Commuting speed

gtvlusso

I think you can overtrain - in summer, I am doing about 300 to 400 miles a week on the bike + some rowing (10k a session) + walking or running with the dawg. I am also swimming now too for the Ironman stuff.......If one of my mates wants to do a 10k run or something, I will usually go and do it with them - I don't have the power to say no...!

At the moment I am doing around 150 miles a week on the bike and have given up competitive rowing.....

Still fecking sleep allot!

CiB

I had the same thread back in September - 20.5 mile commute, was getting closer & closer to the hour but couldn't beat it.

http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12586307&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I did it though. It involved a revised technique, but it worked. In essence, it involved:

Knowing various distance points en route and plotting an ETA for each one - there were 6 or 7; first roundabout at 3.5 miles, pub at 7.2, midpoint at 10.24, <village> at 15.4 etc
Staying in a bigger gear for longer
Having the computer on elapsed time to hit each distance point and know how how it was going.
Really busting the lungs on the long climb at 12 miles in - keeping it in a big gear and pushing hard down on the areobars at 16+mph instead of the usual 'Christ this is steep I'll probably manage 12-13 for a while'
Pushing harder on the final 1¼ mile flat run-in, watching the clock tick down past 59:30, then 59:40 and nearly ripping the bars out of the frame for the last 20 yards death-or-glory blast and stopping the clock on 59:58. Triumph...

And waving the computer under my oppo's nose when I walked into the office on the verge of a cardiac arrest. He said it wasn't possible, but it was, just. Worth every second tho...

That's 20.7 miles, but I reckon your 21/22 is doable, although Shooters Hill might knock you back a bit - i know it and it's pretty steep.

You just need to get closer, then a bit closer, and then one day it all comes together. Areobars help hugely though, I reckon. Nice carbon ones - my old steel things were ok till I changed to the new ones, and suddenly - whoah - it gives you two gears higher; same effort, more speed. Invest - the best £99 ever spent, and Mrs CinB can believe that they were £29.99

Rich158

Thanks for the encouragement Chris. I have managed it once, and only once, in the summer with very light traffic.

I think the overtraining may be the key though, I've upped my training load to include running and weights without changing my sleeping patterns and diet to accomodate the extra work, and consequently feel constantly tired.

Like you say, little by little should work, I've set myself a goal of knocking 5 mins off my time every 3 weeks or so, so should be tehre by christmas.