Cheeky edit there Al…

17.8mph isn't an embarrassing average, but it depends if this is one chap on his own with 20000ft of climbing, or a pan flat chain gang of 50 folk.

At the end of the day, WGAS?

awww. i'd be wary of boasting me stats mate – proper roadies go PROPER fast.

we did 83 mile in 4hrs20 on sunday as an example… and i wouldnt say that was massively fast…

😉

Anyway, for proper willy waving, we need to see power surely?

we did 83 mile in 4hrs20 on sunday as an example… and i wouldnt say that was massively fast…

Neither would I but I doubt you were riding up hills big enough to get you up to 49mph either.

I can generally wreck my legs on a road ride easier than xc, road is only interesting when you are caning it so you never go slow. As junkyard said MTB tends to be redline/recover/redline/recover it's hard to keep the effort at 100% all the time cos it can ruin the ride. Sinuous singletrack and gnarly downs aren't as much fun when you feel like you are gonna puke. On the Road there is only the burn.

true dat.

tis all relative mate… was out for twice as long as you eh?

I ride quite slowly on the road, I'm generally much more knackered by MTB rides than road rides. As folk have said, riding until your eyes are bulging from your head isn't exactly good training!

@ njee20 I think we need to see puddings that contain the proof from these guys.

I'm not fast, but I trained with this guy. So forgive me STwers but I'll take this guys advice. http://www.mikeolheiser.com check his results.
When I say I trained with him, we started from the same place 😳

😉 I'm happy to compare stats for long road rides rather than sprints.

Hows this?

That took 14 hours so admittedly only a 14mph average but in my defence it was half offroad and on a fixie and that does include stops.

Willy waving's great isn't it?

it is indeed, but as has been stated its all meaningless. particularly when you just have the headlines.

i.e.

18mph over 2 hrs.
20mph over 4 hrs
14mph over 14hrs. (which sounds horrible in my opinion)

really doesnt tell you half the information you need to compare…

I'm generally much more knackered by MTB rides than road rides.

this is the point I was trying to make.
I suspect that you're knackered not because of the effort placed on your lungs and heart but because it's harder work having to keep all your muscles moving around all over the place rather than just your legs. You'll maybe feel more knackered but your fitness will not of increased comparably.

Which kinda proves my original point.

*waves willy*

Indeed, I ride an MTB to keep skills sharp and to have fun. I tend to ride hard, as that's the fun part…

I ride my road bike to train, some 60 minute interval sessions can leave me on my knees, or I can do 5 hours and feel pretty fresh.

So really it is all pretty meaningless!

ha ha, worst willy waving i've come accross is on the road.

happened a few times…

nice club/group ride. 20 or 30 people out.

get the wrong two on the front willy waving, and watch the pace pick up.

had some lovely 20-24mph mile an hour rides ruined by two or three guys willy measuring it up to 28mph on the front. pack splits up, no more wind shelter…
just crying into your bars to try and keep up.

i find roadying harder than mtb. (in general)

really doesnt tell you half the information you need to compare…

Happen.

I bow to your superior fitness, I've ridden E/1/2 road races slower than 28mph.

im not keeping up at 28mph mate…
and its not exactly sustained for a long time. i was discussing folks at the front trying to crack each other 'just for fun' on club rides…

tracknicko
That's so annoying, but I'll refuse to chase, and I'll advise the bunch to stay together and keep it going until we catch and pass them.
Personally I just can't find the speed to race well. My average around the Chilterns (ivinghoe Beacon etc) is about 17.8MPH solo over about 40 miles. Not sure what it is on rare team rides, but I clearly need to be nearer 21MPH average at least?

Maybe it suits some more than others, I don't get on with long, steady power activities but the sprint, burst, rest style of MTBing is much more my thing.

I don't do big groups, but I've done a fair bit of riding over the years with 3-4 very very good riders, and we don't do 20mph averages!

i'm relatively new to the 'proper' roady game. had a fairly huge injury last year and *possibly* scared of my mtb/trying to improve fintess so joined some roady clubs…

The one thing i found amazing is the effect of the group. I cant really beat 17/18mph average in the peaks on my own, but the effect of the group increases this notably, but also means you can go SO much further. great fun.

had my first 'race' at the weekend on the flat and got completely destroyed…

to the extent that i lost site of the lead group, couldnt see the group behind, missed a turning and added 8 miles to the route.

needless to say, i am no pro at this roady malarkey.

A nice way of assessing your fitness through the year is taking part in TT's. Same course, usually the same riders, learn that it's half mental keeping 100% power down for ten/twenty five/fifty miles. They're a miserable bunch of buggers but you don't have to stay and try talking to them. I wouldn't recommend them as a substitute for proper riding but they're a great guide for how much your fitness is increasing by/or not.

Plus when you see the results you can immediately discount all the blokes who beat you on carbon TT specific bikes they have because they're clearly mental.

quite fancied some TT's later in the year. i think they do a hilly one too which might be a bit more up my street.
and yes. TT bikes are cheating!

Which ever riding you prefer it is only as hard as you want to make it, i did 25 miles last weekend on the MTB and found it relitively easy 🙂 but went out on our Tuesday night ride and felt like my lungs where going to explode 😥 and only did approx 15 miles but thats because of the pace the others set.
Its the same on the road you can do big milage and feel okay then go at a fast pace for half the distance and feel totally knackerd, both are only hard if you want them to be ❗
One set of riders I will now look upon with more respect are track cyclist's, I had a taster session at the velodrome on Saturday, now that really is hard especially if you try to keep a fast pace going for 4 or more laps 😕

Believe me it's not all down to fitness in road races, sounds like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I got dropped in the neutral zone in my first ver race 😳 that was a long time ago.
I can't survive in a road race without using everyone else and staying out of trouble, if I find myself at the back then I might as well wave bye bye.
That said I've yet to race this year and I missed this weekends race, I'll probably call it a day if I don't finish at least midfield.

Yeh i got done over. Not guys i know or normally ride with.
Rode for 2 hrs into a really strong 3/4 headwind. Really struggled to get tucked into the group in a decent place and was basically hammered after 2 hours.
Thought i'd be ok when we turned it round, but the fast lads just hared off even harder with the backwind.
Got dropped.
Rode completely alone for an hour or so, then realised i didnt know when we were meant to turn back up into the wind. Evidently turned one turning too late, and spent 10 miles on my own into the original headwind.
Not a particularly impressive start to my roady career!

No, but a lesson learnt?

Why exactly do I have to unequivocally nail my colours to any particular mast? I own mountain bikes a BMX and a road bike, and I rode both MTB and Road over winter, Riding either is good for fitness, yes there are differences in how they build fitness and what they require of a rider but why do I have to belong to some “sub-tribe” of the cycling community?

I ride both, and enjoy riding both, all cycling is good for fitness, road cycling lets you maintain steady cadence and HR for longer periods, MTBing gets the rider doing some short sharp peak output type work and helps work your upper body a bit more I reckon, both useful…

All Cycling is good… FACT!

Very much so.

Also highlighted that i like riding uphill every now and then, even if its just to stand up and change the ryhthm a bit… something i'd not really considered.

4hrs riding seated at pace was just sore!

agree with cookeaa incidently. if i hadnt shattered my knee last year, i'd be preparing for pearce series right now…

i still ride bmx every day.

im just a biker. just right now im VERY interested in roadying. find it odd that people call it ghey.

easily the hardest (physically) riding i have tried to date…

All Cycling is good… FACT!

amen to that

It is tough isn't it. Thing is there's no one there just having a go for fun. You have to be as good as the man in front.
I think I'm starting to talk myself out of racing again.

I'm sure I've said it before…. Road racing is about using your head just as much as your legs, it's not about who's fittest, it's about who is smartest…

It really used to wee me off that the guys who struggled on training runs always beat me; they knew, I didn't…

yeh your both right. i even took my turn on the front on the way out, trying to be nice etc. really hurting, and when i peeled off i basically went from the front row to dead last. wasnt a good sign!

Hmmm tried to be nice. I know you said you were new to it, but I didn't realise you were born yesterday 😉

I've been thinking that I need to take a road bike to the Alps. You can threaten to burn me if you want, but I don't care.

Road riding (like any other riding) is f**king brilliant.

was informed (read: stitched up!) by my mate that it was a 'gentle out, then race back' kind of affair.

well i've never ridden that fast into a headwind so i've no idea if they thought it was gentle out. didnt have enough lung left to ask…

Anyway, for proper willy waving, we need to see power surely?

Having been using a power based training method for the last 5 months for both road and MTB training I would say that power output is the biggest single most important factor for willy waving 😆

Training with a proper plan and power meter seriously focusses your training effort. Whereas before I could spend 2-3 hours generally riding/training, I can now focus my effort and get better results in half the time!

Road riding demands more constant and sustained power output whereas MTB requires quick flutuating power output. Road riding is fantastic for fitness training because of this but MTB requires something a little different.

End of the day, just riding a bike is fun 8)

Saw Dave Brailsford recently at a talk… they seemed to have boiled road racing down to power too.

i know there's more to it (as my tactical ignorance helped to prove)
but he was talking about wiggins' weight loss before the tour etc. and aiming for a magical sustained power output of (IIRC) 6.5W/kg.

never trained with power myself. so im not sure how acheivable this is for us mortals.. but was claimed to be a good number for alpish climbing.