I can’t see what is so unbelievable about 23mph average. A close friend of mine does a bit of time trialling and while he’s way faster than me he admits to not being the fastest in his club by a long way. His 10 mile PB is about 21 minutes and on his first ever 50 mile TT he managed it in 1hr 59mins. Roadie fitness levels are way beyond what most MTB riders call “fit”, it’s just unreal!
Personally on my road bike my fastest was my commute to work – 17 miles from huddersfield to Leeds in 59mins. And I am 15.5st and 5’7″!!!!

Double post

That’s a time trial though, not really comparable to an open road ride. And either way a 21 minute ten is far quicker than your ‘average’ roadie would manage. I’ve trained a number of times with a former Cervelo Test Team rider (rode the TdF) and we’d do about 18mph on a hilly 50 miles. 23mph is very fast, and as explained was achieved in ‘race conditions’.

Oh and BTW, it’s not 13mph, it’s 21kph

Ignore all the Velominati tripe Druid, this is Englandshire anything that sounds Italian and isn’t is in itself a bit ***ky and therefore all those rules are void.
Plus Sean Kelly broke nearly all of those 😉

Just ride more, enjoy it, improve bit by bit, and wait till you can do at least an Imperial century before worrying about speed 🙂

Edit: By which I don’t mean to be patronising, just that there’s not much point only doing 50km and worrying about speed unless you just want to do TT or track or simply want to be at your desk very early in the morning. All of which is fine, but you’d be missing out most of the best bits of road riding IMO…

100 miles at 13 mph would be a very big ride. I wouldn’t do 100 mile training rides unless I could average ~17 mph.

therefore all those rules are void.

I dunno, whenever I look down them I think most are right!

Metric distances/speeds are daft though!

It’s also not just the amount of metres climbed as an indication of the routes hillyness of the ride. For example yesterday I did a 110km loop from Bristol to Frome and although there were not long hills above 220m it was all up and down with no flat a no restbite. 1500m of climbing all in with, 950m in the out leg hence the average speed of a disappointing 14mph. Where as a few weeks ago I did a ride over the bridge in Wales that had similar distance and climbing but the climbs were longer and shallower with a few long flat sections so my average speed was 16.8mph. A whole 2.8mph faster for a ride of same distance and height gain!
Don’t compare yourself to other people stats or even your own over different terrain, instead measure your improvement against previous times on the same loop.

http://connect.garmin.com/explore?owner=garmin-cervelo

Tour gps from Garmin-Cervelo team

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/102425942
That one is crazy

You realise it appears Tyler Farrar left his GPS running after he got in the team bus?

The stage finished in Montpellier. Looking at where the data goes daft it was 120 miles in 4:33, so still nearly 27mph, but bear in mind that’s a flat stage in a group of 180 riders.

Real men ride for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. 12 hour TT at an average of 22.95mph. 😯

22.95? That would’ve got 12th?

Name Club 50 100 12hr MPH
1 Joel Wainman Team Swift 1:41:36 3:40:09 275.44 26.578

By my reckoning 275.44/12 gives 22.95.
An average of 26.578 over 12 hours would give a total distance of 318.963 miles which would be quite spectacular.

Pah DS that is nothing real men average over 20 mph for 500 miles in 24 hours
LEJOG in less than 2 days before getting a little tired and slowing meaning only an 18 mph average for the 1000 miles
Goggle Gethin Butler
24 Hours – 509.3 Miles
Lands End/John o Groats – 1 Day 20 hrs 4min 19 sec
1000 Miles – 2 days 7 hrs 53 mins 7 sec

Pah! That’s nothing Junky, apparently he used an MTBer (on a 6″ full susser and body armour) as a pace man, said pace man did the whole LEJOG in 2 days 7 hrs 20 mins dead. The huge level of embarrassment caused to Gethin means it’s not widely reported.

509.3 miles pfft

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tix9iF3reSE[/video]

Amazing what the thought of cake at the end of the ride will do

I take your 509 miles and raise you 32 miles to 541 milesin 24 hours!!

Junkyard
Pah DS that is nothing real men average over 20 mph for 500 miles in 24 hours
LEJOG in less than 2 days before getting a little tired and slowing meaning only an 18 mph average for the 1000 miles
Goggle Gethin Butler
24 Hours – 509.3 Miles
Lands End/John o Groats – 1 Day 20 hrs 4min 19 sec
1000 Miles – 2 days 7 hrs 53 mins 7 sec

You missed out Wilko’s stunning ride on the ESCA / National 24 hour event in June: 541.17 miles in 24 hours!!!!!!!!! 😯

Those of us involved in the event didn’t reckon anyone would go much over 480 miles due to the ‘rolling’ nature of the course.

Anyhoo, back to the topic. Don’t fret about average speeds until you’ve built up a history of rides. I reckon that within a month of regular road riding you’ll see that average noticeably increase.

However don’t do the same route day in day out as you’ll just train yourself for one distance.

Whoever you are there will always be somebody quicker so don’t worry.

I remember my first road ride was a 50 miler from Nottingham to Sheffield and I think I averaged around 12mph 😆 Having said that I did have hairy legs 😉

on my last road ride we rode some great descents, and long climbs, and stopped for coffee and cake*, it was ace.
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i’m sorry, what was the question?

Whoever you are there will always be somebody quicker so don’t worry.

🙂

Especially on STW.

We did the Etape Caledonia back in May. I thought we absolutely flew round the course – and wasn’t far off a broken man at the end of it.

Average Moving Speed? 18 mph 🙄

I was disappointed.

Exactly, like I said earlier. Yesterday we were flying at over 30mph on some sections…through and off and only did 46 miles.
Average speed at the end 17.9. No big hills either but loads of those short sharp wall like climbs, the ones you think you can attack and get over, but a quick glance at your computer and it says you’re doing 7mph which is quickly followed by that buckling feeling in your legs.

Always important to remember that the slower bits affect your average speed rather more than the faster bits, because you spend longer doing them…

Yep, just ride a bit more, enjoy it, you’ll get there.

Apropos of averages, doing hill reps I’ve been surprised how quickly the average settles down. Long climb and steep fast descent and it soon settles to less than 1 mph variance. That was slightly dull wasn’t it?

The BBAR is averaged over the various events ie 50 miles/ 100 miles/ 12hr not an average for a specific event. That’s why the numbers don’t seem to add up.
So Jeff Jones average 30.3 for a 50, 27.4 for a 100 and 25.4 for a 12 hour.

http://connect.garmin.com/explore?owner=garmin-cervelo

Tour gps from Garmin-Cervelo team

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/102425942
That one is crazy

top job for posting that – mucho interesting – useful to get courses to follow for upcoming hols (obviously at a slower pace!)