I don't think you can really judge your performance with avg. speed on the road to many stops and other things just just slow you down.
While it may seem to be something you can judge performance by it I don't think it can be used on road rides the variables are just to great on the road.

Lol. By definition, no.

Agreed. Compare 1 or 2 mile lap times/splits over a common stretch over time and you will get a much better idea. It is reasonable as well to account for wind, all else being equal.

even when I plug it in with a 203 max or 205 its not that much different. I don't think your zone 3 or 4 should feel like your "hammering" by any means. Those zones are cruising to me. Again, its all in conditioning.

It is certainly possible, and good genetics aren't required for that assuming you've got a route with few interruptions.

If the weather is hot and you feel like you're freezing, that's a sign of heat exhaustion. If it's cold and you're sweating, that's normal.

Lap one seems a distinct possibility. 19mph solo for that distance should be no problem at all unless you have wind, hills, or traffic controls to deal with. How long have you been riding? If you've just started, you're not doing so bad. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry too much about speed.

I've got several stretches I can hit uninterrupted and maintain 20+

Great!

'hammering' and 'cruising' are just adjectives... instead let's talk about the duration you can be at these HR zones regardless of whether you feel great, crappy, or in between.

if you can ride zone 5 for an hour you have good cardio, muscle endurance fitness and the ability to withstand pain. if you can ride zone 5 for 2 or more hours, your HR max is probably wrong as I noted above... or you're destined for greatness.

Forgetting about the numbers, the description for zone 4 from your chart is the mean HR from a race. This is not easy for anyone. If your zone 4 pace is 'super easy' then you likely have your zones calibrated incorrectly. It has nothing to do with conditioning. As your fitness improves you'll go faster but effort in zones doesn't change.

In general it's better to base your training on LTHR rather than MaxHR. Do a 30 min interval all out and the average HR in the final 20 min will be pretty close to your LTHR. This is not easy for anyone from beginner to pro. It matches zone 5 in your chart.

Ride hard. When you want to stop, ride some more. Recover. You will get faster.

i dont ride much and when i do i can ride for a while without breaks but on the slow side riding at 16-17mph, which averages out to 15mph. i ride about once a week and get about 30-40 miles a week. but this summer i would like to ride 50 miles a day for 5 days a week so that i can ride faster so that i can be like those guys that plow right through other riders effortlessly on a high gear.

Well put.

I guess its relative to the person, how you handle pain and what really gets to you. I personally feel like I've adapted the feeling of being in that zone as my natural fast and steady zone. I'm not exerting myself to a point that can't be sustained over long distances. Zone 5 however gets into the area that can only be sustained for short distances and leaves me needing to recover for a few second before I can mellow out in my 4 again. I tend to thing my pain tolerance is pretty high but I just don't think that 4 is anything to feel super tired over unless you've steady stayed in that zone for something like 2 hours.

There's your problem -- practically no saddle time at all.

Most people in this forum put in 100-150 miles a week and aren't particularly fast. Without a serious training plan you won't be either though you'll certainly be faster than you are now if you're logging 250 miles/week. BTW, if you just put in the miles during the summer and drop back to 40 miles in the fall, you'll get faster (but you still won't be fast) and then lose your speed gains within a couple months.

Yup, your HRmax is clearly incorrect. Even looking at the website you went to it clearly states that Zone4 is race-pace, so by perceived exertion, you just aren't going hard enough to reach your true Zone4. Go redo your testing and HTFU on the test so the numbers really max out. Nobody on this planet can honestly say that zone 5 'isn't exhausting over long stretches'

zone 4 ...i said zone 4. I clearly stated that I cannot maintain zone 5 without tiring out and having to recover for a few seconds before getting back into a steady 4

for me to "redo my zones and HTFU" were talking a 210 max hr...I don't think so, I would pass out at 205 for sure, I've been close to it, I know for sure I would puke vomit and pass out.

Again, you're overestimating how awesome you are. It's doubtful that you have some incredible pain tolerance such that you can magically tolerate true Zone4 efforts for 2 hours whereas even a top pro would have problems maintaining that effort for more than 60 minutes. The simplest, most obvious explanation that you keep ignoring is that your MaxHR is incorrectly low and thus you're actually sandbagging your efforts compared to what they should be. Go and redo your maxHR testing, and go all out - you clearly haven't by your current numbers. If you've got such a high pain threshold, you should be literally on the verge of blacking out if you hit the final seconds appropriately.

I just checked my garmin, and just so you know, because I did not, my zone 5 starts at 185 and there is no zone 6, so my terms in this whole back and forth have been based on my zone 5 being basically close to the zone 6 on the chart.

usually around 188 I feel like I can't maintain this for longer than a few minutes.
anything below 180 is generally just riding really hard, but by no means "hammering"

I thought riding really hard IS hammering.

Yes, the disconnect here is a lot of people go by a 5 zone system, whereas the site you reference uses a 6 zone system. What is zone 5 of the 6 zone system, is probably zone 4 in the 5 zone system.

<---uses a four zone system, never in zone 1. Maybe need to tighten up zones from the bottom? 20 BPM in each zone, starting at 120. No real need to measure under 120.

Either way, I agree that the better test is the HR that's closer to a lactate-threshold type training effort, which tends to be a much better number to guide power and HR training than using these oversimplified maxHR calculators.

That's the point of these 2 x 20minute FTP tests with a powermeter ( or trainer with speed sensor to convert speed to power). You will llikely hit close to your maxHR at the end, but it probably won't be an absolute max. Still you'll have a good number that is a reference for training and is more reliable than a maxHR number. The test still hurts just as bad as a maxHR test if done correctly though - that's an all out effort for 2 x 20, so you'll be drooling at the end if done right.

I'd just throw out that website in terms of its utility to you, honestly. If you're plugging in your numbers and the subjective feeling of zone4 (which it clearly states is race-pace) feels easy to you, it's clearly not working as it's supposed to. Read up on how to train with power or how to calculate HR zones through testing as I've described, and you can make a much better zone training assessment.

I think it is certainly doable. I mean I am 45yo and can average 20-21 by myself on a 15 mile loop around my office without too much trouble. I am certainly not a high level cyclist. I put in maybe 150-175 a week. Nothing too serious with training. I mean I do some variations on intervals and just have fun with it. I like to ride hills, try to max out, but more just to push myself.

We have a local 10mile time trial and I see some local guys in the 25mph range. My best was right at 22.1.

If you can ride in Zone 5 for an hour you're defining your zones wrong and if it wasn't physically painful they're way off.

Functional Threshold Power is the maximum power you can average over one hour and occurs approximately where your body is making lactate faster than it can get rid of it.

With the most accepted zone definitions (from Friel) zone 5 is at least 100% of that.

Basing zones off maximum heart rate is useless because assuming you know your actual maximum heart rate the fraction of it at which you reach your lactate threshold varies both with individuals and training.

Unless you've done a formal test (started pedaling at a comfortable 200W and added 20W/minute until your power is increasing but your heart rate isn't) you don't even know what your maximum is.

The 220-age formula is even more worthless useful since it's an average with a standard deviation of 12. 34% of 20 year olds would have a maximum between 200 and 212 and another 34% 188-200. 14% of 20 year olds would have a maximum of 212 - 224 and 14% 176-188. A few would be in the range 224-236 or 164-176. Zone definitions built around the average could have you not working at all on your hard days or in a permanent state of overtraining.

The right thing to do is get warmed up and ride as hard as you can for half an hour. Your average heart rate over the last 20 minutes is a good approximation for your lactate threshold provided that you remain motivated enough.

Chris Carmichael has zone definitions built around your heart rate in the second of two all-out eight minute efforts with a prescribed warm-up. That's easier to accommodate both psychologically and logistically.