11 mile - avg. 16mph for first ride

cuthy5

Just got back on the bike and wondering what sort of pace i am doing, i covered just over 11 mile in 40 mins averaging around 16 mph.

Any good??

P_Tucker

No.

cuthy5

Really helpful,

thanks alot!!!

P_Tucker

You're welcome. The truth can often hurt. If it helps, I'm rubbish too.

cuthy5

just looking for a bit of advice

P_Tucker

And you got some. What more do you want?

cuthy5

for a prick like you not to give it the big i am

MountainMonster

Chill out P_tucker.

To the OP, for a beginner that's quite good. At the end of the day, most important thing is that you enjoyed the ride, so as long as you did that it was quite good.

P_Tucker

cuthy5 wrote:

for a prick like you not to give it the big i am

I said I was rubbish FFS. If you want someone to pinch your cheek and tell you you're special, why not try your mum?

cuthy5

think i've hit a nerve

P_Tucker

cuthy5 wrote:

think i've hit a nerve

Better get to the hospital then. Don't cycle though - you'll die of old age before you get there.

cuthy5

P_Tucker wrote:

cuthy5 wrote:

think i've hit a nerve

Better get to the hospital then. Don't cycle though - you'll die of old age before you get there.

yeah nice one. haha

MountainMonster

Seriously, chill out dude. Stop trying to be some hard man. Only post i've seen come from you are always negative and condescending. Must live a sad existence to be that way.


cuthy5
Just ignore him, he's the forum troll, and don't take what he says as anything other than a joke.

The most important thing to remember with road riding is, that unless you are racing, don't worry too much about the numbers. You'll get caught up in trying to prove something. Just get out and enjoy, and as long as you are happy with how you did at the end of the ride, then it was a good ride!

ShutUpLegs

cuthy5 wrote:

for a prick like you not to give it the big i am

Welcome to the forum

ForumNewbie

cuthy5 wrote:

Just got back on the bike and wondering what sort of pace i am doing, i covered just over 11 mile in 40 mins averaging around 16 mph.

Any good??

It's pretty good in my book for just back to cycling, so well done. A lot of factors involved in assessing whether an average speed is good - your age, bike, fitness, course, wind, clothing etc. As people have said in another thread today - it's how you are doing and how you progress. Ignore unhelpful others - 16 mph is a pretty decent average.

cuthy5

Thanks for the HELPFUL comments, haven't been able to bike as much as i have wanted due to work commitments

Pseudonym

quoting an average speed is absolutely meaningless without knowing the profile of the route.

cuthy5

yeah fair do's,

the route was not the hilly'est but had a few medium gradients to go up, plus the wind was in my face for 3/5 of the time.

ShutUpLegs

Pseudonym wrote:

quoting an average speed is absolutely meaningless without knowing the profile of the route.

And properly measured rather than by time x distance

centimani

My take on it...
16 mph average is about what i regularly achieve. Thats by riding at what i think of as 70 to 80% effort. Ascent/descent doesnt make any difference to me. Whether i ride a flat route or a hilly one, a still day or a windy day, its always more or less the same. Why ? If you ride a hilly circuit, starting and finishing at the same point, the uphills are slower, the downhills are faster (not unnauturally)..if you ride a flat course, the speeds kinda constant but somewhere inbetween. Windy day ? you'll be slower on the outrun, faster on the homerun. It all averages out. Some may have a different view, but thats my experience ALL the time.
Age has an impact. i'm no spring chicken, but i dont have that many people passing me, commuting a few miles or on a 50 mile run, so 16mph average is ok.

At 50 plus, i have to put an awful lot more effort in to achieve 18mph average, it's do'able but i dont enjoy riding like that all the time. ..and i'm a light smoker :oops:
If you're younger, wnat it more, put in the effort, you can easily up it, But 16mph average is ok. The easiest guage is see how many people pass you.

Herbsman

17mph is better

nmcgann

Herbsman wrote:

17mph is better

Kona21

Someone delete p tucker please ?
I wouldn't focus to much on pace, as long you enjoy it. Get yourself out with a club, you may surprise yourself

DF33

If everyone ignored him completely he wouldn't carry on past a couple of posts on any given thread. Trolls thrive on any response so they too can respond.

Unfit, overweight, mountainbike on knobbs, wind, most of ride into it, 14mph a winner.

steady course, nice bike, unfit, not overweight, healthy diet, sun out, not too warm, short ride, 17 to 19 mph a winner.

Doesn't matter really as suggested above.

**DON'T FEED THE TROLL**

Cleat Eastwood

16 mph is really good riding on your own. An average speed can be a bit deceptive though, if I go out on route there are at least 6 junctions I have to stop at so speed is 0, and average has never got over 15.5 for an 10 mile loop. Another route missing out the junctions and even into a wind I can av 19/20, so if you take all those micro stops at junction then 16 in my opinion is blooming good.

Peddle Up!

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

16 mph is really good riding on your own. An average speed can be a bit deceptive though, if I go out on route there are at least 6 junctions I have to stop at so speed is 0, and average has never got over 15.5 for an 10 mile loop. Another route missing out the junctions and even into a wind I can av 19/20, so if you take all those micro stops at junction then 16 in my opinion is blooming good.

Good point. I know cycle computers "take out" the stopped time, but you still have to slow down to a junction, and wind up again afterwards. I've ridden at a consistent 20mph+ guaged by glances at the speedo but returned an average in the high teens. Makes sense.

holker

Centimani interesting to hear you say that ascent/descent doesn't affect your average speed. I find it does massively. There again many of the descents I am faced with are challenging. Narrow roads, S Bends, potholes, sheep, walkers, mud, water, all other sorts of debris, so I am never able to make up the lost time of the ascent. Or maybe I'm just crap at descending. I agree with wind comment, especially if I have a following wind to start as this gives me a high average and makes me fight more on the return in an attempt to have a high overall average.

To OP, 16mph on first ride is a good start. There's all sorts of factors, not least getting used to the bike and building confidence. I'm sure that you will improve with practise and if you can manage 16mph on your first ride just imagine what you will achieve this time next year. Good luck and enjoy your new bike.

turnerjohn

centimani wrote:

My take on it...
Whether i ride a flat route or a hilly one, a still day or a windy day, its always more or less the same. Why ? If you ride a hilly circuit, starting and finishing at the same point, the uphills are slower, the downhills are faster (not unnauturally)..if you ride a flat course, the speeds kinda constant but somewhere inbetween. Windy day ? you'll be slower on the outrun, faster on the homerun. It all averages out. Some may have a different view, but thats my experience ALL the time.
.

no way ! ok Tour De France...mountain races around 16 average...flat stages anything up to 30mph+ average ! It takes a lot lot lot longer going up then coming down !

morstar

holker wrote:

Centimani interesting to hear you say that ascent/descent doesn't affect your average speed. I find it does massively.

That's because it does! A few hills over many mile of riding doesn't make a lot of difference but a hilly ride is inevitably slower than a flat ride (assuming all other factors are equal).

If you rode uphill at 10mph for half an hour and downhill at 30mph for half an hour you would average a convenient round number of 20mph.

HOWEVER. This is the reality of a typical closed loop bike ride. The hill that takes half an hour to ride up at 10mph is 5 miles long. For ease of maths, let's assume the descent is identical in profile. You ride 5 miles downhill at 30mph. This only takes 10 minutes. You only attain the increased speed for a far shorter duration than you suffered the loss in speed.

You have now ridden 10 miles completely comparable in up and downhill profile. It has taken 40 minutes giving an average speed of 15mph. Not 20mph.

The negative of impact of increased resistance is always greater than the positive impact of the same force aiding you as the duration you are exposed to those forces is different unless the route has an overall altitude loss or tail wind.

turnerjohn

morstar wrote:

holker wrote:

Centimani interesting to hear you say that ascent/descent doesn't affect your average speed. I find it does massively.

That's because it does! A few hills over many mile of riding doesn't make a lot of difference but a hilly ride is inevitably slower than a flat ride (assuming all other factors are equal).

If you rode uphill at 10mph for half an hour and downhill at 30mph for half an hour you would average a convenient round number of 20mph.

HOWEVER. This is the reality of a typical closed loop bike ride. The hill that takes half an hour to ride up at 10mph is 5 miles long. For ease of maths, let's assume the descent is identical in profile. You ride 5 miles downhill at 30mph. This only takes 10 minutes. You only attain the increased speed for a far shorter duration than you suffered the loss in speed.

You have now ridden 10 miles completely comparable in up and downhill profile. It has taken 40 minutes giving an average speed of 15mph. Not 20mph.

The negative of impact of increased resistance is always greater than the positive impact of the same force aiding you as the duration you are exposed to those forces is different unless the route has an overall altitude loss or tail wind.

+1 what Morstar said :-)

martincashman

Centimani has an interesting point. I regularly do 100km rides, 2 to 3 a week, over the last few months. My goal is to get my solo, door to door, 100km average up to 32kph. It is creeping up over time. Between 29.5 and 31.5 at the moment. When I started last August it was 26kph for 30km.

Anyways, sometimes I try and cheat and pick a flatter route, but find I'm no faster or possibly slower than over a more hilly route. This puzzled me at first but then I realized, that when you are out on your own it's much harder to keep a high pace on the flat, as you can't rest as easily, so the speed tends to drop off.

Whereas if you are going over hills, you can recover on the downhill and attack on the the uphill section. This only really applies to 3 to 4% gradient hills for me though, where I can keep up a good climbing speed and not fatigue. In the last month my fastest Solo 100km has been over hills rather than the flat.