Average pace for sociable group rides?

We were puzzling over this last night on a normal-ish group ride including some steep loose climbs, steep grassy climbs, and some steep tussocky descents, i.e. not crazy fast terrain.

Allowing for the usual stopping to regroup at the top and bottom of things (it was a small group so we didn’t spend ages hanging about) we still only seemed to average about 5-6 km/h.

There’s lots of caveats to this particular group – riders unfamiliar with the terrain, sociable rather than training ride etc etc – but I’m still reluctant to use that number for planning future rides.

Does anyone have a decent rule of thumb for this sort of thing?

You’d probably want to supply average moving pace to prospective riders, no?

Well, yes and no, it’s not supposed to be that serious a group (see the two most recent STW Pentlands threads) so I’d rather just pick a suitable distance for an ‘average’ group pace and improvise on that, there’s endless bailout options in our local hills. I guess I’ll go for some good old fashioned iteration and base it on whatever the previous ride was, until I find a happy medium.

Plus I’ve been riding for almost 20 years now and would struggle to tell you my average moving pace on an MTB, has never seemed relevant until now!

Always a tricky one this: on the one hand people don’t want to feel that they have to be of a certain fitness speed to come along for the ride but they also tend to want to know how long the ride will take!

Our (road) cycling club discussed this ad nauseum for about three years, it just took ages to get right. In the end we went for distance based rides rather than speed and gave a rough idea of when we’d get back. Obviously since there’s then a time constraint it implies an average speed but folk don’t seem to look at it that way if it’s not explicitly stated.

Local club has a social ride, typically covers 16miles, 700ft climbing in just over two hours (including stoppages) and averages approximately 10mph.

Roughly what Sir HC said above, perhaps a bit more climbing of 1000 to 1200ft.

Local club has a social ride, typically covers 16miles, 700ft climbing in just over two hours (including stoppages) and averages approximately 10mph.

And there lies the problem with giving average speeds, 10mph in our neck of the hills woods is a pretty blistering pace with no stops.

18 mile loop is 2.5-3 hours but just shy of 3000ft of climbing

That’s what I thought – went back through my Strava feed until I found some rides by reasonably quick riders and avg speed for rides up to 40Km is in the region of 11kmh.

Unless Sir H C means road rides, which sounds about right for a social group ride.

And there lies the problem with giving average speeds, 10mph in our neck of the hills woods is a pretty blistering pace with no stops

Well, not really, because he’s providing it to people who want to join the ride as a guide of how quick it is, ie it’s in the context of the local area. It’s no use for willy waving or as a comparison.

Personally I’d provide a moving average. I did about 10mph for 30 miles/3000ft of climbing in the Surrey Hills on Monday. I imagine if I said it was a 5mph average and I did that ride then stopped for 3 hours at the end people would be a bit aggrieved!

Should it be about the speed of the ride of the attitude of the ride/riders out.

So maybe:
Fast Ride: commonly used as a training ride by experience xc racers, stopping will be minimal. Pace will be high and dropping may occur. Expect to be able to find your way home.
Medium: achievable by a regular rider, faster riders may regard this as sociable. If too many people are able to talk the leader may increase the pace. No one will be dropped, pace will be managed around the group.
Easy: Slow, lots of stops, social and chatty. If you’re after a training ride this is not for you; but most people should be having fun.

Or you could go: we are doing x miles, x thousand feet and lots of single track and we will complete it in 2 hours if it kills me or the group.

Speed is very dependent upon terrain, weather, incidents etc.

Just a thought.

Maybe if anyone asks, just link them to this thread so they realise their folly?

I think there might be some kind of guide for this in the MBLA handbook, I’d need to check. Fitness, technical capabilities and group size all have a major impact on average speed as does weather and ground conditions. As you say there are plenty of bail out options and flexibility in route choice. I’d say the best thing you can do is to take charge of the group. Set out with a good idea of what you want to do with options for shortening or lengthening the ride depending on how it’s going. Keep an eye on abilities if there are any new riders in the group and alter your route to accommodate them but do it in your head so that when you get to a decision point you can just tell everybody where you are going. It’s the standing around trying to make a democratic decision about where to go next that kills a group ride, fine if there’s only 2 or 3 of you but not when the group gets bigger. Other than that I’d just say the only rule is to go as fast or far as the slowest person allows. There’s nothing more off putting than busting a gut to keep up and as soon as you catch up with the fit blokes they take off again, especially if they’ve said something like, “it won’t be fast tonight because I’m tapering/recovering.”. If you here that don’t believe a word of it. Rant over.

time and distance seems to work well for this (yes i realise you can calculate a speed from that)

We tend to go for 3 hours, 40 km in the height of summer, 20km in the depths of winter.

Our local German bike group sometimes averages 16kmh / 35km / 700m on the social ride…

Last night, 18kmh / 47km / 600m

Is more like keep up or die… three basic options

Don’t be a princess, this is how it is, suck it up
Fall off the back / throw bike away and flounce
Don’t go

Theres not a lot of love in the group !

OP is presumably talking mountain biking. Is Sir HC the same, or road?

we still only seemed to average about 5-6 km/h.

Did you mean mph instead of kph?
Otherwise what you have there is more group walk than group ride

Other than that I’d just say the only rule is to go as fast or far as the slowest person allows.

And therein lies the problem of specifying what is and is not a social ride. What is social to you or I may not be social to the newcomer – it might be way faster than they’ve ever ridden before or it might be so slow that they end up interval training on every hill.

Takes forever to get a “good” group; the addition or omission of one person can completely ruin a group dynamic.

We had a club (road) weekend away in February time, the weather was pretty shite but as a general rule we all got on well, all knew what to expect – apart from one girl who complained bitterly about the whole thing and was unable to keep up and impacted the whole group who all got cold, wet and pissed off waiting for her. For us, it was social, for her it was the furthest and fastest she’d ever had to ride and she simply wasn’t up to it – made worse by the weather conditions.

Whether that says more about her (coming along in spite of knowing that) or us (allowing her to come along) is probably a whole other conversation…

I think the OP is trying to resurrect a social ride and if it’s a social ride you go as fast as the slowest. If they then decide they can’t cope or its too much for them then that’s up to them. Likewise if somebody doesn’t like the stop, start, wait scenario they also can choose not to come again. That’s why these things often fail, ultimately it splits into smallish groups of similar abilities and mentalities.

njee20 – Member 
Personally I’d provide a moving average. I did about 10mph for 30 miles/3000ft of climbing in the Surrey Hills on Monday. I imagine if I said it was a 5mph average and I did that ride then stopped for 3 hours at the end people would be a bit aggrieved!

Some of our weekend socials are much like that. 5mph average, do about 10-15miles, out for 5 hours! 😆

It depends on the kind of riding people want. These kinds of rides are social weekend warrior muck about. Stops, chats, sessioning, faffing. Just enjoying mucking about.

Some want a definite pace though and can’t be doing with lots of stopping. If got more of that preference for a ride I’ll post up a note on the type of pace expected. Likewise if it’s super social I’ll warn about that and the expected duration could be way beyond some people’s allowance 😀

Moving pace seems more relevant but also quote the amount of stops.

If hilly, typical climb also. Indeed, Surrey Hills @ 10mph 30miles over 3000ft makes it a fair pace for 10mph.

Night group rides, we occasional do “XC” group rides which are relatively flat and averaging 10mph+ without much effort. The normal rides we do are same areas but mainly singletrack with many short sharp climbs and descents, then it’s more like 7mph average, 10 to 15 miles 1000ft climb at the most and many are shattered over 2 hours. Though stops are few. A fast ride is more like 9mph and almost no stops, again 2 hours.

For social, FATS is something we often use. Simply, Fast As The Slowest. Then you all just deal with it if there’s someone very very slow. Or rather good sweeping will push them along and encourage them. More rides they do, faster they’ll get. Best used on fixed duration rides. Say it’s FATS and you’re out for 2 hours. Gives everyone a target and pace is what it becomes.

One thing with social rides is that you can get a wide range of ability and/or fitness so one ride that is stop/start to the point of getting frozen for one rider is almost constant on the go for another. This will happen until everyone realistically and honestly assesses how they are riding and the group filters in to sub groups. The bigger the group the more likely this is to happen.

Avg speed: are you talking about average speed from start to finish of the ride or just average when actually moving? Can be quite a bit different. If you are out for three hours but only actually moving for two then a 6mph avg becomes more or less 6kmh.

I’m significantly faster uphill than my wife but sometimes I’ll ride much closer to her pace particularly if waiting at the top means I’m standing around in wind and rain. Application of a bit of common sense doesn’t go amiss.

I think Shortcut has pretty much outlined something which I would be able to follow, advise accordingly with a view to starting slow and increasing to medium or the fast group.

Our local club ride as does many others probably staggers their starts for obvious reasons. The fastest group sets off earliest and some of these riders get back and then do the mid paced ride as a warm down or soscial get together.

The problem they face is “willy waving” just the other week a guy turned up in full length Ron Hills, over boots and a Fluro yellow rain jacket, this was for the fast group. He was on a sit up and beg flat barred ridgeback I think, it was warm, actually quite hot for a 7 am start. 40 miles fast pace back to join the mid group for a 60 miler for 9:30.
A few words of wisdom re attire and bike were greeted with stout protest as he assured the riders eager to set off that he regularly rode at pace. The words of wisdom soon turned to concern as he started asking what he should if riders needed to get past him. Unfortunately he didn’t last more than a few hundred metres before he got left behind.

He then submitted a letter of complaint because the 7am start fitted in with his daily schedule better and freed him up for lunch time. The group showed no regard for his safety or well being and did not ride to the groups capability.
Despite listing timings distance and speed though this guy still protested that he was assured he would be back just after 9am if they set off at 7.

So it just goes to show that not all people can asses the guidelines for group rides. A group ride in the Peaks MTB would be pretty much on par with the OP’s timings whilst a group ride somewhere flatter and not as technical would be considerably as also stated above.

Our club has now begun to asses riders, an idea stolen from another local club who will not let riders ride in the fast group until they complete at least 6 rides in the slower group. Their top tier has a few pro riders and some ex Pro’s, I’d always thought it a bit elitist and up their own but then I thought about the first group ride I did, I was all over the place.

Some of our weekend socials are much like that. 5mph average, do about 10-15miles, out for 5 hours!

So that would be 2mph based on the OP’s calculation (I’m assuming, as observed, a 5kmh ‘moving’ average is basically a slow walk), which is obvious non-sensical. If you said “come on our group ride, we aim for 2mph average” it would be pretty daft!

Indeed, Surrey Hills @ 10mph 30miles over 3000ft makes it a fair pace for 10mph.

I think I know what you mean, but 10mph is always the same pace, about 10mph 😉

If organising a group ride 6mph/10kmh is a good ‘aim’ especially with a few folk and plenty of climbing (normally plan for 1000ft per 3-4 miles) – MTB obviously.

Last night we only managed 7 miles in nearly 2 hours, but over 2000ft of climbing/pushing and loads of fannying around – was dark in the woods and the pub beckoned.

I think it’s more experience than pace for group riding, so wouldn’t worry too much about speed, but would be quite clear on whether you’re happy to take beginners out. All groups I ride with can accommodate a range of speeds on the one ride, but it’s less easy to deal with inexperience.

Winter night riding can be quite hard after all – 3 hrs of cold, wet, muddy darkness. An experienced slow rider will lap that up, but a fit beginner might break down after an hour and want their mummy.

njee20 – Member 
So that would be 2mph based on the OP’s calculation (I’m assuming, as observed, a 5kmh ‘moving’ average is basically a slow walk), which is obvious non-sensical. If you said “come on our group ride, we aim for 2mph average” it would be pretty daft!

Guess depends if OP really meant km or miles and moving or whole average. 5kph moving average is very slow 😀

But whole ride average including stops then makes more sense. So I agree, I wouldn’t quote that. Quote the moving average.

Not ashamed to say I’ve been on a few where I’ve been the slowest.
You get to the top of a climb, longing for a quick breather, only to see the faster riders, now fully refreshed from the break, head straight off into the distance. You then fall even further behind.

In that position the temptation is to get frustrated & think those awesome guys up front are elitist rsoles, rubbing your nose in their awesomeness. In response you may feel bad about holding them up, & think that they are getting frustrated at you holding them back.

In fact most of the time they are just riding at their own pace, they are happy to wait & are more than happy for you to go along.

I’d say if your not happy to go at the pace of the slowest then maybe the group isn’t for you. If its a fast paced group make sure any newcomers are happy with that.

The same ride can be described in different ways depending on the target group.

Social ride: 18 miles with 4000ft ascent taking between four and five hours with plenty of stops and regrouping.

Fitness ride: 18 miles with 4000ft ascent taking 2 to 2 1/2 hours no stopping.

One strategy we’ve done on road rides is to have fast, medium and slow groups all ride the same loop. Fast group sets off first, then the medium then the slow. If you are currently in the medium or slow groups and want to move up then start with the next fastest group and ride with them for as long as you can then sit up and wait for your normal group to catch up. After a few rides then you should be able to keep up for the whole ride. This lets people move between groups without causing any group to split up and wait for the slower ones.

Being at the back if you’re struggling can make it worse. I find it’s often easier when further up front. Did a super fast (that wasn’t expecting it to be that fast) that I really struggled with and sweep prompted me to go up front. That did make it easier on general trails, except on hitting the sharp climbs as the fast bunch were sprinting up them and I’d be at the back again and puffing. Oddly I can sprint up the same climbs on a medium pace ride, but non-stop flat out my legs die as soon as I hit them.

I’ve no idea, but worrying about my average pace compared to fitter and younger whipper snappers is one of the factors that has held me back from asking to join the Thursday/Sunday Lordswood meet.

Describing the OP’s situation I would just say its a social pace ride, regular stops, roughly how much climbing, total distance and rough time.

The rest is for the person turning up to decide if they can deal with it.

We usually do about 10 miles of singletrack in 2 hours on a fairly relaxed ride with a big group (15-25).

hah n0b0dy0ftheg0at i’m the whipper snapper in a group i sometimes ride with, and they are waiting for me regularly. (im 40, they’re approx 50) its a fairly social ride followed by pub. they ride twice a week and mostly do the same route-up to the trails.. I’m fine with the normal trail parts, and most of the tech stuff – its the climb from their village up that gets me at the start, which mostly buggeres me from that point on.

i do well on my solo rides, with my own group i’m the one waiting. with them i tend to take it easy on ‘point to point’ bits, do the climbs at my faster pace (as i’m trying to improve) and wait til everyones up top and ready before moving off again. (and even schedule their re-fueling as i’m the leader by default so can anticipate whats coming)

Not ashamed to say I’ve been on a few where I’ve been the slowest.

Oh me too, plenty of times, but that’s not necessarily indicative of your own speed, or so I tell myself! Last time I was at Afan we did 37 miles/5,500ft in 4hrs 22 (elapsed, not moving), and I was far and away the slowest!

As said, experience is the best indicator, but I think otherwise providing info on a combination of factors will help. You will know if the group is comprised of super fast people, or if it’s very social or whatever.

Personally I’d find it much more useful to be told: “we’re all technically very proficient, and quite into jumping, we’ll likely find a really nice looking drop and session it a few times” or “we’re pretty fit, and there’s not much technical stuff around here, don’t worry though, we always wait for people” than “we ride x miles with y ascent in z time” which doesn’t really tell me anything.

Hmm, interesting replies!

When I say 5km/h I meant ‘total ride average’ i.e. we covered 18km in about 2.5 hours inc stops etc (which, now I actually bother to get the calculator out, is actually 7km/h).

Also the rides we’ve been doing in the Pentlands tend to be long slow climbs followed by quick grassy plummets, so the average moving pace would be heavily weighted towards slow climbs!

To further complicate things, I really only want to know in case we’re trying to meet people halfway round, would be useful to know an ETA to within half and hour!

Social Ride says it all, pace of the slowest. Spent 3 hours showing someone round the Kitchener at Sherwood Pines, loads of stops and breathers but it was good fun. Tried not to make it stressy or awkward as I’ve been the slowest and had to put up with the knob ride leader who sets off as soon as you catch up, it’s s deeply unpleasant experience and makes me wary of groups

Not been offroad other than fireroads and farm tracks for a bit so no idea what I’d do now, back then I was 6 or 7 mph according to Garmin but I was stopping a lot more than I do now.

If waiting really bothers then organise a ride with minimal stops and say so.

long slow climbs followed by quick grassy plummets,

Sounds terrible!

Sounds terrible!

It’s all I’ve ever known, the Pentlands probably represent 90% of my lifetime MTB mileage 😀

Nowt wrong with that, same for me and the Surrey Hills!

interesting all these replies seem quite formatted etc.

i pop out with the calderdale lot and its very informal. we decide where we fancy on the night (weather plays a big role in this) and set off. Nowthen anyone thats ridden with myself will know im pretty slow but that doesn’t mean we dont have people flying ahead or even sitting at the back of the group. Its all part of it being a social.

Weve had people like the guy above who have turned up on a hybrid (to ride offroad) with 10 quid halfords lights and for them to say they are fine with it. Que a couple of hours later they have a broken bike / no lights and are walking home. On the flip side weve had people turn up on bikes that ahve been cobbled together and kicked everyone into dust they were that fast / skilled.

It takes all sorts so i would suggest you dont put an average speed on it but just say we will cover x amount of miles (about 15 in our case) and be back for a time (10:30 latest) so you might only end up doing 10 miles and be back for 9 but at least it lets people know a worst case scenario.

at the end of the day people will speed up if its too slow or slow if its too fast. So long as you dont get too far away from civilization then your fine.

There’s a difference between being an established ‘group’ (ie some mates who often ride together) though and trying to advertise yourself to prospective members.

I ride with a group of friends, rarely more than 4 of us, so it’s a non-issue. We’re all friends, we know exactly what kind of ride it’ll be, so there’s no reason to say “want to meet on Sunday for 30 miles with 3000ft of climbing over about 3 hours”. It’s implicit. If I ride with Gee of this parish I know it’s a total smashfest and I need to go well rested, he doesn’t need to tell me!

However, if someone said “I want showing around the Surrey Hills, can you help?” That information becomes relevant, although as said, I’d personally say “we’re a bunch of lycra-clad whippersnappers and although it’s all very friendly and there’s cake and piss-taking, it will be fast”.