bdelduca

This is my first year that I really dedicated myself to Road and to riding as much as possible. I have years of riding Mtn. but wanted to feel the freedom of the road. So for the first year so far I've logged a pretty decent amount of miles (somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 - 100 per week) on my late 70's Bianchi. It's really in good condition. So, not a lot of friends that ride road at all, most are mtn and wouldn't consider anything else, and therefore not really sure how to gauge my progress this year so far. I decided to ride in a charity race over the weekend. Due to certain restrictions from my wrist, I opted for the 50k. Nice small. However, when I finished the race I found there was no logging of times, places, anything which I kind of expected. Anyway, Total time was 1:45:37 and avg speed was 18mph. I know this is a very broad question, but I am not sure if this kind of time is reasonable to start doing actual races by next year or what. What ya think?

kneed2wrydemore

Yes.


But, your mph avg really isn't important right now (although it's very respectable).

From what I've learned on this site (I've never raced) you need to learn the overall philosophy of riding in a race setting. Regardless of your avg mph you will be dropped until you learn "how to race."

Good Luck,

RR

tobycat

Without knowing the conditions of the race - terrain, competition level, pacelining, it is really impossible to say.

Were you hanging with a group? Solo? Was it truly a race and not a club ride or organized ride?

A flat ~30 mile ride at 18 mph will leave you alone in races. If it was a very hilly ride with hard climbs then 18 mph becomes very respectable (although you'll still probably be looking at rear wheels in the distance).

Also, you age is a factor.

waitforme

I'm new to road cycling as well, but to give you a reference point:-

I have a 13 year old Specialized Hardrock MTB that I've owned from new and mostly just used for the occasional casual weekend rides with the wife and kids (5 miles at a snails pace!). In early June this year I decided to try and get in shape and loose some weight by cycling (20lbs so far!). At the start 10ish miles at around 14mph was my limit, but I've gradually modified my MTB and gained fitness. Over the past 10 weeks I've fitted road slicks, clipless pedals and bar ends to improve my MTB for the road. I've increase my distance by around +/-10% per week and worked on speed at the same time. I did 92 miles last week: Wed-25, Sat-42 & Sun-25 all at an average of 17.5 mph, all on the flat. I plan to work up to around 50 or 60 miles on a Saturday and keep the other rides to around 25 miles, then work on my speed.

As you can probably tell I've really caught the cycling bug and plan to buy a road bike towards the end of the year, provided I'm still as enthusiastic!

Hope this helps
Kevin

bdelduca

Thank you, that actually explains how I felt the whole time. Even though this was more of a charity type event, I still made the most of it cause it was my first time riding with a group of people. There were teams that were riding in lines and formations most of the way, and I was just kinda doin my thing. I had no clue what these people were doing and how it all worked, it actually made me feel weird out there cause I felt like I was passing when I shouldn't have. Is there any suggestions to learn how to race, books, articles, sites, etc...?