how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

[dclnmurray]

just recently finished the Bris to Gold Coast 100km ride at 36kph average

Solo or riding in the bunch?

Bit of a mixture really. There were times the groups I was with were slow and had to pull a turn to get to the next group. Did this quite a few times and busted my gut doing it.

cheers

Dave

[Bentnose]

I don't know where my average speed has gone, when I was young and fit I could manage up to 40 kmh over 50 km's, solo. I haven't got over 30kmh average in 11 years though and I'm not that old, managed 29.9kmh the other day though, hills will drop your average speed like nobodies business and I live at the bottom of a hill, tend to spend the first 5 minutes of any ride doing about 12kmh. Try riding a mountain bike in harsh off-road conditions, you might only average 10kmh and still be pushing it.

[notwal]

just recently finished the Bris to Gold Coast 100km ride at 36kph average

Solo or riding in the bunch?

Bit of a mixture really. There were times the groups I was with were slow and had to pull a turn to get to the next group. Did this quite a few times and busted my gut doing it.

cheers

Dave

Sounds like you didn't get there early enough. Had you caught the first bunch (and hung onto it) your average would have been close to 40.
Next year I plan to camp in Grey St at the head of the queue all night.

[Golliwog]

Ive increased from around 20 to 28km/h in 6 months. That being said, i ride a lot

[lammy]

Well its been over a year since my original post and just wanted to repost an update....

I been continuing to cycle daily, I now work 26km from work so the daily commute is 52km 5 days a week. My average is now around 31-32 kmh my best average has gone up to 36kph. The main difference I have found is in the hills and the speed I can now go up them. When earlier I had to stand and mash up a few hills, I find I can now just spin up them, with less effort. My flat speed seems very similar to be honest, so it seems the hill accents have contributed to the increased average. Hopefully another year of commuting will increase the average to 34-35kph, I would be very happy with that indeed at my age (42).

Not ridden with a group for long while, I would imagine my average would increase draughting for a while.

I am hoping to get a new carbon wheelset (7900 C50) to replace my easton circuits, I wonder if this will make any improvements to my average speed, anybody experience this?

Iill keep bumping this every now and again to encourage riders looking for increases, but I suppose the moral to the story is.... just get on ya bike and pedal and the speed does come slowly!

[g-boaf]

The carbon wheels will increase your average speed. And the speeds on the flat will be a lot higher too. Acceleration seems much better, and your speeds up hills will be nicer.

My average speed is slowly going up to over 30km/h. It would probably be higher if I were on courses without interruptions. I always seem to have to slow down or stop for one reason or another.

Like you, I just keep riding as much as I can, mostly on my own. I use the Garmin a lot and I can usually see the improvements.

[nickdos]

This is an interesting thread for me, as I'm in a similar postion to the OP - 42 years old and a relative noob to road cycling (my kids use that word a lot ).

A few tidbits I've picked up that may help...

• it takes 3-4 years to build up a decent set of cycling legs and although hard training can accelerate this you should keep it in mind when comparing yourself to other more experienced riders
• if you are time poor like me then intervals is one short cut to higher power output (we're really all talking about power not averge speed, which is too subjective).
• I've read and am now just starting a program from the book "The Time Crunched Cyclist". It basically says use your time doing hard efforts and make sure you recover properly.

[BionicW]

My coach has us riding in a relatively easy fixed gear and getting us to spin properly first. Then we've had to try and get our pace up and up whilst maintaining control through the saddle. We're only new to cycling and I'm a 43 yr old female and getting over the 30km/hr mark at times, but it really hurts However, when we go out for our weekly long ride, we're really noticing a difference in speed, fatigue etc.

[DoogleDave]

A very interesting thread.

I am also a road cycling newbie (started in March 2012 on an old MTB, which lasted a few weeks before upgrading to a roadie) and originally started with 10-15km rides with a ~22km/h average (at a weight of 99kg) and each month the ave speed seems to creep up and up.
For the last month or so my ave speed hasn't really increased much but I can maintain it for much longer distances (and weight is now down to 85kg at present).
Lately, I usually average around 26-28km/h for longer rides (60-120km's) and just this evening I managed a 31km/h ave on my local 20km circuit (for once I actually focused on trying to keep my ave above 30, and succeeded).

And riding with more experienced riders, it is very quickly apparent that they have the endurance in their legs so to keep up with the likes of these riders going uphill, against a headwind or on longer distance rides you really need to put in a huge effort or go away and put the many 1000's of km's into your legs so you can HTFU and eventually close (or shrink) the gap between you and them.

Either way it's all good fun so don't worry too much about it all and just enjoy getting out there on the bike. Everything else will come over time.

Dave

[Mrfenejeans]

I average around 32km/h solo, it's hard to say how long it took me as looking at where i road 12months ago it was flat bike paths with no stopping, now i ride 90percent on the road which compared are much more undulating, and involve traffic lights etc.

Nowadays if i average 30km/h or lower i hate myself.

[silverine]

average 20km/h when I started to ride.. and last one was 25km/h, in about 2 months riding. If I could get close to 30km/h, I consider it good enough for me

[kyap]

12 months ago avg 20kmh.
Now fastest tried 31kmh over 50ks ride at SOP loop.

Btw, how do you guys gauge the avg?
There are so many factors affecting the avg such as wind, solo, group, terrains...etc.

I dont use HRM or strava and I use the avg over the same course.

I dont ride a lot - around 120-150ks a week (weekends) but recently bumped up to 250-300ks/week consists 50% hills.

[Tornado]

Btw, how do you guys gauge the avg?
There are so many factors affecting the avg such as wind, solo, group, terrains...etc.

I have a spreadsheet with a graphs page that I feed my speedo data into. I really only look at my averages of the individual ride averages combined.

My data suggests that my cadence averages are staying in the 80's and my ave speeds since June have increased about 5km/h. So I'm pedalling bigger gears for the same leg RPM.

As some days I ride solo, some days in a group, some days hilly, some days flat. Headwinds out or back or both, I just average the averages from each ride. I guess if you record enough over a decent period you will get an indication of how things are going.

[kyap]

I have a spreadsheet with a graphs page that I feed my speedo data into. I really only look at my averages of the individual ride averages combined.

Ah..this is good idea. I should start a spreadsheet and training diary. Thanks

[Le Velo]

So many variables starting from winds, hills, no hills, getting every red lights, or not, etc .... However as for myself I have been riding for 3 years now and was struggling to average 25 when first started (cardio was so bad due to heavy smoking for many years) now I race and manage to get averages up to 43-44kph on a crit.
On a road ride best average I did over a long distance was 33pkh for 160km at the ipswich 100miles (quit a few hills in there and head winds at times)
Shorter distances (50ks +\-) able to hold around 36kph +\- with traffic variable (lights, Etc...)
(37 years young )

[nickdos]

Even averages have their faults - certain times of the year are windier than others - coming into a less windy season would give you the illusion of better performance. That's why power meters are so useful, they cut out all that noise and just give you your actual performance (or close to it). Having said that I don't own one and they are too expensive for most of us recreational cyclist. Give it a few more years and they'll be as common as GPS computers are now.

[lammy]

Great posts, I am lovin the experiences and averages, seems I am being realistic which is good. I should really start racing but bit nervous about doing that, also I want to be fitter before I even consider that.

My averages were taken from my Garmin Edge 500.

I must point out I use the 'moving average' as I always get stuck at lights, roundabouts etc on the way to work.

I took the first 10 readings from sept last year and then my last 10 readings and typed them into....

http://easycalculation.com/statistics/m ... -mode.php

Not scientific I know but gives me a ballpark figure to benchmark.

Reading up on the 7900 C50 carbon wheels it seems you can hold flat speed for longer periods and go down and extra gear with same amount of effort, I hope thats true.

[nickdos]

I took the first 10 readings from sept last year and then my last 10 readings and typed them into....

http://easycalculation.com/statistics/mean-median-mode.php

Not scientific I know but gives me a ballpark figure to benchmark.

Don't be coy - tell us how you improved

p.s. syntax for links is

Code: Select all

[url=http://easycalculation.com/statistics/mean-median-mode.php]mean-median-mode[/url]

[lammy]

I took the first 10 readings from sept last year and then my last 10 readings and typed them into....

http://easycalculation.com/statistics/mean-median-mode.php

Not scientific I know but gives me a ballpark figure to benchmark.

Don't be coy - tell us how you improved

p.s. syntax for links is

Code: Select all

[url=http://easycalculation.com/statistics/mean-median-mode.php]mean-median-mode[/url]

No secret on the improvement, just simply riding more! I'm cycling a couple or hours+ every day now plus a long ride at weekends. Seems its slow marginal increases that over a year make difference that you dont see immediately.

I did the Brisbane to gold coast ride this year and I really noticed the areas that I have improved when riding in large groups compared to last year. I definately have a more momentum going around corners and over rolling hills. My climbing is faster too and less laboured...obviously over emphasised but seems other riders seemed to be almost stopped (relatively speaking) on some hills as I span up them this year. (usually riding solo I would be giving myself a hard time on my slow pace up hills with no point of reference). I any case my new dura-ace 7900 C50's arrive today or tomorrow so will see how much that helps.

[g-boaf]

Mine isn't quite as good, but I put that down to windy days, interruptions - and some injuries and on different courses with elevation changes. I'm starting to build up to longer rides. I'm trying to do 30km or more every evening and now trying to hold higher speeds (40km/h) for longer. I imagine I will get better over time.

I'm also planning to join some faster riders, I really want to get better at this after I was just left for dead by a really fast rider the other day who must have been doing well over 40km/h on the flat and just looked totally effortless. I did chase down this guy but it wasn't in that effortless manner.

[sb944]

I love this thread, fills me with so much hope for what's ahead. I've only been at it roughly 3 months, and was worried I'd reached a sort of plateau that was going to be very tough to move far beyond, but I can see there might be more room for further growth than I was hoping for.

About the average speeds though, I'm confused, something doesn't add up. I've been using strava as a benchmark, which gives you the moving time, moving average speed, and segment times. The guys getting the top segment times on a popular segment are mostly under 30 km/h averages for their full trips, only one I spotted had 33km/h average over a 30km trip. So my expectation for my own further growth was based on good riders averaging high 20's over a trip. But you guys are talking high 30's to low 40's!!! What am I missing?

[g-boaf]

I'm looking at average speeds from my Garmin, which then go into Garmin Connect. I've got a display on the Garmin which shows me the average speed as I'm going.

[Xplora]

^^^^ Sprinting on the segment? It's not hard to get some extra speed if you save yourself for the run

[Mrfenejeans]

The guys getting the top segment times on a popular segment are mostly under 30 km/h averages for their full trips, only one I spotted had 33km/h average over a 30km trip. So my expectation for my own further growth was based on good riders averaging high 20's over a trip. But you guys are talking high 30's to low 40's!!! What am I missing?

I average speeds as stated in an old post around 32km/h solo, and recently have been doing 31km/h with decent head winds for 2/3rds of my 60km rides however don't get too many KOM's, the main ones i seem to get or at least get in the top 10 for are over distances of 5-10+km's where my average speed is high constantly, where as the riders you speak of ride slow, reserve their energy just to obtain a KOM. I've found that by the time i get to some KOM's on my journeys my legs have been doing their same old thing that they just don't want to do a short burst for the sake of some segment.

People i see on Strava may have more KOM's than me but i take solice knowing that on average day in day out i'm faster.

[toolonglegs]

If you want to beat a kom then you need to save yourself for it ( usually )... Work it into your training as part of an effort.
But beware most KOM's that aren't set on proper hills or loops can be achieved much easier some days due to wind and group efforts.