I am 46 yo male who rides 3-5 25-35 mile rides per week. On the flats near the water I can average about 18-19 and about 17 in the hillier areas and I am just wondering how that stacks up with some of the other guys out there my age. Thanks

44, ride 140-150 miles per week. On my 19 mile commute, half is flat and half is up and down hills and I usually average about 20 mph. The other rides vary greatly depending on conditions.

55/Rad

I'm the same age and am about exactly the same speed as you, maybe I am a little slower if your talking about computer avg., but once I get out on the open road I run about 18-19 solo.

38 here and i am new i have been ridding about 1 month my av.is 18.6 on rolling hils and 10 to 20 on the flats

I'm 33 and can spin all day at 20mph. However, I can't think of a single one of my regular routes that doesn't include some tough hills. Consequently, a good average speed for me is around 18.5.

-mark

I'm 31 yrs old, 5'10", and about 190lbs. I just started riding August 1st and can avg 18mph solo and about 19mph with a friend. This is for about a 15 mile trip. I as increase mileage, I have to reduce speed a little. Right now I'm still way out of shape but I'm working on it.

Edit: My averages are computer avg, not cruising speeds...

You have to be careful with comparison's here, some people think their "average speed" is the typical number they see on their computer during the ride. Personally, I roll my bike out of the garage, reset the computer in the driveway and note the average speed when I get back to the driveway. If I reset 2 miles in, I'm sure I would pick up another MPH or two.

That said, I'm usually in the 18's on my moderately hilly 22 mile course (19.85 tops this year). I'm 39 yo and get in around 130 miles a week. I could probably do better if I tried, it just gets too painful to go for PR's every ride


-murray

Just started riding seriously about six weeks ago. I'm 56 yrs old, 6 ft tall, and weigh 225. I do a 14 mile loop four times a week and some shorter rides on the other days. I'm still building a base. I am riding a knobby-tired Univega pseudo-mountain bike w/26x1.75 tires that I got at a garage sale. (I'm thinking road bike for Christmas.) So far, here's where I'm at:

- With the exception of one hill, I ride the big ring on the whole loop - just use 7 gears
- On the flats by the river, I average 16 mph for 5 miles
- The whole loop takes me an hour and I average 13.5 mph
- Fastest speed on a downhill is 33.5 mph
- So far, I haven't died

It's not nearly the struggle it was when I started (Duh!) It's nice to be able to recover from the ride in a few minutes. And when I'm done and get off the bike, I don't feel like my legs are rubber bands that won't support me.

So far, so good!
Dean

I don't think average speed tells me much, personally, unless I take a split for a specific part of the ride. For me, rolling/flat terrain is a much better judge of speed and effort expended. I'm 44, 6'1" and 200+lbs and try to do a lot of hill work, as improving my climbing is one of the most challenging things for me. Power-to-weight ratio puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage to my lighter brethren, but I can scream on the descents. So I'm fairly crawling up some of these grades and flying down the other side...I try not to pay as much attention to the numbers as how I'm doing for time and how I feel relative to my best and not-so-good rides on the same grades. I don't really have to expend much energy to go really fast downhill. However, on flat and rolling I can push a pretty big gear and average 20-25 for a fair number of miles. Lots of times though, after a day of being indoors/in meetings, I just want to get out and ride - not paying any attention to the numbers, and just enjoying the solitary effort

I'm 48, 6'2", 223 lbs. I average approximately 170 total miles on my Saturday and Sunday rides. I don't get to ride during the week because of the huge amount of hours that I have to put in at work. On the flats I average between 18-20 mph, but because of my weight and lack of riding time during the week, the hills slow me to a crawl.

Wow, lots of OF's around here. I'm 48, been roading for the past 1.5 years, did a lot of MTB for three years before that, and 20 years before that, rode very hard in college. These days, I usually get in 2 - 3 rides a week, 20 to 25 miles.

Across moderate rolling hills, I can average around 18mph. On the flats, around 20. When I started road riding two years ago, I was averaging around 13mph over the same routes.


I've been working on a sprint on the moderate downhill in front of my house. Best speed to date is 46.8, and I'm aiming for 50. Have to up the gearing more, with a 53/12 gear, I just can't crank any faster.

Seems to be the trend. I'm 42 6'3" 210 lbs. On flats I run 19-20 over 45 miles. I have a weekday 15 mile with lots of climbs, 15-16. Riding on a well maintaned 22 yr old CroMoly Schwinn. ( I love this bike and just can't part with it!)

I also ride mid week on my Trek MTB to mix it up.

I am 44, just returning to cycling after 10 years off...average 19-21 on slightly rolling stuff, but on serious hills, am only getting it done around 16-18...the ups are taking the average way down...lol...I just got 1-2 MPH back by going to a compact crank...hellooooo big ring!

Almost never look at avg. Total time and miles of ride when i get home.

44 yo 6'2" 192 lbs .. about the same as the other guys - averaged 17.5 on a solo hundo in rolling hill terrain earlier in the year .. faster of course for shorter rides.

I also only look at avg mph at the completion of the ride, so I have no idea what I avg on flats. For that matter, I have been concentrating more on hill climbs, strength and endurance training, etc. and focusing less on miles per week.

19 yrs old, doing on average (take the total trip distance/time) 22mph on a kinda flat course. usually around 25 miles trip.

Get off my lawn, kid!

:-)

jeez.. we should do some sort of forum-wide poll for just height and weight!

cycling is a smaller persons sport and i think most of the ppl who responded to this thread are over 6ft and 200lbs!

i'm not surprised that so many folks here are in their 40s, but i expected.. well.. smaller ppl i guess.

i'm almost 34, very tall and skinny, and slow as poo. i just got a computer when i got my new bike a few months ago and i only seem to avg 15-16mph. i'm thinking (hoping) that might be because so much of the riding i do is on paved bike paths which i believe are just inherently slower than car roads. i live in DC though, so i definitely don't have hills as an excuse.

been off the bike for a few years with overuse injuries (which in case you're curious were pretty much eradicated by going to back to eating meat after years of being vegetarian) so maybe when i have more than a season of riding in my legs the speed and strength will come up on it's own.

**********

Guess I better sell my bikes!

What sport might I be best suited for? I am 5'11.5" and weigh 225 lbs. Sumo wrestling?

Help!

Have I been outlawed?

I do not think age has that much to do with it..Conditioning,training and genetics...I have known some pretty strong riders in their 60's and they had the body of a twenty year old...Around here , we have challenging hills with 2 mile long grades at maybe 8 %...That slows me down..
I am in your same age group. On flats I average about 15-18 mph , depending if I am fighting a 20 mph on shore wind.

I'm 59 and ride 16 miles a day. The route is mainly flat with one small, short hill. My average speed is 15.2 mph.

Another clydesdale here.
I just started riding again this March.
44, 276.5 (at last weigh in) and there is no such thing as a flat ride here in Colorado.
I have been averageing just over 16 MPH on my rides lately (31 Miles), the further i go, the higher my average speed is. The two routes i do have climbs in them at 11 to 15 miles that really slow me down. The more I do after that of the rolling stuff around here, the higher my average goes.

Back in my younger days (30's) when I lived in So. Cal. i used to average about 18 MPH.

For me, and I suspect a few others, playing the major sports competitively as a young person and into adulthood has done some damage to knees and ankles. Old injuries and the pounding of other stuff like basketball and running increase the degenerative effects of getting older, so cycling is the major part of my low-impact workout and because I can work as hard as I can/want to in a short amount of time and still have time free for work and home projects - as well as the fact that I flat-out enjoy it.

Also, are you saying that your overuse injuries went away after you started eating meat again?! Are you stating this as coincidental, or do you attribute this to something specific (if something specific, gotta' use that one on my wife, who is a non-red meat eater).

I'm 5-11, 180, and was a weight lifter for a long time...my goal is 165, which still makes me a hulk compared to those skinny climbing rabbits...15-16 isn't slow...most people ride around 11-13 MPH unless they are getting a lot of open road to spin out on...slowing down for traffic, and other factors drive you average speed down pretty quickly...when I am rolling without interruption, I can average over 20 easily, but it's amazing how the end of the ride average is always slower than I felt the ride was...

hey yeah, no offense intended. i'm just saying that while any body shape is fine for riding you get ppl like "big george hincapie" and "big mig" just because they're like 6'1" or 6'2". we look more like a college football squad by comparison =)

oh, and SteelRider - yeah, i'm definitely stating causality or whatever about eating meat again. i had been a veg for 8 or 9 years and i would get into something healthy like running, cycling, weights - whatever - and then end up with some dumb overuse injury like plantar fasciitis in my feet or ITB-syndrome in my quads or cubital-tunnel in my elbows. then i started eating meat sometime early last summer - mostly just chicken at first but with no real plan - i eat anything now. i've bulked up a bit (granted i'm super skinny, so that means going from like 168 to 182), but more than anything i notice that i don't worry about my overuse injuries flaring up anymore. i mean the feet and itb thing are years old and i still had to look out if i ran a 5k or be careful to stretch thoroughly afterwards. i still try to cross-train - not doing the same type of workout two days in a row. but my feet don't ever really complain like they used to and the quads are better off - i think i was just a bit stringy from not getting enough ballanced nutrition or fats and proteins or something.

not to scientific - sorry about that. but yeah, while i'm not proud of the meat industry i have to admit that it gave me back my fitness life to quit being veg.