I’m 57 and still setting PB’s uphill and down, generally in the top 20% even against riders half my age. But my average sticks stubbornly at 14mph, or 14.5 if I leather it. I live in a hilly area, usually 1000ft climbing per 10 miles. Is this all it is, or am I missing something?
Sounds pretty quick with that kind of climbing, but I'm not a fast roadie.
What does your Garmin say?
Do you have auto pause switched on?
Is that all what is? Not sure what you're asking.
Averages on road vary massively depending on terrain, of course, just as they do off road. I did nearly 31kph on a 4hr ride last year with climbing, but it was open A roads and lots of rolling and flat as well. I can go flat out on lanes near me for 50 mins and get 23kph.
I’m just curious as to why my average speed over the whole ride is quite low when I’m not a slouch uphill or down. I guess I don’t have the engine to go quicker on the flats, though I often find myself in a high, or top, gear even when riding my non-compact chainset. Yes, I have auto-pause on.
I don’t use a bike computer on the whole, I use the Strava app on my phone.
Are you a lightweight?
I'm quite light and pretty fast up and down (at least I was). Rubbish on the flat though.
Are you a lightweight?
76kg. So not especially.
14mph avg sounds pretty rapid over the hills - what were you expecting?
Avg speed on your local ride can only be the roughest of benchmarks. Enter a hilly timetrial if you really want to see where your speed is at - you don't need a TT bike to do well for the hillier ones (and there's prob a road bike cat anyhow).
14mph avg sounds pretty rapid over the hills – what were you expecting?
Well, I don’t really know. I look at other riders who live in my area and they knock out 18mph over similar rides. It’s just this mismatch between my apparently good times up the hill and mediocre overall. If I want to go out and do a century ride I know it’s going to take me 7 and a half hours. It seems seems like a lot of saddle time.
How hard are you working? What HR zone?
They ride in a group and you ride alone.
How hard are you working? What HR zone?
I ride comfortably hard up the hills, use the flats for recovery but happy to get in the drops and tool along if appropriate. If I’m out doing 50 or 60 miles I’m careful not to go too hard early on.
I ride comfortably hard up the hills
I asked about zones because different people have different ideas of what is hard - zones give some objectivity to that, although I know it's not perfect. There is a massive difference in the power required for a 14mph ride and what an 18mph ride needs. My last road ride, not as hilly as yours, was 18mph and 6% threshold, then about equal amounts of moderate and tempo. If I did that route at 14mph the whole ride would be at the low end of moderate.
Also, if you want to maximise your average you have to take any free speed you can - so no freewheeling down the hills, and if you get a tailwind then you roll along at 20mph.
They ride in a group and you ride alone.
I'd agree with this
. There is a massive difference in the power required for a 14mph ride and what an 18mph ride needs
That’s a good point, but in my case there’s a massive difference in effort required between 14 and 14.5 mph.
I don’t use a heart rate monitor, perhaps I should.
I’d often do a certain training ride, only 30 miles. Close to 3500 feet of climbing with an average of close to 17mph…..this had all the climbing in the first half of the ride with a nice, very fast, pretty safe 30 mph 8 mile descent….pick your route better and watch your average increase to a racing god!
In roadie terms (especially fast roadie) you’re relatively heavy for hilly rides.
Best thing to do is get a heart rate and a power meter.
To be honest though, the average isn’t really that important if you’re not racing. I’d me more thinking about lowering the PB’s on the climbs, especially genuine long climbs. As I’ve gotten older my average speed has tumbled, I can still do 30 minute climbs ok, but recovery is a lot harder than it used to be.
14mph average is pretty slow which is why you are 4mph behind fast riders.
Less hilly at 250ft per 10 miles but my best times are averaging almost 19mph and with routes that are 50% gravel I am averaging almost 16mph on an example route of 15 miles with 800ft climbing.
I am 54 years old and not a very fast rider - proper road riders pass me regularly!
I recently got my best time on a 3 mile rough gravel segment averaging 19mph (tailwind!) but didn't even get into the top 10 with top riders hitting 22mph
You can use Strava to analyse where your losing time to the faster folk. Look at the segments on your last ride. You say your in the top 20% on the climbs are you still up there on the flat segments etc.
Weather conditions can have a big impact on your speed, wind direction and strength. I usually have a look at the Strava app on my phone and look at the times for the segments that day (Leaderboards Today). This may well be a premium feature so if you have the free version you may not see it. It’s a great way to analyse where you have been flying and where you have been slouching.
As Molgrips effectively wrote, there's too little info provided to give any meaningful pointers.
~100 feet per mile average is pretty hilly, typically my rides to the South Downs hills around Warnford end up being ~60 feet per mile average and no higher than ~75 feet per mile if I'm very selective with my route once in the hills. Typically I'll average 16-18mph with auto pause off, but it's not a stat I focus on, usually I'm targetting climb segments, despite my ~80Kg weight.
Relatively hard up the hills and into a headwind, ease off on the opposite.
Heart rate monitor and/or power meter would help analyse your efforts.
Fuelling and hydrating could be an issue on longer rides, resulting in you getting home on fumes that significantly drop your average speed.
Try and stay at least reasonably aero, especially when doing 15mph+.
I'm as slow, solo usually 22/23kph is good, and struggle to stay with a 24/25kpg group so largely ride solo, so you're not alone.
Losing a lot of weight (as in 25kg back to 90kg fighting weight 🙄) would help me massively, but with a knee replacement and dodgy ticker I'm never going to be a racing snake.
Fuelling and hydrating could be an issue on longer rides, resulting in you getting home on fumes
Yes, that’s likely a part of it. Even over 30 miles my average doesn’t go up though.
OP. What exactly are you wanting ? A faster average (for what purpose), or just up your speed on the flat bits?
Post up one of your rides on Strava and we can tell you where to improve. If you've got auto pause switched on then you are definitley going slowly somewhere on the ride.
My rides on the lanes are slow because you can't hit the descents fast, you are on the brakes all the time because it's narrow and windy. Open roads are quicker because you get your climbing effort back.
^^ Very true, only a few descents around my usual lane hills where I'm happy to not have the brake lever "in a vice grip."
I just go full speed down any hill. Feels safe now I have brakes and freewheel after almost 20 years of riding brakeless fixed.
Goes without saying but my average speeds and PRs KOM have increased massively since getting a geared bike last year.
It's the flats where you'll really gain any Avg speed. However fast you climb, you'll always descend faster and what goes up must come back down.
It's your speed on flat sections that will drag up your overall average, so are you getting down in the drops for those aero gains?
I've had work mates tell me about the 'fast' 20mph+ ride they've just done with a buddy in the past, when you look at their Strava log yes it was fast, but it was also pretty short, clearly done working as a small group/pair, HRs through the roof, on one or other of the local TT loops at an otherwise unsustainable pace. It seems to be a spring early 'season' thing where they're obviously sniping KOMs or just establishing a baseline of some sort I guess, by this point in summer such nonsense has mostly stopped.
Personally I don't worry about averaged speed, it's a nice to know stat but if I want a gauge of where I'm at physically I record and look at HR, and worry about managing effort in order to be able to ride for longer/further rather than just faster. I'm no racer though, if you're training for TT or Crits it's a different game...
Its all relative to who you ride with and how fast the local guys are. I don't consider myself fast and on roads with a similar elevation I'd average 17+. It does depend how many junctions, how fast the downhills are etc. Mine are all flat out with no brakes so it keeps the average up.
14mph average is pretty slow which is why you are 4mph behind fast riders.
Less hilly at 250ft per 10 miles but my best times are averaging almost 19mph
That's a *lot* less hilly, though. That's easily a 4-5mph difference.
Do you use a speed sensor or are you using GPS to calculate speed?
Here’s a ride where I tried quite hard : https://www.strava.com/activities/7345248127/embed/20cf2a48f821e7297c1bed479f90ae8acd795b01
Edit: link doesn’t work.
Try again:
https://www.strava.com/activities/7345248127/embed/20cf2a48f821e7297c1bed479f90ae8acd795b01
That ride is pretty hilly, I don't think the average for a solo rider is that bad at all tbh.
I look at other riders who live in my area and they knock out 18mph over similar rides
That's your problem, don't look at other riders who you know nothing about and compare them with yourself. 14-15mph forr rides with 1000ft climbing per 10 miles is pretty decent for a recreational rider. 18mph average for the same amount of climbing is normally what the fast group in a club ride do.
Thanks Ewan!
I live in a similar hilly area, 10 miles =1000ft climbing.
Other riders are fitter and faster than me and they ride in groups but even though they live in the same area they don't always do 10 Miles to 1000ft climbing.
Some people (mainly roadies) care about stats and avoid hills to keep their average speed up. Although I ride on the road I was a mtber first and I wear baggy shorts and put all my gear in a frame bag instead of my Jersey and I don't take it very seriously. I just enjoy riding. I think some roadies look down on me sometimes. 😂
I love climbing and purposely ride to include tough climbs. I enjoy my rides and don't care about stats. As long as I can keep up with my friends I don't really care. When I get dropped them I worry.
I had some thoughts about average speed. If I ride up a hill at 10mph and down the same hill at 20, you might think your average speed would be 15mph. But it isn’t. If the hill is 10 miles long it takes 1 hour to ride up and 30 minutes to ride down. That makes the average 20 miles over 90 mins, which makes it 0.222 miles per minute = 13.33 mph. Or have I got that wrong?
So the answer to my own question is that, as nearly everything round here is either up or down, I spend much more time on every ride going at 10 than at 20 so my average is limited by that.
Yes- like the Einstein question
https://fs.blog/einstein-wertheimer-car-problem/
A more useful way to think about it is power. In theory, if the course starts and finishes from the same spot and two riders rode the it at 200w, they would both end up on the same average speed regardless of rider weight (assuming ballpark similar aerodynamics).
The problem is, the heavier the rider you are- the harder it is to actually achieve because of gearing and physically being able to go fast enough on the descents because of bends, cars etc Whereas the lighter rider can climb quicker, descend slower and still be way faster overall.
It’s one of the things I miss most at the moment on my gravel bike is having the 53 tooth chainring. Because on the descents, I used to be able to tick over at 70rpm, add in 200watts and still recover my HR. Whereas on the 48 tooth gravel crankset, I would have to do 110rpm just to tighten the chain, let alone add watts.
Crosshair have you really thought that statement through? Weight does not make you go faster downhill it’s aerodynamics.
If both riders have the same power output the lighter rider goes up the hill fastest. The most aero rider goes downhill fastest. On the flat the most aero rider goes faster.
Being heavier does not give you any advantage cycling. More power yes but not weight.
Behave 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Im 95kg and can catch guys doing 360w downhill, sat upright, on my hoods, whilst coasting 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
CDA doesn’t scale with size.
(Agreed that being heavy is a rubbish way to be a cyclist but in a physics sense, we’re doing more work as I’m moving way more mass through space and time than a 60kg rider. Sadly cycling only rewards time/speed 😉)
Are you looking at that route specifically? It covers the Derwentside 10 course which is raced by some good riders. Also those roads are used by some decent riders for training. It's the national CX champions stomping ground. I know some of my race team do regular laps around there. As do many others.
Is look at why you care about the speed, that will help you understand what to do.
If it's racing, look at the NDCA and enter some time trials. That is a fair comparison.
If you just want to be faster then ride more and get fitter, look at aerodynamics (position) then weight.
I always figured it was better to press on up hill. I can climb anyway but at a slower speed the extra effort makes the difference. Don't break, unless you need to to make it round a corner, but "comfort braking" because you are scared is a waste.
Being heavier does not give you any advantage cycling. More power yes but not weight.
I've ridden in some crosswinds where an extra 10kg or so would definitely have been helpful!
It’s one of the things I miss most at the moment on my gravel bike is having the 53 tooth chainring. Because on the descents, I used to be able to tick over at 70rpm, add in 200watts and still recover my HR. Whereas on the 48 tooth gravel crankset, I would have to do 110rpm just to tighten the chain, let alone add watts.
If may feel like that but in reality it is nothing like that.
35mph on 53/11 is 91rpm while on 48/11 is 101rpm so 10rpm difference rather than the 40rpm difference you feel it is.
70rpm on 53/11 only gets you 27mph.
Example ride from OP: https://www.strava.com/activities/7345248127/overview
Going on that ride, presuming weight on you plus bike is ballpark correct and ensuring the estimated power is as good as it's going to get (which doesn't take account of wind iirc), to me it looks like your climbing speed/power is killing your overall average speed. Up Healeyfield you are doing ~3.5W/Kg (~258W) for ~6.5mins, but on other climbs it's much closer to ~2.5W/Kg.
If you put out efforts like that Healeyfield up all the climbs, your average speed would rise significantly.
Yes- like the Einstein question
@crosshair Yes! Fantastic, I’ve never seen that before. I’m a big Einstein fan so pleased to find I reached the same conclusion in my own way.
I also noticed that the faster you descend, the less time you spend doing it as a proportion of the whole ride so again it’s difficult to force up the overall average by that means too.
It looks like the answer is to go somewhere flat and see what sort of averages I can produce. No need for power meters or heart rate monitors, it’s a maths problem.
If you put out efforts like that Healeyfield up all the climbs, your average speed would rise significantly.
Hi NobOdy, thanks for looking at this. That climb is a set of brutal 20% hairpins and the only way up is to do it at max heart rate or get off and walk. Theoretically I could tackle every climb in the same way but I fear I might die. But yes, getting fitter and more powerful would be a help.
Thanks for identifying my max power output, not very impressive is it?😀
For a hilly ride, that sounds about right solo. Similar speeds for me yesterday and set PB's up some North Wales hills, and was doing 14.6 average. Today's ride, flatter, but average will be 17 mph.
Unless you've got autostop on (I dont) I'm not so sure strava will recognise traffic light stops.
Weight does not make you go faster downhill it’s aerodynamics.
It does.
The Galileo experiment showed that a heavy weight and a heavy weight dropped off a building fall at the same speed. This is because whilst the heavy weight experiences more force downwards, it takes more force to accelerate it so it cancels out.
Two riders going down a hill are in a different situation. At first yes, they will experience the same acceleration as per Galileo, but very quickly aerodynamics become the limiting factor: your speed is being limited by air resistance. The heavy rider will probably be a bit less aero because they're probably bigger, but they would have much more force due to gravity, more than enough to counter the increase in aerodynamics drag. So the ratio of weight to drag is what determines how fast you go.
Having done many downhill no pedal races against a lighter opponent I can confirm this experimentally.
Unless you’ve got autostop on (I dont) I’m not so sure strava will recognise traffic light stops.
Yes, I have auto stop on, I dread to think what my figures would be without. I am a bit of a stop & go rider anyway, looking at maps, taking photos, peeing in hedges etc and I suspect getting up to speed after every stop must eat into averages. Must ride more smoothly…
I think one area to look at for some free gains is behaviour at junctions. Slowing and accelerating constantly can have a big impact on speed if you have quite a few junctions, especially if your coasting early and then pull away slowly. Either anticipate gaps to avoid slowing, or brake late, and power off hard. I’ve hit averages on close course rides that I could never achieve on a normal ride.
What you need to do is look at the ride and break it down into sections - uphill, downhill, flat (broadly) and see where you can improve.
Now the first thing I notice is the very first section (about 2.6 miles) - nice straight bit of road, only 2 turns, -164ft elevation - but you're only averaging 16.8mph. That just ain't gonna cut it if you want to be doing 16mph+ for the whole ride. Not least because psychologically you're already behind before you've even started.
Same thing applies from the top of the first climb to the low point - 3.7 miles downhill but only averaging 16.7mph. Doesn't matter how fast you go up the hills if you're only doing 16mph on the flats/downhills then you are not gonna get your average up.
Unless you’ve got autostop on (I dont) I’m not so sure strava will recognise traffic light stops.
Yes, I have auto stop on, I dread to think what my figures would be without.
Strava uses moving time to calculate its average speed doesn't it? So auto stop is irrelevant.
I had some thoughts about average speed. If I ride up a hill at 10mph and down the same hill at 20, you might think your average speed would be 15mph. But it isn’t. If the hill is 10 miles long it takes 1 hour to ride up and 30 minutes to ride down. That makes the average 20 miles over 90 mins, which makes it 0.222 miles per minute = 13.33 mph. Or have I got that wrong?
This - as a heavy rider I have to go considerably faster on the downhills to compensate for how crap I am at going up, and to go faster downhill is riskier and in general (CdA arguments nws) that also means putting effort in which adds to fatigue overall.
I'm close on 100kg currently (sobs, used to be mid 80's) and on a flat ride like today's I can easily manage close on 17mph (about 27kph) average, but on a hillier ride (100m per 10km is my cutover, I know that's only about half what was mentioned up there) if I average 15mph/24kph I'm happy. Of course depends also on distance and wind, and these are solo or rides I lead, if I'm in a group you can add 2-3kph relatively easily.
On the flat I can cruise at 30kph relatively comfortably, with effort about 35kph for periods but those extra 5kph gets exponentially harder.
I’ve hit averages on close course rides that I could never achieve on a normal ride.
On my commute in Germany, after doing it for a while and getting to maybe the best form of my life I could hold 40 or even 42kph for most of it, which was pan flat. There were some junctions at the start and one small hill at the end. My best average speed was one day with all green lights, no traffic, and the average was only 33.6kph.
@jamz Thanks for the insight, very helpful.
Same thing applies from the top of the first climb to the low point – 3.7 miles downhill but only averaging 16.7mph.
Yes, part of the problem is that this is all through a built-up area with plenty of side junctions and other hazards that make flat-out riding unwise. But you are spot on, it must impact my average.
As for the opening stretch, I will try and get into my stride quicker!
I’m a similar age to you, probably 10kg lighter and live in a similarly hilly area.
14.5 isn’t especially slow around here for a middle aged solo non racer. I think your point about having little flat road to ride is true and I also think as someone noted above, width of road and road surface has a massive effect. I rode lots on narrow poorly surfaced lanes.
My own experience points to the bike having an effect. When I was fitter I could average 16.5 mph on a road ride on my “nice bike” - I could switch to my steel bike with semi Slick gravel Tyres and only average 15 on the same route with similar conditions and within a week of the first ride.
To average much over 17 around here is proper hard unless you are a full on roadie - Alex Dowsett spent a week training here a few years ago and was only averaging 18.5!
14.5 isn’t especially slow around here for a middle aged solo non racer.
Agree, the 3 key points middle aged, solo and non-racer.
All you can do is train in a way to be race fast as you can't do much about middle age and riding in a group is a different thing all together.
I am not very fast and haven't been for 20 years but I am happy with my riding and don't plan on any sort of training and have never done any.
Just use metric. 22 sounds much better than 14.
Just out of interest, why does it matter?
Are you out enjoying yourself on your bike? Will you enjoy yourself more if you travel 2mph quicker?
I’m not a roadie, I have no real idea what my average speeds anywhere are and measure my rides by enjoyment, but do find threads like this interesting sometimes. (I do also measure my rides with Strava, but only to keep a record of what I’ve been up to).
If you’re not competing / training and out enjoying yourself, just carry on 🙂
Just out of interest, why does it matter?
It doesn’t, it was a matter of curiosity. As per the original post, it was the disparity between my reasonably respectable times on uphill/downhill segments and my Sunday pootle-like overall speed that set me a-wondering. I don’t compete, love my riding, keeping myself fit stands between me and an inherited brand of early-onset dementia. I suppose if it matters at all, it’s the idea of being able to go further in a given time. I’m slightly Audax-curious.
You'll be quick enough for an Audax, don't worry
Funny that Audaxing has been brought up 😄 I rode a AAARrTY (AAA ~ Audax altitude award meaning 150m/10km climbing) to completion and my average speeds over the varied routes through the year was between 14-16mph, I’m a pretty fit 3rd cat rider. I would say you are just fretting over the stats for no end reason. Just enjoy pacing up the climbs and concentrate on then enjoying the descents.
Well, I carried out a little experiment today, riding in south Northumberland which is less mountainous than where I am - a mere 3,840ft elevation over 59 miles.
I took it fairly steady as it was warm and my legs weren't feeing all that great. The return 30 miles seemed hard into a headwind but I actually picked up a couple of minor PB's in spite of that.
Average speed - 15.4mph.
https://www.strava.com/activities/7451268804
So reducing the amount of climbing by about one third added 1mph to my average speed.
The less hills the higher the average speed goes until you then face aerodynamics above gravity
^ yes, wind is a massive factor.
Yes, part of the problem is that this is all through a built-up area with plenty of side junctions and other hazards that make flat-out riding unwise. But you are spot on, it must impact my average.
As for the opening stretch, I will try and get into my stride quicker!
If that bit is slow because of infrastructure then maybe use it as a warm up and start your ride proper when you are out of town? I know on my commutes my average is hampered by the start and finish sections because of junctions, traffic, etc. The bit in the middle is my true speed as it's just me and the bike. It's still not impressive though ha ha.