Average speed?
 

Have only been riding a tandem 8 months. For those with more "road-ish" tandems, I'm curious what your average speed is after, say, a 25-50 mile ride that doesn't really involve a lot of climbing. I realize that it's hard to pin down because of different terrain, different bikes, etc. but I'm a numbers person and I'm curious. I'm wondering if we ever ride with other tandems whether we might fall in the first third, the middle third, or the last third. Just a curiosity since we have no experience with riding with others.

Riding on our own over that kind of distance with moderate hills - about 18mph.

It depends on who's stoking for me. :-) My daughter is my main stoker and a bad day with a route featuring many red lights and stop signs comes in at 15-16 mph. Our "out on the open road" trips seem to get interfered with by wind, but 18-19 is probably ballpark.

Well, lets see...not quite 25-50 miles, but yesterday we went out for a little 10 mile jaunt, and averaged 23.7 mph.

Checking my rides for the year I see everything between 14.5mph and 20mph. Longest was 88m. Not much correlation with distance - fastest ride was 66m, slowest 56m, no pay rides which are usually a bit faster; more correlation with wind, hills and especially who you ride with. I suspect Ritterview will be towards the upper end of the distribution.

We could only do 23.7 if were downhill both directions but we get a lot of fun per mile. I guess on a flat ride with no wind we would average be 18-19 mph but I can't remember a ride like that. On our usual ride with some hills and invariably some wind we average about 17mph with are range of 9mph to 30 mph. Always a little faster if there is someone to chase...

We're fairly slow. We tend to average around 12 mph in the city and 14 mph on the road.

We usually climb an average of 50'/mile and average between 13 and 15 depending on just how much climbing there was. On a flat ride with only 10'-15' climbing per mile, we average 16-17. That seems to be pretty typical of mixed geezer tandems. Most tandems are the same or slower than we are and there are a very few that are much faster.

We are a mixed team and average about 17 - 20mph on rolling countryside with a few reasonable hills (up to 500'). Average about 26-27mph on a flat 10 mile time trial. I would say we are a bit better than average but certainly not up with the fast teams.

Thanks!
 

We tend to average 15-17 mph on the flat (ish) terrain. The 15 would be with some very slight hills, and the 17 would be without any (or many) stoplights and not much for "hills". I appreciate the feedback, it seems like we are well-set to ride with a group, not being "first" and probably not "last" and that's what I was curious about.

15-17 here.

plus 1, us too
R&J

We much prefer riding with a tandem group. There's nothing like getting 3-4 tandems together of similar ability and haring about the countryside. I think it's even more fun than singles, maybe because of the speed potential. I don't know. It's a party. Riding with singles is a PITA, see the wheel sucker thread. There is the occasional single who knows how to play with tandems, but they're rare. We've gotten to be close friends with other tandem couples.

20 miles this morning at 14mph on a flat-to-rolling route. We have less than 175 miles on the new Screamer and will likely get somewhat faster as we put on more miles.

Who cares?

The reason for riding a tandem is because you have a partner that you want to ride with. The good thing is you always arrive at the lunch stop together so you always have somebody to eat with and you always have someone to talk with. Given that fact, whatever level of effort the two of you agree upon is the perfect speed.

If one of you feels a need to compare your performance with somebody else and the other one doesn't, one or both you may find riding a tandem not to be so enjoyable.

Whichever way your relationship is headed, a tandem will get you there faster.

We ride pretty casually, even on longer (50ish mile rides) and only do between 13-15. Cruising speed is somewhere about 17. The tandem is time to spend with my wife, not to compete.

Agreed, it's not a competition
 

However... if you are new to tandems (only a few months) and have never gone on a group ride with tandems it's natural to be curious about whether you are going to fit in with the group or kill yourselves trying. Also, the captain races a little on his single bike, so I know he'd feel better if we were not struggling and still bringing up the rear.

Terrain, weather, age are all variables that must be taken into consideration.

For us:
Terrain: rolling to mountainous. Very little flat terrain.
Weather: Very windy springtime; warm (100+ degrees) from May into October). Dry, very little rain. Ideal weather from late Oct. to April (70s, sunny).
Today's tandem toot, May 15: winds +/- 20mph, temps 93 degrees, cloudless/sunny. Yes, some hillwork.
Our average speed was 11.3 mph
Best average speed ever was a hilly ride of 43 miles at 21.5 mph average; but that was 20 years ago!
Back then we averaged 14 to 18 mph.

Ourhttp://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=201909

Our ages: 78 for pilot and 76 for stoker.
Our f-a-s-t days are behind us!
Our motto:Growin' old is not for sissies!
Pedal on!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

The other BIG variable is how fast the other teams are that you will be riding going with.
The best way to find out is to just go out for a ride with them. You will get to meet some fellow tandem riders which is always great.
If you struggle to keep up, so what!

I'm with zona here. Although we aren't quite as well aged at 69 and 64, we have dropped from around 17 to 14-15.

tsoft:
Can hardly wait 'til we get older!!!

Well said. A quarter-century ago we would think nothing of averaging 30-32 mph on a ride of 50-100 miles. Today, we hope for half that speed. As our vision becomes less acute it still feels fast and we have just as much fun, but someone keeps making the hills taller and steeper. In another quarter-century we hope to be able to go as fast as Rudy and Kay, but even if we are significantly slower we'll still be having fun.

For Rudy and Kay: My favorite uncle's motto is, "80 isn't old!" In many ways, I'm sure that applies to you.

30-32 mph for 50-100 miles? Impressive.

1989 - LeMond won the final TT in Paris, covering 15 miles at 34 mph (+change). You guys weren't much behind him....:innocent:

+1 Very impressive indeed! - 30-32 mph for 50-100 miles is smoking fast! Pro level for sure. Especially 25 years ago when a light tandem was probably over 35lbs.

We just did 70 miles yesterday. The first 40 with a group, the last 30 by ourselves on the tandem. We averaged 23.7 mph. Flat terrain with a few bridges. 20 of the last 30 miles were right into a 14mph headwind.

Our ages: 78 for pilot and 76 for stoker.
Our f-a-s-t days are behind us!
Our motto:Growin' old is not for sissies!
Pedal on!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem[/QUOTE]

--- mind if we adopt that motto?

We care! I learned a long time ago that i like to push myself. We love to go as fast as we can even if that is not as fast a s a lot of the times mentioned here. I am not saying everybody or every ride should be like that. I think everyone should just ride and have fun. I am just saying for us the best rides are pushing hard and getting off the bike with an empty tank.

As always ride the way you like and have fun!

Wayne
I have a stoker who doesn't have to be the fastest, she just wants to catch that bike in front of us...

I'm just hoping we are doing as well as you when we hit 78.

Perhaps an example of "the Older I get the faster I was"?

The National record for elite men in a 40 k tandem time trial is 33.65mph For a mixed team 30.87 mph. http://www.usacycling.org/forms/records.pdf

Those are efforts by the fastest amateur cyclists in the country, with full TT setups (i.e. discs, areo bars, skin suits, booties, TT helmets) in a full TT effort for 1/2 to 1/4 of that distance.

I am certain, no one in the U.S. is averaging 30-32 mph for 100 mile regular rides, solo, much less doing it on a standard road tandem 25 years ago.

LeMond's TT in 89 is one of the few I have committed to memory....so although it wasn't "a quarter of a century", it was pretty close.

14.5 mph average on yesterday's hilly 32 mile ride.

I agree that you should go ahead and jump in on a group ride. If you're worried about it, take a gps or map. Then, if they turn out to be hammerheads, you can offer to finish the ride yourselves or take a shortcut to the finish area.