Also there’s more like 12 sets of lights counting the signal controlled motorway junctions and I hit most of them

Annoying! I do tend to plan routes that avoid lights and crossings. Hate stopping.

A sunny lunchtime 20 miler here at 20.5mph (solo, 1010ft of climbing according to garmin, so pretty flat.) All day zone 2 stuff other than a decent push on the uphills. But then I do train a lot and race. Actually started training again at the beginning of the year after a couple of years off with injury and new baby and I think I’d have struggled to average 15mph on that loop! I don’t think I’d ever been as unfit and there’s been a lot of tedious painful turbo work to get back to somewhere near pre-injury power and weight. Joining the local club and doing some TTs this year has definitely been good motivation for training though and a great indicator of where I am relative to other riders. I’m not the slowest but I’m definitely not the quickest!

To get back to the original question though… I’ve no idea what “the pace” would be. Probably what you want it to be (which is usually faster than you are now! 🙂 )

Haven’t read the whole thread (haven’t got hours to spare!) but have seen evidence of plenty of guff spouted in the few responses I have read…

I know you’re joking, but seriously, there are thousands of people out there who can do 20mph and barely break a sweat, at least for an hour or two. Any rider with half-decent fitness can, you don’t need to be near Elite level.

20mph, on your own, and barely break a sweat? How long for, what terrain, and what drugs you taking?

I’m certainly not fast on a road bike, but then going by my Strava times I’m not that slow either. Got a few top 10’s, and always in the top 50% (even on climbs which is my weakness), so I’d say I qualify for that “half decent fitness” label you mention. The only times I’ve ever managed to average more than 20mph for any distance have either been in a big group, or have included a nice tailwind.

On the flat 20mph is indeed a pretty easy pace. However as mentioned above, an AVERAGE speed of 20mph is a totally different ball game. It only takes one long set of lights and a couple of right turns to completely knacker your average speed even on a flat ride.

It always amazes me the amount of people that start talking about “average speed” when what they really mean is the pace they sit at on the flat. Took a lad out a while back, bit of a shonky old road bike but he looked pretty fit and he used to be a good XC runner apparently. Anyway, started riding out of town, I said to him “so what sort of pace do you normally average on a ride then, 16-17mph maybe?”.

To which he replied “oh no, faster than that, closer to 20mph probably”. OK I thought, well as I’m leading this ride it’s probably going to be closer to 17mph than 20 average… Within 10 miles at 17mph average, he was broken, and I spent the next 25 miles having to drag him round! What he’d meant was that on perfectly smooth roads, with a slight tailwind, he could manage 20mph on the flat… And he thought he was going to tear my legs off before the ride!

Anyway… Managed the 21 miles from my GF’s house back to mine, with a rucksack on, at 18.2mph avg last night. Pretty chuffed with that as though not hilly, it’s undulating the entire way, and as said earlier, I’m not quick anyway. But compared to the 16ish I was averaging on road rides of similar length only a year or so ago, I’ve definitely made progress.

Oh, and on the Ride London note. Didn’t do it (would have loved to, but not lucky enough to get accepted), but I know a number of guys that did. Most of the guys I know that are roughly similar pace to me, all finished in the 4hr40 to 4hr50 time bracket! I’d honestly expect a 100 mile ride to take 6hrs plus myself, but then I’ve heard it was pretty much pancake flat, and the guys I know have admitted as such as they just wheelsucked the whole way round (which can easily increase your average speed by 3-4mph).

20mph, on your own, and barely break a sweat? How long for, what terrain, and what drugs you taking?

I’m certainly not fast on a road bike, but then going by my Strava times I’m not that slow either. Got a few top 10’s, and always in the top 50% (even on climbs which is my weakness), so I’d say I qualify for that “half decent fitness” label you mention. The only times I’ve ever managed to average more than 20mph for any distance have either been in a big group, or have included a nice tailwind.

Have you ridden in a fast road club group?

I think that’s the point he’s making; solo and group are not the same. Someone’s average in a group is bound to be higher

Have you ridden in a fast road club group?

Which will add 3-4mph to your average speed easily.

And yes, I have, and until I finally fell off the back of the group, my average speed was over 24mph. Obviously it dropped markedly once I fell off…

I think that’s the point he’s making; solo and group are not the same. Someone’s average in a group is bound to be higher

Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I meant it to mean, does he realise how quick some of the good club riders are? I can average over 20 mph on a lumpy route for a couple of hours without too much effort solo, and there are much quicker riders than me at my club.

For racing there’s a need to really stretch that zone over threshold. This is what I’m working on at the moment as it’s essential in races to be able to stay longer at over-threshold pace. Horrible.

Or build a bigger base? My main difference this year is a massive base due to boring myself silly with z2 on the rollers over winter. This has meant in racing / chaingangs, i’m mostly in z1 – 4, with only brief spells above threshold / z5a-c.

I hate threshold effort with a passion, they are so boring. But love the pain from z5b efforts that usually means pretty much falling off my bike as soon as the interval is over 😕

Mmm, I personally think folk who can sit at 20mph on their tod for 2 hours are very much in the minority. I don’t think it’s the norm, and as for being able to do it without ‘breaking a sweat’, that’s an even smaller sub set of riders!

Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I meant it to mean, does he realise how quick some of the good club riders are?

Of course I do.

The point made above was…

Any rider with half-decent fitness can

…average 20mph.

I know guys that 99% of MTBer’s would consider ridiculously talented Downhill on a Mountain Bike, the kind of guys that don’t look like they’ve broken a sweat when they get to the bottom of a hill (where they then have to wait 2 minutes for everyone else to catch up). But put these guys against the likes of Gee Atherton, and they’d not stand a chance!

The point wasn’t “could a TdF GC contender manage 20mph average on his own” it was that you or I or anyone else with “half-decent fitness” should manage 20mph avg.

Bear in mind the TdF average speed (climbs included granted, but then so are TT’s and descents) is usually around 25mph, and that’s as a group. Take Chris Froome, make him ride the whole TdF route on his own, no team and no peloton, and I’d bet he’d not manage much more than a 20mph average himself. OK, over 3500KM and some enormous mountains, but you see my point?

Or build a bigger base?

I don’t think I have the time to build a much bigger base – I don’t race anything over 50 miles and the majority are 30 mile crits, so I’m working on over threshold efforts during an hour race.

I’ve employed the services of a coach to oversee my winter training and pre-season for 2014 with a view to getting to Cat2, so I’ll be working on base over winter and a week in Majorca early spring…

Winter races series are where you can pick up points. Especially if conditions are horrible 😆 So maybe look at doing that too.

Mmm, I personally think folk who can sit at 20mph on their tod for 2 hours are very much in the minority. I don’t think it’s the norm, and as for being able to do it without ‘breaking a sweat’, that’s an even smaller sub set of riders!

but you see my point?

I do see the point here. I guess what I’m saying is that if you are the sort of rider that takes road training fairly seriously (I’m very time limited!) and competes fairly regularly, not just someone who goes riding every now and then, then it’s not that much of a push. It’s not Pro Tour territory! Admittedly the above would probably only apply to maybe, at a very rough guess, around 10% of club riders (and of those there’s still a good spread of pace) so njee definitely has a point. I guess I’ve just been riding recently with people who are good TTers so my view of “normal” may be somewhat skewed.

If you don’t ride in a club, you probably don’t know what fit is.

I can average 20mph for 10 miles but probably not for 20 unless it was pancake flat. I did a time trial last night, just with people from the local triathlon club, none of whom are really serious road riders, and the winner was 3 minutes ahead of me. I am really not fit at all compared to a bad regular club rider.

For example if you look at our local 25 mile time trial results, not one rider averaged less than 20 mph.
http://cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/Default.aspx?&ge1246__geka=0qr-ktkYrcYzPU7-JC7bf9f_oc4Fb4M6rU-vQKEkKGwEgDRSjnvxeBsfAK4CXFM_3_SSI5IivjlnbAKCN9wmeFRgmipPUb0ija5hVlYo0NK4Ucl1MILKD5Jl0_r27Rdw&ge1246__gevi=2rCK9AX4wdTakLD9iNdBpozLXG4X8lNFX15D1RANbUw&gv484__gvac=2&gv484__gvff0=58710&gv484__gvfl0=0&language=en-GB&tabid=109

Mboy, to repeat some stuff from earlier, it depends how fast the locals are as to where you place on Strava.
Also, anyone training with any kind of computer, whether Garmin or retro sort, will know exactly what their average speed is.

20mph solo on a road bike is not guff- I’d say it was average for anyone riiding and pushing themselves regularly.

The TdF average speed is massively different – as expected – between the mountain stages and the “flat” stages. I can’t remember the figures but it was 25mph versus 30-something mph. It’s massively relevant. I’ve pedalled around the flat lanes of Lincolnshire comfortably riding near to 20mph. In the hilly Peak District a comfortably fast (but less than threshold) ride is 15mph.

Talking of Lincolnshire, I remember one ride where I was flying along at 20mph plus, thinking I was the badger’s nadgers. I then turned around for the home stretch and realised that the lovely tail wind that blew me across the fens was now like riding into a brick wall. I averaged under 17mph 🙁

20mph, on your own, and barely break a sweat? How long for, what terrain, and what drugs you taking?

Yep, there are loads of people out there who can do that. I don’t class myself as anything more than a half-decent rider by any stretch (3rd cat road, reasonable Master at XC, can knock out a decent TT when required, gets the odd result at ‘cross) but 20mph on a flat road costs me about 220W. I can hold 330+ for an hour when I’m fit. I live in the Peaks and can do a 40 mile loop at 21 mph if I put some effort in and it’s not mega windy.
And in the grand scheme of things, I’m utterly rubbish. Off the top of my head I can think of 30 or 40 guys within a 20 mile radius of my house who could destroy me on a road ride. Strava results mean nothing whatsoever, being in the top 10 or 20 of a segment doesn’t mean you’re fast.

On that ride I would have averaged 20mph if I could have saved 1m30s. I have to say I did probably spend that at traffic lights, so maybe that would be a 20mph average sort of effort. But I was on the bloody rivet most of the time!

Or build a bigger base?

Whether or not you need to build base depends on where you currently are, what kind of riding you’ve been doing, and I think your genetic make-up. When I did lots of z2 I slowed down – I was able to ride fairly quickly at a decent pace but I lost the ability to properly put the hammers down. I’m a natural sprinter, so that’s what I use to get speed on mtb courses. Play to your strengths, but also fix your weaknesses as best you can.

For example if you look at our local 25 mile time trial results, not one rider averaged less than 20 mph.

Have you got a map of that course?

20mph on a flat road costs me about 220W

Yes, that will be more or less the same for everyone, tha’ts what we are all saying, but AVERAGE SPEED means the time elapsed from start to finish divided by the distance. If you are doing 20mph on the flat with no wind then you are NOT averaging 20mph for your whole ride!

Big +1 for everything LS says 🙂

Yes, that will be more or less the same for everyone,

I think the point is that for some people 220W is a lot of power (compared to their FTP for example) and for others it isn’t.

20mph solo on a road bike is not guff- I’d say it was average for anyone riiding and pushing themselves regularly.

20mph solo is perfectly achievable. But it is not the norm.

Your own skewed view of what is normal will bias your judgement here somewhat. Popular as cycling clubs are, they are still a vast minority amongst the general cycling public. Whilst I know my 30min 10m TT (in baggies and on my normal road bike, all I had to hand at the last minute) is pathetic compared to some (it was a hilly route in my defense), compared to the vast majority of joe public riding bikes, it was positively rapid!

Plenty of people I ride with regularly all think I’m actually quite a quick rider, and these are all people with more than average levels of fitness that ride regularly themselves…

Yes, that will be more or less the same for everyone, tha’ts what we are all saying, but AVERAGE SPEED means the time elapsed from start to finish divided by the distance. If you are doing 20mph on the flat with no wind then you are NOT averaging 20mph for your whole ride!

Yes but he said he can average 330watts for an hour and yet 20mph only costs him 220

Yes, that will be more or less the same for everyone, tha’ts what we are all saying, but AVERAGE SPEED means the time elapsed from start to finish divided by the distance. If you are doing 20mph on the flat with no wind then you are NOT averaging 20mph for your whole ride!

I used that figure versus my threshold to demonstrate the fact that I’m not trying that hard in order to do 20mph, and more importantly that neither will a lot of people. I know full well that what you can tap along at doesn’t equate to your average.

I don’t class myself as anything more than a half-decent rider by any stretch (3rd cat road, reasonable Master at XC, can knock out a decent TT when required, gets the odd result at ‘cross)

Look at that in the grand scheme of things, then re-assess your skewed view on normality and what a “half-decent fitness” level is.

You’re in the top 0.1% of the general public that cycles. Probably inside the top 1% of people that cycle regularly (ie. more than once a week, or enough to call it a hobby/interest at least). Your standards are vastly higher than “average.”

220W at 20mph is going to be pretty similar for everyone, since our wind and rolling resistance are fairly similar. I can certainly do the same as you there.

But as I just showed, there’s a lot of variables. Just hitting the lights badly on that route I just did cost me almost 0.5mph. If you live out in the sticks and can do long country roads without towns, then you have a far better chance of beating 20mph.

20mph solo is perfectly achievable. But it is not the norm.

Your own skewed view of what is normal will bias your judgement here somewhat. Popular as cycling clubs are, they are still a vast minority amongst the general cycling public. Whilst I know my 30min 10m TT (in baggies and on my normal road bike, all I had to hand at the last minute) is pathetic compared to some (it was a hilly route in my defense), compared to the vast majority of joe public riding bikes, it was positively rapid!

Plenty of people I ride with regularly all think I’m actually quite a quick rider, and these are all people with more than average levels of fitness that ride regularly themselves…

I’m not in a club, don’t own a road bike, don’t wear Lycra and have only been cycling again for a year yet I know, locally, that 20mph average is no big deal. If I’m riding my mountainbike at a pace that winds up being 17mph average over 20-30 miles, I expect to get passed several times a week by different riders.

Look at that in the grand scheme of things, then re-assess your skewed view on normality and what a “half-decent fitness” level is.

You’re in the top 0.1% of the general public that cycles. Probably inside the top 1% of people that cycle regularly (ie. more than once a week, or enough to call it a hobby/interest at least). Your standards are vastly higher than “average.”

In the grand scheme of things Chris Froome is better than me by the same amount that I’m better than a once-a-week cyclist, so I reckon my analysis ain’t far off.

TT times are no guide to normal riding speeds. Unless you are some oddball who spends all ride on pretty much one road while cycling in askinsuit, on tribars and at max effort.

220W at 20mph is going to be pretty similar for everyone, since our wind and rolling resistance are fairly similar. I can certainly do the same as you there.

But as I just showed, there’s a lot of variables. Just hitting the lights badly on that route I just did cost me almost 0.5mph. If you live out in the sticks and can do long country roads without towns, then you have a far better chance of beating 20mph.

The point being that for a lot of people, it isn’t difficult or a stretch to put out that power. So to average 20mph isn’t a stretch for them either, even accounting for periods where more power is required, as they aren’t operating anywhere near their limit.

Molgrips- people know how to measure their average speed (read the number of your speedo at the end of a ride 😉 )

My fav TT lap I use has five t junctions and loads of traffic calming islands but has bugger all impact on my times with a bit of forward obs (rarely if ever have to unclip).

When we say 20mph av is no big deal, we mean just that….

Dragon, all a TT is is a set, timed route. Obviously there’s proper ones and ones you make up yourself.

I don’t class myself as anything more than a half-decent rider by any stretch

Yeah but that is because you compare yourself to faster guys, we all do. If we looked at the general population we are all supermen. You are still much faster than the average club rider. Most club riders do not even race so you look at the subset that do, and you are still above average.

I totally see where LS is coming from. Most of the guys I ride and race with are rapid so you’re constantly comparing yourself against them.

Anyway I think most people will often downplay how good they are.

wow, skimming through this i’ve realised i live in a hilly place!

i did a pretty civilised 27 miles with a mate yesterday, chatting etc

15mph average speed but 2900 feet of climbing! we didnt go looking for hills either!

Pretty much any direction you go for a ten mile loop involves at least 1200 feet of uphill gurning.

suddenly the 18 – 20 mph average speeds dont seem so far away!

that said, there are some bloody quick/fit people hee abouts so i know my place!

So having read through much of this thread and looking up “Sweetspot” training (new to me) it seems to me that avg speed isn’t necessarily much of an indicator, there are too many other variables.
Average Power would be a better measure or failing that (i.e not having a power meter), time spent in different HR zones?

it all seems to correlate with my rather simplistic idea of regularly “Stressing” your body on rides, admittedly not really a structured approach…

So if someone says they “average 20 mph” then the real question is:
“how much of that is spent climbing?”
“What sort of HR zones are you operating in and for how long?”
“What is your avg power output?”

If you happen to know any of this stuff off the top of your head you are probably more serious about training than I am TBH.
Avg speed is an easy one to look at and feel warm and fuzzy about I suppose…

Useful thread, cheers all.

it all seems to correlate with my rather simplistic idea of regularly “Stressing” your body on rides, admittedly not really a structured approach…

riding more and riding hard is my training plan, and that should be good enough for most. leave the structured training to the 20mph+ boys.

So if someone says they “average 20 mph” then the real question is:

It’s all about power. Won’t be long before you’re charting FTP, NP, TSS and IF 🙂

riding more and riding hard is my training plan, and that should be good enough for most. leave the structured training to the 20mph+ boys.

Suppose it’s all about personal aspirations really. Most of us just want to be fit enough to enjoy our riding. Some of us want to improve our TT times. Others want to win races or move up a category. You do what you can with the training/life balance that you want or can manage. I doubt any of us has an aspiration to average X mph on road rides though!

It’s funny actually, i mean i do enjoy a bit of strava competition with myself and my mates but i really just enjoy riding my bike, road or mtb. i enjoy feeling like i’ve pushed myself a little when i get home, be that up a climb or staying off the brakes that little bit longer on the downs.

The idea of actually “training” with hrm or cadence monitors, wattage, special diets and going riding in a specific way to get a better time is where i start to lose a bit of interest. I guess it seems like the fun starts to go and it all gets a bit too serious.

I’ve never found the idea of the gym appeals much either for similar reasons.

i guess i came to cycling only recently from a youth skating and a big surfing habit (which i still have) both sports where there is no “training” no advice on diet in the media, you just go do it, have fun, maybe get better and get fitter as a useful by product.

Life is stressful enough, we can all do with as much fun in our lives as we can shoe-horn in around the necessary things of modern life.

all a TT is is a set, timed route.

A TT is a set route timed by somebody else. There will be somebody a minute in front who you are trying to catch, and somebody a minute behind who you are trying to avoid being caught by.

You will ride a lot faster than if you do the same route on your own. (Although maybe Strava might compensate in someway, I wouldn’t know)

of course it’s also possible that i’m a lazy slacker at heart without the necessary self discipline for serious sport! 😆

Avg speed is an easy one to look at and feel warm and fuzzy about I suppose…

its an easy way to monitor your own performance and improvements, regardless of other peoples averages. As I said earlier when I came back to road riding I set 18mph average as a goal on the grounds thats the speed to ‘qualify’ for our local club “A” group, and my initial local loops were 20 miles. On my last 2 rides with my Garmin I’ve averaged 19.5 (solo, 30 mile loop) and 20mph (2-up, 65 mile loop), and anything less than 30 miles isnt worth getting kitted up for. Whether that makes me lycra clad riding god or a mediocre MAMIL compared to the Strava masses is irrelevant, I have an objective measure of my own improvement in speed and endurance, and I get to do something I enjoy, comfortably and for longer.

i enjoy feeling like i’ve pushed myself a little when i get home,

Thats pretty much my ‘training’ criteria, so its been interesting reading on here where my riding sits in the scheme of formal training. Most of my riding seems to be threshold/tempo/sweetspot, but I attack climbs which is interval/over-threshold stuff. Seems I am inadvertently doing something right?!

The point being that for a lot of people, it isn’t difficult or a stretch to put out that power. So to average 20mph isn’t a stretch for them either

Fine, but once you factor in traffic lights, steep hills, tight country lanes etc your mean speed will be much lower than 20mph, so to compensate you have to go a LOT faster when you are riding, which is much harder. If you had a flat or gently undulating course with no junctions, traffic lights or tight bends, then yes a 20mph average would not be a problem.

Your 220W figure is reasonable for 20mph, and I used to be able to average 220W for five hours – that’s the average power recorded on powertap, which meant consttant pedalling at that power, even when going downhill or stopping. I never got above about 18.5mph average speed though. I could still probably average 220W for 3 hours but round here that would NOT get you a 20mph average speed.

So if someone says they “average 20 mph” then the real question is:
“how much of that is spent climbing?”

It’s not just about the climbing, it’s about how steep it all is. I can average 20mph up gentle gradients for ages, and reap the benefits on the other side at 26mph, but on a country lane I might find a really steep hill that has me down to 8mph say and the other side is steep, narrow and windy so I am on the brakes a lot doing 15mph. But both routes could have the same amount of climbing.

You will ride a lot faster than if you do the same route on your own.

I don’t find this. Especially not with a power meter. I pick a power I think is going to be a stretch, and I re-evaluate that target as I go, increasing it if I’m finding it easy. If that lets me catch the guy in front then fine, if not then he was just faster. And couple that with the fact that you might still beat him even if you don’t catch him, it just doesn’t get me going.

MTB racing is different, the short sharp climbs I like involve a flat out sprint, and those can be done harder given more focus on the race. Plus there’s the singletrack and descents, where you take risks and push the boundaries of control and technique. Far more fun for me!

But I guess that’s why we have different events, because they suit us differently. Froome vs Wiggo in the Tour is the obvious example.