any numpty tips on how to begin increasing my cadence speed?

Take the big ring off your double.
Or use the limit screw on the front mech so it won’t engage.
So your looking at 34 -11 on a super compact.
It’s fine but it’s definitely slower , but you will have to peddle alot faster .
I broke a front mech and used this to get me round a hilly century ride which I finished but not at 20mph.
20mph is a fast average speed on public roads , not many club riders can do a sub 5hr century.
That’s probably cat 3 or cat 2 race pace I think, someone will be along to correct me hopefully, it’s been years since I did club road rides or centuries

That’s probably cat 3 or cat 2 race pace I think

Not even close. My last Cat3 race was 28.3 mph for an hour! A good club rider should manage a sub-hour 25 mile TT (likely in an aero position) on a flat course without traffic/lights. Typical average for a decent club rider just riding along is 18.5-22 mph depending on traffic and route. I normally average about 19 mph on my own without seriously pushing on. Group rides will be at the top end. Races a notch up again.

Focus on cadence not speed.

Thanks for confirming, a good club riders who races cat 3 will usually average around 19 mph out on their own on open roads.
Averaging 20mph over any sort of distance with traffic lights, junctions and other cars / cyclists is good going.

thanks for all the replies a lot of info to take in and try :-)

i totally agree about just getting out and riding first for enjoyment and regaining base level fitness and plan on just getting out and riding my bike for my mental wellbeing/seeing nature/landscapes and fitness. the most important thing about riding my bike is that i love it (is also my only transport).

i live in devizes wiltshire so it is both flat and hilly here.

my main goal atm is just to get out and ride 2-3 times a week to start with.

once i have some fitness back (hopefully i will def try some spin drills and lower gears/also i will get a cadence sensor for my garmin 820 plus at some point). no zwift unfortunately as don’t have a trainer.

i also was being a bit overreaching with 20mph av spd as i can do 15-16 mph when i was fitter and doing 50-60 mile road rides (not all the time i must add doing that distance i wasn’t that fit lol).

at the end of the day as others have said forget what my speed is and just enjoy riding my bike-seeing nature that is def the most important thing for me :-)

Do regular consistent riding first, care about cadence later

TBH, i’d do it the other way round, grinding your way round a ride makes things a lot harder than it needs to be (physiologically). It’s a lot easier to spin than grind! And the good thing with pedalling is that the rate is “countable” if you have a timer (your garmin has one). Then it’s quite easy to get a feel for how fast you are actually pedalling without a sensor.

A good club rider should manage a sub-hour 25 mile TT (likely in an aero position) on a flat course without traffic/lights.

When i started racing (mid 80’s) it was the benchmark time on a road bike, i only knew one person with a TT bike back then, in a club of 100+ riders.

It still is. Positions have changed but aero has not. Some of the positions held by those club cyclists were fantastic. Aerobars have definitely helped riders, of course. But the Road Bike class in CTT sees some fast rides. The national 50 RB category was won on Sunday in sub 2h.

at the end of the day as others have said forget what my speed is and just enjoy riding my bike-seeing nature that is def the most important thing for me

This.
So much this.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for ‘feeling out of breath’ regularly, feeling the heat as I work up a hill, keeping on top of a gear as you descend etc – but I don’t get all wrapped up in the minutiae of speed, cadence, heart rates etc. Then again, maybe that is why I am not fitter. 🤔 Although I can turn out and do 100 hilly km tomorrow on a heavy bike tomorrow if you asked me, and at a reasonable touringy pace…

Not even close. My last Cat3 race was 28.3 mph for an hour! A good club rider should manage a sub-hour 25 mile TT (likely in an aero position) on a flat course without traffic/lights. Typical average for a decent club rider just riding along is 18.5-22 mph depending on traffic and route. I normally average about 19 mph on my own without seriously pushing on. Group rides will be at the top end. Races a notch up again.

Focus on cadence not speed.

hmm, I’m not sure about those numbers. Ignoring a tt or group ride/race 19 mph takes a fair bit of effort. I averaged 19mph for around 2 hrs last week with about 50ft of climbing per mile, so definitely not hilly. I averaged just over 3 w/kg.

im firmly in the cat 3 power range ftp wise (3.75) have a very fast road bike, and I wasn’t going easy. For a 20 mile flat blast 20mph isn’t hard, but for longer solo rides on a typical route doing 20mph requires serious effort. My mate rarely averages that and he’s got an ftp closer to 5 w/kg

Some of the positions held by those club cyclists were fantastic.

Yup, hanging on to the bottom of the drops on a slammed pair of 66s on the end of a 14cm stem for an hour to try and crack 25 mph. (I only ever did 3 “proper” 25s. Lots of sporting courses though, some with course records under 25mph!)

20mph on a decent route (i.e. not a 1 hour flat TT course) would put you at the very top end of the Brisk group round here, and the fast group above that has sort of gone invitation only post-covid.  It’s pretty quick.

It’s definitely achievable without having to do any real structured training, just riding more. But that group tends to be those who ride all year, and doing it 3x solid rides a week (Tuesday TT’s in summer, Velodrome sessions in winter, Thursday evening and Sunday morning club runs, plus commuting).  And the people moving up into that group tend to have been doing that for at least a year (i.e. it’s those who’ll get fitter over a solid summer, then rather than tail off, they’ll carry on all winter and just keep getting faster).

I’m not that consistent so tend to work my way up, then fall back again.  Trouble with that is I’m trying to jump from 16 to 18 in July / August, just as their “18mph” rides are probably hitting 20 average as they’ve all got faster too 😂

20mph on a decent route (i.e. not a 1 hour flat TT course) would put you at the very top end of the Brisk group round here, and the fast group above that has sort of gone invitation only post-covid.  It’s pretty quick.

how fast are the group rides of the brisk group?

how fast are the group rides of the brisk group?

Depends on the ride profile and length, they’re nominally advertised as:

Social  13-14

Steady 15-16

Brisk 17-18

Fast 20-22

But that varies, so it’s kind of taken that the groups stay the same between rides but the speed fluctuates depending on the time of year, route profile and length. A hilly non-dropping winter ride on a Sunday might be 17mph.  A late summer evening ride to the pub on a flat route with every man/woman for themselves might end up 20+.

There’s occasionally a debate whether organizers should have posted a speed and stuck with it, or stick with the group names. Most of the experienced guys prefer the names as you know who’ll be turning up / how hard it’ll be, whereas it tends to be someone new who’ll complain that the 17-18 was actually 18.9 even though it was an “easy” 18.9 for most of the group.

hmm, I’m not sure about those numbers. Ignoring a tt or group ride/race 19 mph takes a fair bit of effort.

Did anyone say it was easy? :D

When I was a regular XC racer I occasionally raced other things and my quickest 25 mile TT was around 1hr and 5 minutes, iirc, with clip on bars and nothing aero at all other than some wheels with slightly deeper section. Riding the Etape in 2000 I got to the bottom of Ventoux – 80 miles – in dead on 4 hours, having gone over 2 x Cat 2 climbs and a Cat 4. Around here in south Wales I’d always be disappointed if I wasn’t hitting an average of 20mph on a road bike at my fittest on mid-summer training rides, and these wouldn’t be flat, hour long rides. And, as a roadie, I wasn’t the quickest in my group by any means, because I wasn’t a roadie!

I normally average about 19 mph on my own without seriously pushing on

kinda implies taking it easy!

I’d always be disappointed if I wasn’t hitting an average of 20mph on a road bike at my fittest on mid-summer training rides, and these wouldn’t be flat, hour long rides. And, as a roadie, I wasn’t the quickest in my group by any means, because I wasn’t a roadie!

are these sole efforts you are talking about? If so and you weren’t bursting yourself then you were clearly a very strong rider. I’m not trying to argue that 20 mph solo isnt a piece of piss for a good club roadie, but your average club rider won’t get anywhere near that without really pushing themselves. I say that as I reckon I’m an average club rider who would struggle to keep up that pace for anything over 40 odd miles, and even then I’d by pushing hard. I reckon i’d need to pushing around 3.5 w/kg for 2 hrs to do that, so I’d need an ftp in excess of 4. Your average club rider is not at that level.

riding in a group is obviously a different kettle of fish altogether, 25 mph if you are sitting on a wheel is fairly easy.

kinda implies taking it easy!

Zone 2/3 boundary. 190W (2.7W/kg) on the flat is 19 mph for me on the hoods.  That’s less than my 12h power (200W) on the TT bike.

Cat 3 and E123 race pace is a different league. Even in a group the efforts are much harder.

well i bought a cadence sensor for my garmin and did my first ride with it  (3rd ride of the year lol).

did my usual road route (19 miles) and it said my avg was 59 rpm on strava (i was doing more than that and was happy that most of the time it was above 60 rpm which i thought i was going to get below that). i did get it up to 95rpm when in the low gears. 676 ft of climbing according to strava.

the only way is up as they say lol.

I ride with a cadence sensor on the road, it’s an interesting enough bit of data, but honestly not what I would focus on if trying to rebuild fitness, at least not initially.

Keep it simple just have a big fat HR zone field in the middle of the screen that’s about the most useful but of information when you’re riding and trying to gauge effort/training stress, it tells you how hard you are working, at any given moment, and you can look back at time in zone after any ride to see just how much stress you’re putting yourself under.

I’d ignore distance, speed and cadence for now, just keep track of Time and HR. If you’re only heading out for a couple of hours you can spend more of your time in Z4+ (Obviously faster, but not as sustainable). If off out for 4+hrs try to manage HR to a more sustainable level Z2/3ish (obviously with dips into Z4/5 as required for hills), basically give yourself more stress/pace on shorter rides, use longer rides to build endurance.

The choice to ride 3-4 times a week is a good one if your routine allows, especially while the light lasts later this time of year, but don’t feel like you have to do an epic each time and if you’re already a bit fatigued trying to hit a high pace may well not help nothing wrong with a ‘recovery ride’ if you feel you need it.

did my usual road route (19 miles) and it said my avg was 59 rpm on strava

Is that an average across the whole ride, including freewheeling? Some sensors will remove the freewheeling part of it from the final data.

To really tell you anything useful it needs to be paired with power and speed. High speed / zero (or low) power and cadence = descending and it’ll largely ignore that. Low speed, high power and low(ish) cadence = climbing and it’ll factor that in.

yes it was an average cadence and it doesn’t include the freewheeling etc (is a garmin cadence sensor 2). no heart rate monitor unfortunately.

am just going to try and ride my bike semi regularly and not bother with the data (although i do like seeing it on my garmin).

the main thing is just to ride and get some fitness back again.

appreciate all the tips and i do plan on trying them in future :-)