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?
STRAVA.COM 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
FS.BLOG 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:
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.
