[Closed] Road riding, what am I doing wrong?

The Southern Yeti - Member
Not sure if that's a good indiactor or not Al, but... the couple I just looked at suggested an average speed over 2 hours of about 25mph.

Correct - but when I turned this on its head to suggest that the road racers weren't necessarily the fastest riders around I got widely criticised.

Thing is, road racers do tend to be the fastest riders around, basically it is an arms race. You need to be fitter and stronger to beat the opposition, which means they get fitter and faster to catch up.

Use Strava if you need a guide, there are plenty of races on it, both pro and amateur.

I reckon crikey has it with his last post.

That's slow for a road race IME.

You can't compare the 2, but one group have given up a lot and invested much time and effort in aiming to be the best road racers, and the other lot are riding a "challenge" event.

Guess who I suspect may be faster?

So it teaches you to wheel suck the fastest guy and break at the last minute 😉

There's no voodoo then crikey, much as I thought... and there's nothing that not racing can teach you about racing. I'll have to MTFU and see what I can do.

Guess who I suspect may be faster?

People sitting furiously hammering their keyboards on STW?

Colin if you think you can do well at road racing without the fitness you are dreaming.

There are many 80 mile road races for you to compare with.

Why don't you enter a road race then report back?

Should be racing Tuesday if my man-flu clears up.....which is nice.

The only thing you're doing wrong is to adapt yourself to the gearing,not the gearing to you.
Have a long hard look at sheldon's gear calculator.speed,cadence.really poke around.
I'd suggest a 44-5t ring,110 bolt circle dia is the bmx race diameter,they occasionaly come up cheap on crc.if not specialites ta have them all.
Get a good cadence.90-110.the speed will come later.though it takes a few years.
I run 33-46 with a junior cassette(14-25).It's fine for me.My average is 27kmh,85km rides,1300m of climbing.that's 3 nice hard climbs and one decent one.I do 35-6 on the flat on the way up(faux plat) and do 48 if I can get a bit of a slipstream.have done 63 on the 46-14.on the flat,behind a bus.
besides.my chain lasts longer and is nice and straight as I'm usually on the 46:16-7.
I'm tempted to put a 44 on for spring as it's so damned windy.and I ride alone.
Point is,to go faster pedal faster,not harder.
change your gears to suit you.if a 42 works,then fine.a straight block cassette def helps.
miche make cassettes starting with 14-15 and 16-
like they were when freewheels were around and you needed a 52 to have a 100gear inches.

even a 50 is too much.adapt the gearing to you.then change it as you get stronger.
take care.and fit some tiny bar end mirrors.

I was a good mountain bike racer, but I got hammered on the road for 2-3-4 years until I learned how to race. I got hammered by people who I left for dead every time we trained because I didn't know how to race.

When I got my head around racing in the UK, we went to race in Belgium and the Netherlands.

I got hammered all over again; spinning out 53-12 on the flat and going out of the back of the bunch...

It took me 6 years of racing here and abroad to be anything like a decent road racer, and I was never really any good; I was a decent 3rd cat who could hang on in 1st 2nd and 3rds races, and could cope with racing in Belgium.

It's far more complex than power to weight ratio.

If your having trouble turning big gears to get speed you need more strength. I am not saying ride everywhere at one rpm, but sometimes it makes sense to slightly overload the muscles to build a little power, other times spin, in time you find you can spin bigger gears.

Ah, OK, I see what you're saying now.

Why are you so concerned about how you compare to other people? Do you enjoy road riding? Would you enjoy it more if you were faster on Strava or whatever it's called? If you don't enjoy it, why are you doing it?

Are you racing?

If it's any consolation, I have absolutely no idea what my average speed on the road is. I'm probably much slower than most of the folk posting above, but it doesn't really bother me. I'd just leave the Strava warriors to it and enjoy the ride.

Anyway, that's just my take.

Fair point, well made.

I enjoyed my ride, and will continue to do so. If or when it is no longer enjoyable, I'll either change it, or do something else altogether. I'm not so concerned as such, just 16mph doesn't sound that fast, and I've got mates that ride road too that are always saying that we should go for a road ride at some point, but I know they'd kill me and it would be boring for them. Mountain Biking is much less of an issue, I'm better at that.

Me... road racing? Not at the minute... should it matter?

I'm after a sub 5 hour 100 miles though.

This is kinda what I was angling at, though I don't have much intention of going and entering a 100 miler any time soon, but I guy I was riding with last year for a bit (I am no quicker or slower now) could barely keep up, even over 15 miles, and by 40 miles we were practically towing him. I bumped into him the other day, and over Easter he completed 2 100 mile Sportif's, came in just over 5hr barrier on both of them!!! He admitted they were quite flat courses, but in 6 months he's gone from not being able to ride for 40 miles at about 14mph average in a group, to going out and doing 100 milers at just shy of 20mph average on his own! 😕

I still think a good benchmark test is to ride a 25 mile TT, a proper one not one using your own rules and timing. Under the hour is 'good' in my book.

I should bloody hope under 1hr is good, the Grenoble TT in the 2011 tdf, the last but one stage, was 42km (roughly 26 miles), and was won in 55:33... Only about 50 or so, of the [i]world's best athletes[/i] came in under the hour mark!!!

I reckon crikey has it with his last post.

I'd totally agree with that. Not that I'm quick or anything, but just check out the 2011 tdf classifications... The most highly decorated man, the one with the page 3 girlfriend, the one with the big pay cheque, the one who won BBC Sports personality of the year, didn't finish first overall, he didn't finish in top ten, he didn't even finish in the top 100! He came 130th in the overall classification, 3hr15mins behind Cuddles!

But by god if he manages to be there within sniffing distance on a stage not too testing for him, he is the embodiment of knowing when and where to use your talents to be most effective.

Anyway, once again guys cheers for making me feel slightly less slow than I thought I was, will try the same route again a few times over coming weeks, see if I improve or not. I reckon if I pushed myself a bit harder here and there, knowing it's only a shortish distance, I've got another 1mph in me overall probably.

Sounds to me like you're spending too much time in the 34T. I live in a not particularly hilly part of Hampshire and spend very little time in the lower chainring. Try upping your cadence to 90-95 and staying in the 50T as much as you can. If your cadence starts to drop too much in the 50T then try to grind it out for bit if it's a short hill, if it's longer get into the upper range on your 34T and try to stay as high as possible.

Spend almost all my time in the 50T, just at the upper end of the cassette. Only ever really drop to the 34T if it starts pointing uphill. But I'm spending all my time in 50/21 predominantly, and 50/23 quite a bit, occasionally straying to 50/19 if its a bit smoother tarmac.

Are you talking "real world" cadence, or "made up on the internet, I think I pedal a lot faster than I really do bollox" cadence? Cos if the former, then **** ME... If I could maintain 90/95rpm AND the gearing half the guys on here say I should be pushing, I'd be knocking on the door of a pro ride! 😕 FWIW, I never really had much of a clue about cadence until a year or so ago, I'd always assumed I pedalled everywhere between about 90 and 100rpm, as compared to everyone I ride MTB's with I'm much more of a spinner. Nope, seems about 80rpm is more my natural sort of pace, though I do push it a little bit now and it is slowly creeping up.

Oh, and without wanting to sound like a ponce, go to the gym and do some squats and lunges to get your leg strength up.

I do go to the gym, and will work on my legs a bit more possibly, but though my top half is nothing to write home about, my leg strength is a lot higher than most people my size roughly. I know that means nothing really, cos if I wanna ride quicker, I might need to develop legs to make Chris Hoy feel shy.

I should bloody hope under 1hr is good, the Grenoble TT in the 2011 tdf, the last but one stage, was 42km (roughly 26 miles), and was won in 55:33... Only about 50 or so, of the world's best athletes came in under the hour mark!!!

Something up there, as a crap 4th cat who hated testing, I've done a 1:02.

But I do think 16mph over 50m is pretty good.

You can safely ignore average speed. 

25 miles in under an hour as discussed above  http://app.strava.com/rides/5696485#108609160

230 miles at 19.6 MPH  http://app.strava.com/rides/3331484

Normal road hilly commute at 16 MPH http://app.strava.com/rides/7296360

I'm a crap roadie. I'm too fat and I' m off the back when climbing on club runs. I managed to scrape 4 BC points in a 4th cat crit last year but there were only about 10 in the race! however, I'm an average time trialler. I finish top 10 in club events and top half of open events generally. 

Ignore the averages, get out and ride with friends. Join the local club time trials for a laugh and measure your performance from there. Chain gangs are ace for developing speed and skills. Club runs are great for getting the miles and cake in. It's all good. Stop worrying and start enjoying 🙂

I'd find some 'local loops' on Strava and see how the average speeds other riders have done compare with yours.

I never got above 16mph average on my road bike. I was happy with that speed and it always felt like I'd put some effort in.

Not read all of the above but if you enjoy your rides and have no desire to compete then why not just continue to enjoy it and not worry about the numbers?

Want to go faster? Its you not the bike. By the sound of it your always going at the same pace effort. You need to increase cadence and effort over short periods to improve.

INTERVALS at 90-100% MHR:
1 to 2 minutes. Recovery 1 to 5 minutes. Repeat from 3 up to 10 times. Depending on fitness and period. High cadence 100 - 105 rpm.

INTERVALS at 90 - 95% MHR:
3 to 5 minutes. Recovery 5 to 10 minutes. Repeat from 3 up to 10 times. Depending on fitness and period. Heavy gear, up hill at cadence of 80 to 90 rpm.

Note the effort and cadence required

If you want to go faster then train harder and measure what your doing HRM, power meter etc. I find turbo is the best for this sort of training. You can go hard and not worry about the road. Join a road club. 180 miles couple weekends ago club run average 18 mph. Lots of fast sections and hills in Wales.

I managed to scrape 4 BC points in a 4th cat crit last year but there were only about 10 in the race! however, I'm an average time trialler. I finish top 10 in club events and top half of open events generally.

Like the sound of that race, points for everyone 🙂

Am I alone in enjoying the numbers side of road riding then?

I was trying to find an interview with one of the TdF riders who quite clearly stated that they train for at least 75miles a day at at least 18mph... I couldn't so you'll just have to believe me.

I'm fairly static between 15 and 17mph depending on route, hilly-ness, weather etc. Strava helps a lot with me understanding whether I'm getting fitter, faster, stronger and as I road ride alone, it's the best way to judge.

There's a local bloke who rides a lot of the same routes as me who I've given up on using as a benchmark. He rode 142km at the weekend, 1400m of climbing (about the average climbing per km for the area) and his average was 33kmph (25mph). Solo. Totally different class of rider to me but I'll work on getting a little closer to him even though beating him will take more time/effort than I want to spend (assuming he doesn't just get quicker too).

I only loosely know one current pro rider, he rides with these blokes.
proteam.competitivecyclist.com

He told me whilst out riding that they do about that, though probably more miles. And shorter distances at 24 plus.
It all sounds within reach doesn't it. And guys on here have stated that they in fact ride faster.
Then how come he has held a whole string of National and then World Masters titles. Has beaten lance over the line and took the opening stage of the 2012 Rutas. And we haven't?

Staggering time there atlaz. Not doubting your man there as it's doable.
But we've exposed a cheat down here, lets put it this way his bike was suitable for delivering pizzas 😆

33km/h = 25mph?

Quick, someone tell the Authorities they have it wrong!

He told me whilst out riding that they do about that, though probably more miles.

Is that in relation to my previous post.... if so I did write "at least 75 miles"... it was Cavendish but I'm damned if I can find it.

😆 - I missed that Al... I need to change my conversion similarly so that I'm riding faster in imperial measures.

Am I alone in enjoying the numbers side of road riding then?

Nope. I love the averages, it's what pushes me.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying the numbers. Just ensure that you are comparing something useful, like your own times over the same course with other peoples on the same course in the same conditions. Strava goes some way to helping with this and I'm addicted to it now.

But comparing your training figures with someone elses on different days on different routes is pretty pointless.

Is that in relation to my previous post.

Yes it was, just adds to the smoke and mirrors thingy doesn't it.

I missed that Al... I need to change my conversion similarly so that I'm riding faster in imperial measures.

Or simply get something sticky stuck in your computer and you find you're riding 4 mph faster than the bloke you're riding next to.

Nope. I love the averages, it's what pushes me.

Is that meant to be ironic?

Am I alone in enjoying the numbers side of road riding then?

Err... yes... sorry... 20mph 🙂

Had to stop reading this 'cos it depresses me. I've got my first ever sportive at the weekend - 100 miles. My average speed means I'll be going all night!! 3 weeks off riding with a chest infection has not helped my training 🙁

That's about what a good 2nd cat or 1st cat rider will be doing.

Had to stop reading this 'cos it depresses me. I've got my first ever sportive at the weekend - 100 miles. My average speed means I'll be going all night!! 3 weeks off riding with a chest infection has not helped my training

You might find the actual real world pleasantly surprising.

I'll be happy just to get round 🙂

On a slight tangent, does anyone get bored road riding? All my road rides used to be a quick hour or two in and around the Peak District. Constantly varying terrain - uphill slogs and fast downs - meant I never found it dull. I've been doing bigger rides this year and, because my first Sportive is relatively flat Lincolnshire, I've been riding more around Cheshire in preparation. At first I enjoy "zooming" along the flat but after 30 miles or so I start to lose interest in the same gradient and the same views. What do people do to keep up the interest?

You might find the actual real world pleasantly surprising.

Haha... he's probably right there StillTortoise. Have a look at the Wiggle sportive results for some comfort.

I just uploaded a load if rides to Strava. Quite a fan of... 152.5km in 5:03:32 with 1476m of climbing. Although Garmin thinks different despite being the upload source 😕

Same views after 30 miles?

ride in group. get head down. feel sick. miss the peaks.

Sounds as though you'd get a lot out of riding in a group, taking the odd spell but not working too hard - it'll show you the peaks and troughs in effort you need to sustain to ride efficiently over distance. You may be trying to go too hard when you don't need to and finding it costs you when you do need to dig a bit deeper.

Not sure about some of the intervals advice being offered, sounds more like a lack of a decent base to me. Longer, steady rides at a decent but not breakneck pace in an organised group (not necessarily a chaingang or race bunch) would pay dividends for you. Might feel hard to start with, but stick at it.

At first I enjoy "zooming" along the flat but after 30 miles or so I start to lose interest in the same gradient and the same views. What do people do to keep up the interest?

Live in Scotland. 😀

Yesterday I took a hilly route down to the outlaws' while Mrs Tyred took the kids in the car. 69 miles, 4500ft of climbing and beautiful, empty minor roads albeit in some pretty grim wind and rain. 19.1 mph average, longest solo ride I've done in a while.

I've not had any problems with boredom in the saddle. Even when riding up and down the same section of road multiple times. I'm content enough for 12 hours at least. Not tried going any longer yet.

with 1476m of climbing. Although Garmin thinks different despite being the upload source

It depends on the map they use, I think the map-my-ride one (USGS topo map)must have really wide spaced contour lines so that you hardly cross them and they never get counted, either that or it's filtering out undulations and only counting significant climbs, because google earth, my egde305 GPS and OS maps all agree to within about 5% at worst. I found the best way to measure it quickly and easily was to map it using the walking directions in google maps, then copy the html link into google earth to get the elevation data. Either that or just multiply mapmyride or gamrin connect by 150%.

I did 70miles on Sunday morning with 1500m climbing in 4:35 so about 15.5mph average. My excuse is my knee gave up about 15 miles home on a hilly return leg and I rode into some sleet and rain which killed my motivation.

I ride solo long distance because I enjoy it and love the quiet and solitude. I am also hoping to do a sub 6 hour 100 mile this year but will now have to see if my knee is going to cause more problems:x

I don't generally get bored when riding in the hills, it's just the flatter stuff I've been doing recently where I struggle to keep myself interested and motivated.

A lot of the rides I do in the Peak District work out at about 1000ft of climbing every 10 miles. If I could get my average speed 15mph I'd be delighted.

Can't be arsed to read back over the last 4 pages so if someone has already made the same points please forgive me.

Firstly are you making use of the drops?
I only ask as by my own (Probably flawed) estimation a stint on the drops instead of staying up on the hoods can easily "Cheat" you an extra 1-2mph along a long straight (especially when coupled with a bit of a push and maybe shifting 1 or 2 sprockets at the back)...

The other thing is choosing when and how to push and where to pace yourself or back off to make the biggest overall impact and making use of all the gears rather than a select few, a minor 1 or 2 shifts either way as the road goes up or down helps maintian pace, just because it's not an MTB doesn't mean you can switch off and stop reading the trail (road) ahead...

I'd not pay much attention to peoples claimed "Average" speeds, someone might well manage 24Mph, but they might also be fresh as a daisy on a TT bike on a dead flat smooth road, where you are probably dealing with a mixture of climbs, Descents, knackered roads and traffic, all of which can dent or help a route time quite easily.

Plus don't forget you are riding solo which will have a big impact, people might tell you they averaged 20mph+ but they might ommit the fact that they spent the majority of that time nicely tucked up in the back of a chaingang drafting their way to Stava glory...

The best indicator of how much effort you are putting in is how knackered you are following a ride, you are much better off listening to your body and not interweb bravado...

Happy trails.

One tip I would give, is don't slow down when your legs start to ache, you should find that they stop aching once they get used to the cadence/ effort.
A fixed wheel is good for this as you don't have a choice - maintain the cadence and the effort, or stop.

I think you need tubs. 🙂

been thinking about this thread, and average speeds, and decided that 16 mph aint that quick, although Im no speed demon

but

Ive just done a flattish 30 mile route along canal towpath (I know !!) but did it because, although there were no climbs, there were also no descents, so it was all about maintaining a speed, few points below

a) I averaged 16 mph - on a smoothish fine gravel track (not tarmac)
b) over 30 mile route
c) On a FAT bike
d) By a FAT bloke

and Im sure many here would leave me standing