Average speed

sem69

What's your average speed on your commute?

On my commute into central London my average speed is usually a pathetic 11.5mph, which I put down to being unfit. But the other day I left work a lot later than usual and there was far less traffic on the roads. I got home 10 minutes quicker with an average speed of 15mph! Maybe I'm not so unfit after all?!

pst88

Well my average speed is about 12mph too. I put that down to a combination of being on a slow/heavy mountain bike and in part laziness.

Alibran

My average speed is usually around 12-12.5mph. Since the roads are usually pretty clear where I ride, I can't blame traffic. So, I blame the hills for being steep and my hybrid for being slow. (I'll find out if I'm justified in blaming the hybrid when I get my new road bike.)

doyler78

I could manage only 14.5mph to 15.5mph over a flatish 14 mile route until last week when I changed my spesh armadillos for michelin pro race2 tyres. I now average 16.5-18.1mph. It really has made that much difference. I now have times close to what I was getting during the summer last year when I was 5kg lighter.

Like Alibran I blame my hybrid for my lack of speed and I am about to get myself a road bike. Focus Cayo or Planet X Carbon with full ultegra both for £999 though may be able to get the Planet X under cycle to work if it gets introduced sooner rather than later and that woudl save me about £180.

I'm useless on hills because I really don't have on my route so don't get to practice them much. I suspect if I had a hilly route like some of you my average would be much lower.

madmix

Anything between 16 and 19 mph depending on time of day, weather amount of morons on the road etc. This is over 10 miles. In my opinion the ave speed is prob higher but the constant stop/start/slow has a massive effect on the average.

Mog Uk

22.5mph last night over 11miles, a new PB.

On a 'normal' day it can range between 15-19mph, although I agree with Madmix, stop/start/slowing down for roundabouts/traffic has a huge affect on the average...

redddraggon

I can do my bumpy 6 mile commute in 21 minutes on a good day. Which works out at 17.1mph, but that is including all the stops and starts

niblue

I probably average about 20mph on the way to work, and about 10mph on the way home (it's uphill and into the wind most of the way home)!

Eat My Dust

I can do my 13 miles in 42 minutes on a very good day which is 18.5 mph, but most days my average is around 15/16 mph.

How many of you are "cheating" and not including your stopping time?

Belv

There are too many variables for me to know. My commute is affected by traffic, traffic lights, weather conditions, ratio of roads/cycle paths used, etc.

I rarely get above 15mph for my 5 mile commute, yet can do a 30 mile round trip at an average of 15.5mph because there is virtually nothing i have to slow down for.

Clever Pun

generally 17-19 on the way in ignoring blips when I'm shattered/traffic is mental when is can drop to 15

coming in to work is faster than going home generally

BentMikey

I'm usually fairly sceptical of most of the above 18mph claims for a commute.

toontra

BentMikey wrote:

I'm usually fairly sceptical of most of the above 18mph claims for a commute.

As am I. I am very rarely overtaken on my commute and I average 16 - 17 (central London), so where are all these 18-20'ers?

Unless they are all RLJ'ers

Eat My Dust

BentMikey wrote:

I'm usually fairly sceptical of most of the above 18mph claims for a commute.

What even my .5 above? come on BM!!

Eat My Dust

toontra wrote:

BentMikey wrote:

I'm usually fairly sceptical of most of the above 18mph claims for a commute.

As am I. I am very rarely overtaken on my commute and I average 16 - 17 (central London), so where are all these 18-20'ers?

Unless they are all RLJ'ers

I commute into London from Watford, so the first half of my journey is very fast (only this morning I reached 36 mph). It isn't until I get to Wembley and Acton that I start to get slowed down.

cee

Clever Pun wrote:

coming in to work is faster than going home generally

me too.

I have only really started looking at speed since buying the LIdl Computer on monday.

Since then, my average speed has been between 11mph (when it was really windy) and 15mph (when it was reasonably calm).

Apparently the top speed was 36.3mph. Still raising the average speed by a mile an hour or two would be nice!

Oh....Im on a mountain bike with fat knobbly tyres!

How much faster do you roadbike types reckon the really light bike and skinny tyres make you?

ChrisLS

...between 12.5 and 16.5. even up to 17 once or twice...my commute is a mixture of main road and traffic, rural lanes, cycle tracks and off road...

Belv

cee wrote:

Apparently the top speed was 36.3mph. Still raising the average speed by a mile an hour or two would be nice!

Oh....Im on a mountain bike with fat knobbly tyres!

I'm on a mountain bike with slick tyres and to exceed (or reach?!) 36.3mph, you'd have to push me off a cliff!

BentMikey

I'm not sceptical of your speed EMD, LOLOL!

cee

Belv wrote:

cee wrote:

Apparently the top speed was 36.3mph. Still raising the average speed by a mile an hour or two would be nice!

Oh....Im on a mountain bike with fat knobbly tyres!

I'm on a mountain bike with slick tyres and to exceed (or reach?!) 36.3mph, you'd have to push me off a cliff!

The top speed was counted coming down a nice hill and I was practically pedalling out in 27th gear. It would only have lasted a second or two at most.

Remebering that I have no idea how accurate the Lidl computer is, but I can only report what it tells me.

Totalnewbie

I too couldn't resist the Lidl computer, but haven't been able to try out the thing yet due to being off the bike.

However it takes me just under 30 mins to go 4.8 miles, which I calculate means an average of around 10 mph. I seem to spend an awful lot of time stopped at traffic lights as it's a central commute, and I'm apt to slow down if I'm unsure about anything, so that's probably about right. We'll see once I'm back on the bike complete with 'puter.

PrettyBoyTim

sem69 wrote:

What's your average speed on your commute?

On my commute into central London my average speed is usually a pathetic 11.5mph, which I put down to being unfit.

I put it down to central London! Obviously it'll vary a lot depending on your exact route, but I have a similar average speed despite being fairly quick through most of the moving bits.

My commute is just under seven miles, but has at least twenty sets of traffic lights and thirty junctions at which I'm not going straight on, which works out as close to a junction every minute and a traffic light every minute and a half on average.

Bassjunkieuk

I'd say I can do about 15-16 MPH average. A few weeks back I might have said something different but I suspect my old bike computer was setup incorrectly as it only had basic pre-set wheel sizes (a £9.99 jobbie was Sainsburys!). I had to replace it after it stopped working again and wanted a more reliable one so got a Cateye one that had a lot more options for wheelsizes. I have noticed my commute distances are being reported shorter so I can only assume my last computer had my wheel setup to large!

A city commute is a fairly good way to ruin a average speed and I know I've gone through some late ambers as I don't want to loose momentum but as one guy said the other day as we pulled up at yet another red light "Some days their all re d!"

One other point to raise is how are we measuring these averages? I had a discussion about my average speed on here a while ago and I took mine directly from my bike computer whearas the other person worked it out using the distance travelled/time taken method - which meant all the time standing still at lights and junctions pulled your average down!

jefferee

I currently average about 13 mph on a 6.3 mile commute, which includes 5 stop signs and 16 traffic lights--just under 30 minutes, including stops. I started this route in October, and while oddly enough my average time has barely changed, I feel considerably less wiped out by the end.

Can't wait for the road salt to disappear so I can park the MTB with studded knobbies and try it on a proper road bike.

Eat My Dust

bassjunkie, I think it was me you had the conversation with. I always include my stop times. As you can imagine with 29 sets of lights my commute can vary from 42 mins to around 60 mins depending on the colour of the lights, which is quite a difference over 13 miles!!

SamWise72

I can average 20+ on open country roads on a training ride, but riding the 8 miles from Waterloo to Newham takes me around 45 mins. This is partly due to the bike, but much more to do with traffic lights, odd junctions etc. I might take 10 mins off it by riding a roadie, but it'd come at the cost of a pinch flat every other ride.

niblue

My old commute was 10 miles each way and on a good day took me 40 minutes on the road bike, which is an average speed of 15mph. The route only has a couple of traffic lights on it so there wouldn't have been much time spent not moving.

Bassjunkieuk

I think it might have been you EMD :-) I hit quite a few lights on my commute each day but I guess that even at only 15mph average (which seems to be what most people are claiming on here!) it's still about 14.9mph faster then most other traffic in the city!

I was rather impressed at the progress I was making versus the cars in Camberwell this evening but then saw blue lights up ahead and found the cause of the snarl up was a what appeared to be an accident on the other side of the ride at the Junction of Camberwell New Road and Chrischurch Road - the car didn't look damaged but there was fire engines and ambulances there so it must have been serious! And people wonder why I ride, because I don't enjoy sitting in traffic jams!!

BentMikey

Camberwell, that's on my route.

dav1

probably about 18-22mph, hanvent got a speedo on my road bike yet though.

somone told me i was doing 32mph at one point on my way home one day last week, was quite pleased with that

robrauy

Anyone with a Nokia N95 should try the free sportstracker app from Nokia.

Simply start it off, pop iyt in your panniers/bag then the gps records your route,max speed, avg speed etc..

http://research.nokia.com/research/proj ... tsTracker/

Rob