Probably not. The average cyclist is pretty darn slow.

Yours was of no use at all.

Facepalm

I think this keeps coming up because n00bs tend to think the way to get faster is to ride as hard as possible every ride and record the average speed. Eventually that number will go up. Unfortunately, this doesn't work beyond the first year of riding. Note that most of the people posting "average speeds" or asking why "it's a big deal" are, in fact, n00bs. It's too bad so many are so unwilling to listen to more experienced riders.

No, it isn't.

Did a bunch of posts get deleted? Things make even less sense now than they did before...

Doesn't really matter now ... what else can we say ?

No, but it would anwer the OP original question.

But it won't tell him what he wants to know:

Not really. Point completely missed. You fail.

Let me remind you what he actually asked:

Hence everyone saying that average speed is useless for these purposes.

I was just wondering because the post that preceeded "Yours was of no use at all." seems to be gone, as is the post with "If it is like running and it is..."

It doesn't matter, I just wonder if a mod went to town on it.

Hey bm... I'll make you feel good.

I'm a below average rider and do a solid 10 miles an hour.

OK I fail, but I passed my English and that is not what he asked. From what I recall the question was what is your average speed and yes he understands about the issues about hills, winds, etc. Just so you know, questions end with a question mark and not a period.
Either way, most of us understand about the differences about averages but there is an average we all have. Just use your computer. It may be information that is worthless, but it is still there.

Wow. Just wow.

Yes, you fail. His question was his whole post. He asked what's your average speed, but his post further explained that he wanted to know this information specifically because he wanted "to know if I'm going too slow, or rushing too fast". And it is precicely because of this that everyone said that the information is useless for that purpose.

Not that it's of any matter anymore, because it isn't but you're correct.

Basically i just gave the reason why I'm asking the question.

So had he just asked, "What's your average speed?" he wouldn't have received essentially the same responses?

Hmmm...

It would have been similar, but that he explicitly said he wanted to compare himself opened himself up to even more of it.

Whew. Good. I thought we were losing focus for a minute.

Some of us were trying to help & educate, rather than provide knowingly useless information. If the thread consisted of 5 pages of:
19
18.7
20.2
16
14.7

It would have been a bigger waste of time.

I don't have a computer, but I've raced & trained at a fairly high level and couldn't care less what my average speed is. A power meter would be useful though.

Ummm...

I will add my 2 cents to this post. I am 67 years young and raced locally (Illinois, Indiana) for about 15 years, from the time I was 40 until I was 55. I raced "citizen" races for about 5 years and then when I turned 45, got my USCF racing license and participated in mass start races. I had more success in criteriums than road races but I was very competitive in my age group. I also rode with the kids that rode from the University of Illinois on Saturdays. After the second year I could stay with them and take my share of pulls at the front. My most notable success was a third place finish in the tandem nationals back in the middle 90's.

I said all of that to say this. Back in the 80's and 90's we did not train with power but always used a heart rate monitor and followed a regular training program. On a regular basis I would test my progression by riding a ten mile time trial course to see if my "average speed" was improving.

Today I always monitor my average speed, when I started riding again 9 months ago, after a ten year layoff my average was around 12 - 13 mph, I had a goal to ride a metric century in 4 hours, 4 months after I came back I did accomplish that goal, in fact I averaged almost 16 mph. My new goal is to average 18 mph. Will I do that everyday, no! But I will continue to ride and train, which will include intervals, 1 minute, 5 minute and 15 minute intervals.

So in answer to the original question, on a solo ride when I am riding for an average speed I want to average over 17 mph. Back when I raced the average race speed would vary from 22 - 25 MPH, typically. Sometimes in a road race the speed will really drop and then at other times it will get very fast, depends on the race.

Wayne

Comparing your own average over the same course and keeping as many variables as possible the same is useful. Comparing it to anybody else on the Internet isn't.