I only have a few hundred miles booked. Newborn question: On flat road, wind being neutral, what is considered a slow, moderate and fast cruising speed?

Just trying to calibrate my progress. In neutral wind, on flat road, I generally cruise about 14/15 mph. Where does that land with you experienced riders? Am I a pig-sloth or just a quick cow?

What kind of a bike do you ride and how many miles do you sustain your 14/15 mph pace? I am by no means fast at all on a bike. On my hybrid I average 15/16 mph in neutral flat windless roads for 20+ miles. On my road bike 17/18 mph.

Recreational riders generally average between 10mph and 20mph on flat roads with no wind. At your 15mph, you'll see some people on the road much slower than you and others much faster.

Honestly, don't even worry about it. I know you're trying to tell if you're pushing hard enough, but you can probably already tell how hard you're working. Just stick with it and try to work as hard as you can over your distance. The speed will come in less time than you'd think. If you want some numbers though, I would say 16/20/25 are good goals to work towards. Feel free to blow those speeds away.

15 or 16 is when it seems like the wind starts pushing back... I know if I am really tired or sore that is the speed I usually end up going.

If memory serves me right, wind resistance increases exponentially as speed increases - in other words, twice the power output does NOT equal twice the speed. So once you reach a certain speed depending on the bike, nearly all your work is spent overcoming wind resistance. As a Clyde and a hybrid rider, I can attest mightily to this factor - I can ride an excersise bike at 15 to 18 mph for nearly an hour with medium resistance, doing 'hills' at intervals but outdoors is a completely different story.

If you look at the Wikipedia article on the UCI Hour Record you'll notice it's only been broken a few times since Eddy Merckx set it in 1972, and even then only by a microscopic amount.

So figure that 30mph is just about a maximum human effort on a typical road bike (and for mere mortals that's only for a few minutes at most).

The difference between say, 21 to 24 mph versus 18 to 21 mph versus your current 15-18 mph is pretty vast indeed, that is, a few mph make a lot of difference work wise.

I'm sure there'll be a lot of computer weenies who'll be able to weigh in with much more detailed accounts and perfectly logical explanations of all this, but for my part I just say get out and ride more, and enjoy it and the rest will all follow

Tom

I have a 19# road bike with Ultera shifters, a FSA compact crankset and a 105 cassette. I sustain that speed for several miles ....4-5 miles?, maybe, before I hit a light or other stopping point in the ride.

Good input I've read. Thanks all.

88 MILES P/HR!

One point twenty one jigawatts**********??

low twenties

For a noob, 18 mph shouldn't be too hard to maintain.

As others say, it depends. For me, a reasonable cruising speed on the flats, solo, for several miles, is about 18-19 MPH. (recovery/slow is 16 and pushing it is 21-22)

If you want a better, more objective measure of your effort, get a heart rate monitor and read up on the "training zones"....or if you have lots of money you could even get a power meter.

Most important...Enjoy the ride.

if you want to know where you stack up, find a group ride and rie with others.

How fast you ride by yourself is subject to so many variables, it is pretty much a worthless measure, and when you're riding by yourself it just doesn't matter how fast or slow you are.

I can do intervals with a tailwind and move along at 27mph.

I can do an endurance ride in hilly terrain and average 13mph.

Neither of those numbers do you much good.

What in the heck is this flat stuff you all talk of?

I'm partial to a nice comfortable 19 km/h.

The fastest average I have ever maintained was back in August for 20 miles @ 18mph but it was a one time affair and I had pretty good company on the ride and it may have effected the speed, but whether it was for better or worse, good company is more important
BUT
I hardly ever ride outside on long straight flats. My Average when I'm out ripping on urban streets is 15 or so. It depends on what bike I'm on, how I'm feeling, where I'm going, and how many stops I have.

You need to do at least more miles than your average figure to have something to talk above. i.e. do 18+ miles at least at with an avg of 18. or 20+ averaging 20. It is funny, unless of course in a competitive TT, to hear guys posting an avg of 19 miles over 6 miles. A performance target of 25mph would be ideal to work towards i.e. a 4hr century, but very tough to do solo, usually accomplished in group. Many racing recumbents though can avg 25mph solo for the century.

After 8 months (& 4000 miles) of working back into shape after some knee and back and stolen bike issues...I may not be the best example, but last weekend did an easy 58 miles loop at 15.8 mph average, and a hard 20 mile loop at 19.8 mph average. Both pretty flat terrain. I don't usually look at averages myself, but someone else asked earlier.

On flat road with no wind, I can do 14-15 mph on my cruiser bike okay. (On a normal long ride with a few hills, bit of headwind, I seldom average that high, though). Typical newby would probably ride that speed on a road bike- what you see at White Rock Lake. Typical couple riding together would be going that speed. Guys riding road bikes somewhat regularly will normally be going 2 or 3 mph faster. Guys that are serious about it will pass you like you're sitting still.

My area's mostly flat, sometimes windy. I usually average around 16 mph or so, but that's on a fixed gear.

Newbie perspective here (< year of road riding).

I thought I was doing ok. I have a local loop, 16 miles, rolling terrain with a couple of short but steep (for me) hills. If I'm feeling good, I can finish this under an hour, +/- 10 minutes. I thought to myself, woah I'm a B rider. Sweet.

I joined one of the C/B group rides. It was for a much longer ride (39 miles), varied terrain and windy condition. I thought I can hang with the B riders and at the very least carry the C rider. I was so wrong. I started easy chatting with the B riders out front and finished almost breathless at the back of the pack with the C riders. Good wake up call. I averaged 13.9 during the ride.

Basically, the shorter and the easier the ride, the faster I get. I usually try not to exceed/stop at 88 mph. I don't want to be indiscriminately transferred in another time.

I can attest to that.... One time I thought I was really flying on my hybrid down a hill then standing on the pedals going up the hill at what I thought was a blazing pace (18mph) and I was passed by a roadie who looked like he was in an event race. He glided past me like a car passing to the left.

When I started back road riding a few years ago, 15-17 mph was about the speed and that was for about 30-40 miles. My first 62 mile ride back was 16.8mph average. It was my first year back even though I still rode MTB.

Few years later, low 20s.

I'd focus on form first and speed second. Get a good spin going. Find your cadence that is good for you. SLOWLY work you way up to a faster speed.

My Winter riding is always slower and the distance gets cut down. When it warms up, I'm always guilty of trying to go too fast too far too quick. This year, I forced myself to gradually work the speed back up while focusing on what my target cadence needs to be.

I don't get Pcad or UMD mileage but my non-bike friends still think I'm nuts.

I'm getting the same feeling.

It appears that we are again confusing cruising speed with average speed. The original question was clear on this.

My answer is complicated. I don't think it is a good idea to judge yourself by the exact speed you can maintain on windless flat conditions. Since you are new to this, you have to give yourself time to adapt into the kind of cyclist that you will eventually become.

The human body is amazingly adaptable, and with the right kind of training you can continue to build your power almost indefinitely (until you reach some critical limits). The process is long though, as the muscular adaptation system works slowly and the gains happen over years, not over weeks. The training plans have to be designed to operate in smaller time frames though. Striving for any tiny increase in your performance over the short term will eventually yield large increases over the long term.

If you are making 15mph now and it feels like an effort, then you need to build based on that, not based on the kind of speed that someone with ten years of racing experience has.