What is your average speed on 15 - 20 mile ride. Mine is about 16.5 and I always feel like i'm slowing my riding buddy down.
Avg. speed?
- Thread starter tingle_wayne
- Start date
For me I average about 24km/h over 1 hour. Best I did was 25km/h in 1 hour. That works out to around 14 - 15 mph.
Did a metric century (100km) back in October in 3 stages.
25 km, 50 km and 25 km, took me 4:38 total riding time.
That was arround 21 km/h or 13 mph.
This riding a department store MTB, so I am quite happy with the results. I am doing it more for the fitness, but a bit more speed is always nice too
.
Did a metric century (100km) back in October in 3 stages.
25 km, 50 km and 25 km, took me 4:38 total riding time.
That was arround 21 km/h or 13 mph.
This riding a department store MTB, so I am quite happy with the results. I am doing it more for the fitness, but a bit more speed is always nice too
.
I just started riding, and do it more for fun and fitness than competition. I seem to do about 15.5 for a long ride like a century. I'm not sure about 20 mile rides because I don't usually go on such a short ride on my road bike. I averaged 16.5 on a recent 30 mile ride though.tingle_wayne said:
My focus when I am riding is not the speed, per se. I am getting more interested in touring. Although, I guess I will probably bop around to do various things before deciding what interests me most. But a ride for me starts to get interesting at around 40, and challenging at 60. At 70 miles I will be fighting the urge to get off the bike and smash it against a tree. Around 80 I calm down, and euphoria sets in shortly thereafter. That's what's adictive to me.
I gave up chasing ave speed about a decade ago since it's so conditional... My favorite ride to prove this point was about a year and a half ago with an ave speed obsessed rider. "Ave-Man" was quite proud of his 21-23 mph ave speed (over what cousre and conditions I haven't the slightest - possibly one with a continual tailwind), however this ride was over a moderately hilly course with several legs exposed to the wind. Our ave speed man did everything to keep his coveted ave speed that day, and he pushed so hard to keep it. By the end his legs, will, and morale were crushed, the look on his face was pain on pain, mixed with a dash of disapointment. It was glorious to obliterate him on the last 12% climb of the day, with legs that were fresh and ready to go since his "ave-speed" has been clearly slower than mine . His trash talking lips have never mentioned ave speed near me since that day.
HR - out
. His trash talking lips have never mentioned ave speed near me since that day. HR - out
Hookyrider said:
I agree, at the end of a ride I like to see what my average was but I don't let it control how I ride. My cyclometer doesn't even show me average speed which I like. I ride according to how I feel at the time. I just review my average over the weeks to see if I am getting an upward trend. So far yes, but since the cold weather has set in I don't get out as much and the gain has slowed.
I averaged 12.5 on my last ride. You all win!
Actually, I don't worry about average for comparing myself to anyone but me. However, on my latest ride, an out & back (gravel rail trail), with the outbound leg being a very slight upgrade and the return leg being slightly down hill I reached my goal (set at the mid-point). The slope is so slight that one can not coast and keep going in the "down hill" direction, so I consider it flat.
After riding out 12.5 miles, I noted that my average speed was about 11.4 and decided I wanted to reach 12.5 average by the time I was done... It served as a good goal for me. I did find myself with about 6 miles to go pacing myself based on how fast I had to ride to reach my goal. I was doing much math in my head. At one point I realized that to run a 4 minute mile a runner has to run faster than I was riding... (I was slightly under 15 MPH at the time)
However, in general I only use average speed as a general measurement on the same route over a long term to determine how my fitness is impacting my ride.
Actually, I don't worry about average for comparing myself to anyone but me. However, on my latest ride, an out & back (gravel rail trail), with the outbound leg being a very slight upgrade and the return leg being slightly down hill I reached my goal (set at the mid-point). The slope is so slight that one can not coast and keep going in the "down hill" direction, so I consider it flat.
After riding out 12.5 miles, I noted that my average speed was about 11.4 and decided I wanted to reach 12.5 average by the time I was done... It served as a good goal for me. I did find myself with about 6 miles to go pacing myself based on how fast I had to ride to reach my goal. I was doing much math in my head. At one point I realized that to run a 4 minute mile a runner has to run faster than I was riding... (I was slightly under 15 MPH at the time)
However, in general I only use average speed as a general measurement on the same route over a long term to determine how my fitness is impacting my ride.
now "marking" info on a particular "course" that you can repeat, or do fitness checks on - "field test". That is one important and a key way to check progress - forwards or back! Without question. In fact keep a log, and take notes on the conditions so when you have a particularly bad ride, or good one, you can, hopefully, keep things in perspective.
But to say for 20 miles I can average X mph... and think it carries weight to any other 20 mile stretch of road is folly. Living now in the South Limburg area of the Ntherlands it's certainly true. 1. there is nothing that is flat, 2. there is almost always some kind of wind coming from somewhere 3. and road conditons are always changing - the Dutch love their road constuction/destruction - whatever. So it's been incredibly difficult to "nail" a route with a time.
I can't even bring myself to convert to Kph since the numbers don't "carry a value" to me. All I know is I pick off locals left and right like it was my job.
HR
But to say for 20 miles I can average X mph... and think it carries weight to any other 20 mile stretch of road is folly. Living now in the South Limburg area of the Ntherlands it's certainly true. 1. there is nothing that is flat, 2. there is almost always some kind of wind coming from somewhere 3. and road conditons are always changing - the Dutch love their road constuction/destruction - whatever. So it's been incredibly difficult to "nail" a route with a time.
I can't even bring myself to convert to Kph since the numbers don't "carry a value" to me. All I know is I pick off locals left and right like it was my job.
HR
tt mode? huh?RHR38 said:My average on 15-20 mile ride is around 16 if it's a recovery ride. If tt-mode is 'on', it may be somewhere between 25-27.
Hookyrider said:I gave up chasing ave speed about a decade ago since it's so conditional... My favorite ride to prove this point was about a year and a half ago with an ave speed obsessed rider. "Ave-Man" was quite proud of his 21-23 mph ave speed (over what cousre and conditions I haven't the slightest - possibly one with a continual tailwind), however this ride was over a moderately hilly course with several legs exposed to the wind. Our ave speed man did everything to keep his coveted ave speed that day, and he pushed so hard to keep it. By the end his legs, will, and morale were crushed, the look on his face was pain on pain, mixed with a dash of disapointment. It was glorious to obliterate him on the last 12% climb of the day, with legs that were fresh and ready to go since his "ave-speed" has been clearly slower than mine
HR - out
Average speed can only tell you so much. It has a lot more meaning on an out and back route following the same road. Ave-man is stupid to follow average speed goals. He obviously never took into account wind and the like. People should, instead of setting an average as a benchmark, use average to highlight their best performance on a particular route on a particular day in particular weather etc.
Avg speed depends on load carried, garments, traffic, weather, etc ...El Loto said:
The fastest was on a bike path, no traffic, 25 miles on a 21.3 mph average. But the thing stops counting when I stop .... so it does not really count.
Ah .... In a 20 something pound bike with only one gear and 32 inch tires ...
ah ... and the rear wheel was out of true....
ah ... and it was 40 degrees.
ah ... and I had a 15 pound bag
ah ... no drop bars; bullhorns
ah ... i dont care anymore
My best was 15.9 on a 20 mile ride this summer.
That was in the Scottish Borders though and they are hilly as hell. I reckon on the flat, I could probably do about 17 - 18 if conditions were right.
That was in the Scottish Borders though and they are hilly as hell. I reckon on the flat, I could probably do about 17 - 18 if conditions were right.
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