are the most vocal about it I wonder how people that are reading really fast speeds even know they are supposed to calibrate their computers...

patentcad

umd, in the Big Picture, there are NOT a lot of fast guys. But if you race regularly, and if like me you keep getting pwned by them all the time, then you start to get the impression that everyone is faster than you. So it goes.

Go for a ride with Chipcom or some other BF regulars. When you crush them like Pez candy under a Storm Trooper Boot, you'll feel better.

umd

Sorry I had a typo. I meant to say before "I agree with your premise, there are not a lot of fast guys" Missed kind of a key word. But you are right, I ride with people faster than me, so I have a skewed perspective of things.

halfspeed

And when you're a middle-aged fred like me who trains enough to be faster than most of the other local freds, it's easy to get the opposite impression. So I like to ride with a group that is mostly faster than me now and then to retain my perspective.

SpongeDad

I would also say that ave speed is meaningless without some assessment of the hills. Most of my rides have about 45 feet of climbing per mile. My buddy rides in PA where he gets 60-65 feet of climbing per mile. For me, that's a huge difference. My rides in PA are always significantly slower.

jrennie

My last two time trials in NCNCA
district TT(flat)
110 of 171 riders went 25mph or faster
7 of 171 went 29mph or faster
1 of 171 went 30mph

Esparto(rolling)
24 of 145 went faster than 25mph

Hammertoe

Speed???...

My average speed for my last race was 6.8 mph...






4.38 W/kg...

Hammertoe

Something I have noticed as I become a stronger cyclist is aerodynamics...

The importance of aerodynamics in making the jump from 20 mph to 25 mph is big...

I never really had trouble in the 18 -20 mph range but getting to 25 mph regularly is not so easy...

As I race hillclimbs, it really doesn't matter, but if I was to do some road racing (which I am contemplating next year) I may need to spring for some more aero wheels...