When riding, is it better to focus on your overall distance over time or speed over time? Basically for example if I rode 20 miles in 2 hours would that be better than riding 20 miles in an hour and 30 mins? Obviously speed plays a factor but with normal daily rides for exercise should distance or overall time be the thing to focus on or speed?

wait...what?

When riding is it better to focus on distance or time? I think that's the better way to put it.

Skip DISTANCE all together. It is meaningless.

Focus on TIME / AVE SPEED.

Later is will be TIME / WATTS.

i get that..but if you naturally focus on better time over distance it = better avg speed....so the question...I don't get it.

what you mean is...should you focus on putting more hours in the saddle and riding longer distances even if it means riding slow or should you be doing short distances at a faster pace. which I would say: depends on where youre at currently with your riding ability. are you only riding 20 miles consistently? If so you should focus on finishing that distance with a better time/avg speed. If you ride at a decent pace in your 20 miles with a good average then starting upping the distance, then work on that average.

What are your goals? If you're a 50 year old novice working your way up to a century your riding should be different than a 20 y.o. who wants to race crits.

Lol. +1.

But if I've only got an hour to spare, I'd go as fast as I can.

Algebra FTW! (Or FTL, I guess...)

...unless your goal is to ride far. Then it's absolutely crucial; in fact, it's the only metric that matters. Period.

Same here. Do intervals or just get a good fast cardio workout. On longer rides my goal will always be to finish at a better time than last. The iPhone apps help with this. Some have training and enable you to race against yourself.

This.
I don't have the time to ride for whole days and that's why I focus on speed and especially average speed.

A lot depends on on how much time you have. If you can ride for hours each day, there is a lot ro be said for LSD - long steady distance - riding in HR zone 2. You build a big aerobic base that way, and you recover fast from those rides so you can repeat virtually every day. But most people can't spend 4 hours a day on their bikes, so need to train for shorter periods at greater intensity. That gives faster adaptation per hour cycled, but means you have to manage your recovery better. You can't train in zone 4 on successive days too often without taking the edge off your performance. You might want to read about SweetSpotTraining.

DEFINITELY focus on time.
On my usual 20-mile training ride, i try to keep it at 2 mph, this way i exercise for 10 hours. It's great, I train for almost as long as a typical ironman race.

BF is growing on me, that's pretty funny.

That's the answer I was looking for. Thanks guys.

All that matters is that when you're done riding you feel like you couldn't pedal another revolution and that you throw up as soon as you get off the bike.

Faster over the same distance will burn more calories.

Did someone on the 41 admit that average speed was not wholly and completely useless?

Just go out and ride. If you get bored on your "usual" 20 mile route, change it up, or do the route in intervals. Everyone has different goals. I want to get faster and do more distance, but at the end of the day, I'm just glad that I got to ride my bike.

I didn't do all the math, but I think the winner of a bike race has the highest average speed like every time.

The correct answer highly depends on your goals. If you don't have any goals, and are just riding to ride, then you should ask yourself why you're bothering to worry which is better.

But in general:

- For long rides, or rides that are significantly longer than your maximum distance ridden now, be it 15, or 250 miles, you have to log the distance. Even if you're going at near walking pace, you absolutely must log long rides aimed at your target distance. So for a century, your long ride may be between 75 miles or 125+ miles. You can do it on less, but if your performance will suffer big time on race day when you hit those long distances and you're unaccustomed to distance riding. Forget speed on these rides - keep up as steady and consistent an effort as you can for that long distance, even if it's slow.

- For short races, like a 40k or shorter TT, or criteriums with lots of high power accelerations, it doesn't matter how long you can go if you can't put up the power (speed). You should be avoiding megadistance rides that tax your recovery for days, and focusing on shorter distance appropriate to race distance with appropriate high-intensity interval work. Yes, focus on power/speed on those intervals. These workouts will be a lot shorter than the long distance ones above, but they'll hurt a lot more in that short period of time - most people give up on these workouts after 2-3 weeks unless they've got a goal race.

The specificity of training is huge. In Socal, there are a lot of local triathletes (yup, not roadies) who are training for Ironman triathlons, and do 125+ mile hilly rides on weekends. I've joined them more than a few times, and invariably, I (not an Ironman competitor) feel like the first 80% of the ride is too slow, and I'll kill everyone. Then after mile 90, and on that next 2000 foot climb, I get dropped by all those slowsters. There's a reason why they're out there forever, because they'll be racing that distance.

In contrast, if any of these folks show up at the roadie AM interval short hillclimb, which is about 25-30 miles total, with several loops of a short hilly course but done a la criterium style, these same folks who drop me at mile 90 can't even keep up on the first interval, and usually get summarily dropped by the pack after #1, whereas I'll often be right up front the entire way. Those IM guys/gals don't do intervals because they don't need that for race day, and it shows.

And as an aside, as much ridicule as 'average speed' gets around here, it's can be a useful metric. The longer your ride, the more the average speed becomes a true average, as the overall elevation changes tend to average out more. On my 75+ mile ride, average speed is dead-on for my effort. On those hill sprints <30miles, not so much, as the elevation variation has much more of an impact since there's less averaging of flats & hills.

On an indoor trainer like the KK, average speed = best data point, as in that controlled environment, your average speed on a KK directly correlates to your average power.

Figure out what you want to improve - acceleration/climbing power vs long distance endurance, and that will help you focus on which one you can emphasize, even if you're mixing both in.