how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

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toolonglegs
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby toolonglegs » Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:51 pm

Eugene wrote:Leg strength is king for climbing, DEEP squats, with big weights are the best way to get it.
:lol: those body builders and weight lifters usually set the fastest times on climbs don't they :P

legsrhurtin
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby legsrhurtin » Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:19 pm

I'm 5'7 weigh 79 kgs and in the early 30s
Used to ride daily for 4 years and had an average speed of 31-33km/hr on my trusty MASI vincere.
Rode to work for the first time in 3 years due to various knee ops and an ankle reconstruction surgery (4months ago).
Had a near death experience with DVT in calf and the blood clots moving to my lungs but survived (YAY!)
Anyway to celebrate being alive I bought a new bike (Orbea orca 2012)

The downside was on my first ride my average speed was 22km/h including a fair bit of hills and wind. (Perth has a very strong crosswind in the arvo).
Was very depressing being passed by ppl on flat bar roadies and fixies. I felt like a total poseur.

My only consolation is that in a couple months hopefully the blood clots in my lungs will be gone and those areas in my lungs will grow back so my fitness will improve and my ankle will hopefully be fully healed.
Definitely wanting to get my average speed up so looking at doing hill sprint repeats atm.
Also curious how long it takes ppl for their fitness/speed to improve if they ride around 40km a day and 100-200km on weekends.

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poohkies
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby poohkies » Mon Dec 03, 2012 2:55 pm

legsrhurtin wrote:I'm 5'7 weigh 79 kgs and in the early 30s
Used to ride daily for 4 years and had an average speed of 31-33km/hr on my trusty MASI vincere.
Rode to work for the first time in 3 years due to various knee ops and an ankle reconstruction surgery (4months ago).
Had a near death experience with DVT in calf and the blood clots moving to my lungs but survived (YAY!)
Anyway to celebrate being alive I bought a new bike (Orbea orca 2012)

The downside was on my first ride my average speed was 22km/h including a fair bit of hills and wind. (Perth has a very strong crosswind in the arvo).
Was very depressing being passed by ppl on flat bar roadies and fixies. I felt like a total poseur.

My only consolation is that in a couple months hopefully the blood clots in my lungs will be gone and those areas in my lungs will grow back so my fitness will improve and my ankle will hopefully be fully healed.
Definitely wanting to get my average speed up so looking at doing hill sprint repeats atm.
Also curious how long it takes ppl for their fitness/speed to improve if they ride around 40km a day and 100-200km on weekends.

HOW BLOODY SCARY EXPERIENCE
and well done on surviving!

my average has actually dropped a little, i was doing well and up to the 32km/h mark, I to would like to know what to do, there are some rides around Darwin but most are averaging between 35km and 40km and i just can't do that! I'm also going on longer rides now, so hopefully improve my fitness, added 10km's to my morning ride to work this morning, and went a couple of different ways to mix it up, I also start my rides at the bottom of a hill that sort of f's my average, and to get it going well I have to kill myself to stay in the above 30's which in turn stuffs me for the next 20km of my ride,
My mate who is doing a lot of training is telling me to use my heart beat to train, keep my heart beat low and improve my peddling technique, what was going well until I lost my heart monitor! also i guess candence getting that higher and more efficient. I'm trying to get fit enough to do the Mandora ride in August, it's 140km's and hoping to do it in around 28 - 30 km/h average!
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poohkies
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby poohkies » Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:20 pm

increased average to 33.5 this afternoons ride home, that's 1km/h up from last months effort

First monday of each mouth
December 33.5 km/h new bike
November 32.4 km/h new bike
October 30.6 km/h borrowed bike
September 28.4 km/h old carton bike
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sb944
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby sb944 » Wed Dec 05, 2012 2:30 pm

I'm also just working through this, so don't know the long term affects of the advice I'm about to give, but it seems to make sense that it would work in my mind.

I was thrashing out every ride, monitoring on strava, and basically trying to up my average speed and break strava segments PB's every ride. After a couple of months of commuting daily this way with good results, I found a sort of plateau, and started looking for new training ideas. Googling I found HIIT (high intensity interval training) and recovery were the best tips. So I did intervals on a Friday afternoon before resting on the weekend, the rest of the week mostly as normal, mashing away every ride. I then got a HRM, and read up on heart rate training. What they wrote about suggested 90% of my riding was in the no-go zone, the zone where you are wearing yourself out, but not really improving your power or breathing much. The idea is make your ride about intensity, or about recovery.

In all this time, I'd forgotten my athletic coach brothers program. He did a variety of work, but it was all HIIT. He had a 5 week cycle, insane week, hard week, medium week, easy week, rest week, then start again. The biggest clue to how to train should lie in the last 3 weeks of that 5 week cycle, where there is little going on. If your body was made to cope for constant hard work, he'd never both with easy weeks or rest weeks, it would just be insane week after insane week.

So here is my new cut down commuting/cycling version of this.
Week 1: 3x HIIT rides, 7 recovery rides
Week 2: 2x HIIT rides, 8 recovery rides
Week 3: 1x HIIT ride, 9 recovery rides
Week 4: 10 recovery rides.

HIIT can vary, but for now it's 4x 1:30m flat out hill sprints
Recovery ride varies a lot, but it's low intensity, length of trip can vary though.

I'm through one cycle of this, and previous couple of weeks have been tough given strava has been mostly blank, and average speeds low, but on my return to Week 1, broke all my PB's on the intervals, and even took a top ten place in an uphill strava segment with over 700 riders on it, and got a KOM elsewhere.
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Xplora
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby Xplora » Wed Dec 05, 2012 3:24 pm

I've actually been focussing on big ring for the training, and just spinning quietly for the recovery stuff. My top speed has gone from an effort 35kmh sustained, and peak 50 sprint, to a comfortable 40kmh sustained and peak 55 (haven't tested out the top speed, not needed). This is after a few weeks, but months of 200kms a week. I've definitely been overtraining. It's nice to have an extra gear or two up the sleeve.

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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby BrisVegas » Wed Dec 05, 2012 4:02 pm

marinmomma wrote:True that!

I'm always working on increasing my average speed...first it was to have a river loop above 20ks/hour, then to get it closer to 25... More recently to get it to 30!
Today I got into the low 30's for a river loop 8) now to keep it above 30 for more rides....
Good effort!

I managed a 30.0 yesterday for the strava loop and was stoked with that. I can manage 40 for stretches, eg. Railway Sprint and Corso etc. but holding it together for 30km/h avg is a pretty good pace.
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poohkies
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby poohkies » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:33 am

yeah i've been doing that sort of thing, just lowing my heart rate per ride, 2 rides this week and both been averaging 33.5 and today 33.4, and i thought i was taken it easy this morning, so pretty happy with that! and didnt kill my self over 2 of the climbs .

heart monitor makes a huge difference, I try to keep min around the 130 - 140 mark!
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby bardygrub » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:56 am

poohkies wrote:and didnt kill my self over 2 of the climbs .
I lived in darwin for 12 years, well brinkin. and i have to wonder, what are the two climbs? Front of casino and coming back up cullen bay? :P or the over pass? :P
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby poohkies » Thu Dec 06, 2012 2:58 pm

bardygrub wrote:
poohkies wrote:and didnt kill my self over 2 of the climbs .
I lived in darwin for 12 years, well brinkin. and i have to wonder, what are the two climbs? Front of casino and coming back up cullen bay? :P or the over pass? :P
live in palmerston, Restonia Avenue or Lambrick av, and he highway over pass just out of palmy, how long ago did u live in Darwin? I hat the Casino and Darwin High hill, never been silly enough to ride down cullen bay :P
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby bardygrub » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:27 pm

poohkies wrote:
bardygrub wrote:
poohkies wrote:and didnt kill my self over 2 of the climbs .
I lived in darwin for 12 years, well brinkin. and i have to wonder, what are the two climbs? Front of casino and coming back up cullen bay? :P or the over pass? :P
live in palmerston, Restonia Avenue or Lambrick av, and he highway over pass just out of palmy, how long ago did u live in Darwin? I hat the Casino and Darwin High hill, never been silly enough to ride down cullen bay :P
Left about 5 years ago. The overpass at palmo wasnt built yet, is that the one darwin side of palmo? remeber one of my mates telling me something about it, if i remeber right :?
Do they still have the guys riding around on the 3 wheelers in the city at night during the dry? 2 ladies and i paid a dude $100 to ride us from Ducks nuts down cullen bay back up then down to the casino one night. God it was fun! We all had a skin full of grog and what have you. Drove that way acouple of days later and just shock my head thinking, that could of ended up quite messy. :roll:
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby poohkies » Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:02 pm

bardygrub wrote: Left about 5 years ago. The overpass at palmo wasnt built yet, is that the one darwin side of palmo? remeber one of my mates telling me something about it, if i remeber right :?
Do they still have the guys riding around on the 3 wheelers in the city at night during the dry? 2 ladies and i paid a dude $100 to ride us from Ducks nuts down cullen bay back up then down to the casino one night. God it was fun! We all had a skin full of grog and what have you. Drove that way acouple of days later and just shock my head thinking, that could of ended up quite messy. :roll:
there is a number of hills in palmy also massize (for darwin) over pass entering palmerston /stuart hi way and the tiger brennehan extension! there the only hills I do but i still hate them :P

and yes still have the peddle tax's at night with the stereo's and disco lights, that's one way to get fit i guess doing that all night :)
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby marinmomma » Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:34 pm

BrisVegas wrote: Good effort!

I managed a 30.0 yesterday for the strava loop and was stoked with that. I can manage 40 for stretches, eg. Railway Sprint and Corso etc. but holding it together for 30km/h avg is a pretty good pace.
Thanks BrisVegas, I did another loop Tuesday mostly a solo ride and my average was 29.3...which I think is pretty good.
My best times on Railway and Corso are in the low to mid 40's but thats with me following Mr MM's wheel.

I die once I get to Highgate Hill..that always cuts my average back :roll:
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby poohkies » Thu Dec 20, 2012 6:51 pm

poohkies wrote:increased average to 33.5 this afternoons ride home, that's 1km/h up from last months effort

First monday of each mouth
December 20th 34.8 km/h new bike
December 1st33.5 km/h new bike
November 32.4 km/h new bike
October 30.6 km/h borrowed bike
September 28.4 km/h old carton bike
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby poohkies » Thu Dec 20, 2012 6:53 pm

poohkies wrote:increased average to 33.5 this afternoons ride home, that's 1km/h up from last months effort

First monday of each mouth

December 1st 33.5 km/h new bike
November 1st 32.4 km/h new bike
October 1st 30.6 km/h borrowed bike
September 1st 28.4 km/h old carton bike
managed 34.8 km/h last night on the way home, pretty happy with that, and not even the first of the month :)
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lammy
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby lammy » Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:07 pm

Update...

Been a while since my last update. I tried a few things his last few months to increase speed with mixed results.

Main method was to train using my HRM, trying not to ride over 70%MHR, then doing a series of interval sprints 90-98%MHR. This improved my sprints for sure (and my strava segments), but not my average after a month, so I sacked that method (didnt enjoy riding like a great grandad)

More recently I have been spinning a lot less on the hills and grinding out the gears whenever possible. Its making a bigger difference, momentum is higher and my legs feel stronger. Increase is 1-2kph over 1-2 hour rides.

Also trying to use different muscle groups and positions on the seat when climbing hills and trying to recover, this is definately 100% helping as when I reach a crest of a hill I will swap over and use a different muscle group which still feels fresh and I can keep the speed going, not just freewheel for recovery. Love to hear from other riders using this technique or post links please.

So to summarise, my average isnt up a lot more, its still low-mid 30's solo on undulating roads, but I can sustain that over hours now. Oh also lost 5kg which sure helps.
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DTdotcom
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby DTdotcom » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:37 pm

If you can average low-mid 30's Solo for 100km rides that's very respectable.

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Xplora
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby Xplora » Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:40 pm

lammy, you'll get great results if you focus on certain abilities for a month, then move to another aspect, and just rotate through the abilities. You must have not been very strong to have had such a great gain from working on grinding a bit more. I know I found I survived much better pushing 85-90, than ripping out 100-105, for 50km. But... I had built the base and was able to benefit from focussing on powerful riding. Don't discount the fact that you need to do it all to have a higher average speed. Little sprints are very useful for pumping over those short hills, so you don't waste too much energy pushing up the hill. I found a while back I preferred to stand and smash the hills quickly because I simply didn't have the endurance and horsepower to stay seated and do them at 15kmh... easier to do it at 30, blow yourself to bits and try to spin out the pain.

Your increase in endurance is incredibly useful as you start to focus on climbing better, pedalling quicker, and sprinting to the coffee shop. You shouldn't discount the previous training. It all adds up.

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DTdotcom
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby DTdotcom » Tue Apr 23, 2013 9:25 pm

Xplora wrote:I've actually been focussing on big ring for the training, and just spinning quietly for the recovery stuff. My top speed has gone from an effort 35kmh sustained, and peak 50 sprint, to a comfortable 40kmh sustained and peak 55 (haven't tested out the top speed, not needed). This is after a few weeks, but months of 200kms a week. I've definitely been overtraining. It's nice to have an extra gear or two up the sleeve.
I'm far from comfortable sustaining 40 km/h for rides (it's closer to my limit), but don't think I've ever ridden only 200 kms a week, each to their own.

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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby eightsixboy » Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:44 am

One thing that I find makes it hard for me to increase my average speed is finding somewhere to ride where theres no contant stop/starts or things to slow me down.

I always go over my rides in endomondo and have a look where I can improve, most of the time I am maintaining 30kph or just over on flats, but with all the slower sections, bumps and obsticles on the bike paths it always ends up avg of around 25-28 over a 45km or so ride. I find that very annoying :(

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DTdotcom
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby DTdotcom » Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:06 am

eightsixboy wrote:One thing that I find makes it hard for me to increase my average speed is finding somewhere to ride where theres no contant stop/starts or things to slow me down.

I always go over my rides in endomondo and have a look where I can improve, most of the time I am maintaining 30kph or just over on flats, but with all the slower sections, bumps and obsticles on the bike paths it always ends up avg of around 25-28 over a 45km or so ride. I find that very annoying :(
To safely get an average speed for a ride of 40km/h you'd need to distance yourself from CBD/Suburbia, otherwise you'd be required to take significant risks!

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Xplora
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby Xplora » Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:28 am

Dimma wrote:I'm far from comfortable sustaining 40 km/h for rides (it's closer to my limit), but don't think I've ever ridden only 200 kms a week, each to their own.
You're eating glycogen reserves to stay that quick for sure... never done only 200km in a week, love it :lol: What a weapon!

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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby lammy » Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:23 pm

Lol scratch the average speed as a benchmark. I moved on lol. Too many variables involved.
I now have a power meter and just ride to wattage, it's so much more definitive, I don't often pay attention to avg speed now, it's just a byproduct of a good avg wattage. Btw. Avg speed on flat now with little wind is now 36kph (AT) 250watts.
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby NhiTrac » Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:07 am

Its amazing how much effort we mere mortals put out to only average low to mid 30s while the gods [pros] are doing an extra 10 to 15km/hr.

Genetics aside, makes you wonder what's required to get to their level :shock:
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Xplora
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Re: how long did it take u to increase your avg speed

Postby Xplora » Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:30 am

I think you could reasonably expect to perform ok if you did 750-1000km a week. Seriously hardcore base is half the challenge. I said that DR was a bit nuts riding 1000 a week, but you need serious kms to being that FTP up. Most of us don't have the time to dedicate to that.

Glad you have seen the light lammy. Shame that PMs cost hundreds for that sense of calm. Something comforting about going little ring for even a small pinch instead of standing up and ripping the handlebars off to keep the power low :lol:

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