Increasing speed

mrkev83

I got my first road bike in a good while last month and have covered 150 odd miles since. I know I'm never going to be the fastest guy out there but would like to be faster as I end up like position 2384 on segments on strava. Any advice?

I've got a Fuji sportif 1.1

NeXXus

Turn the cranks a bit harder

Peddle Up!

Pedal up.

Initialised

10 Eat
20 Sleep
30 Ride
40 Goto 10

mrkev83

Might of known I'd get sarcastic answers. Probably why I like this forum so much

Peddle Up!

Not sarcasm, basic technique.

Compare with - how do I get better at playing the piano?

Dippydog2

Here's a serious reply.

Pick a local segment that you will use as your baseline. Something flattish and a few km long if possible.
Blast it as fast as you can. Check the time and then forget it.
Do your riding as you can. Increase distance, time and effort. Do longer slower rides and shorter harder rides with sprinting up hills.
Wear a heart monitor, and understand the zones so you get used to really understanding how heard you are working.
Lose weight.
Eat properly.
Every month go back and retry the segment. Don't be tempted to do it more often. You will be faster every time.

mrkev83

Thanks dippydog2

imposter2.0

MrKev83 wrote:

I got my first road bike in a good while last month and have covered 150 odd miles since. I know I'm never going to be the fastest guy out there but would like to be faster as I end up like position 2384 on segments on strava. Any advice?

I've got a Fuji sportif 1.1

There's your first hurdle right there. If you've only covered 150 miles in the last four weeks (ie less than 40 miles per week average), then just ride it further and more regularly. That would be the most straightforward route to better performance.

Colinthecop

MrKev83 wrote:

as I end up like position 2384 on segments on strava.

You need to ride here in the Highlands, easy Top 10 Or at least 12th if you're really shite. :?

http://www.strava.com/segments/4257016

mrkev83

Cheers for the advice guys. I've just managed to get to cycling my full distance commute, 17 miles each way. First time I did it in an hour ten there and an hour twenty coming back after a 12 hour shift. I'm loving it

fudgey

Its all about seat time mate. The more you ride the better you will get. Just over 2 months ago i bought my first road bike.
When i was commuting on my mtb i was doing a 10 mile route each way. On the road bike i done it a couple of times then upped it to 12.5 miles with a decent hill in it. Found i was doing that in the same time as the short flat route.
Now i and doing 15.5 miles each way in just under 53 mins with a few hills along the way.

On weds i had to get home asap so i done the short route and pedalled as fast as i could sustain. Done the 10 miles in 29 mins average 19.9mph. Was pretty chuffed with that as im not hugely fit. I also got a kom on strava lol.

The best thing to up your ranking is to ride routes that not many people have ridden lol.

It will come in time. I struggled to do 20miles in one hit 2 months ago, last sunday we rode 44 miles (my biggest ride in one hit) and tomorrows planned route is 65 miles. So will see how i get on!

ic.

Fudgey wrote:

Done the 10 miles in 29 mins average 19.9mph.

Something wrong with the maths there

kajjal

To improve you need to pick segments and study them so you can learn correct gearing and technique. To give you an example I gained 10 seconds on a steep climb by picking a harder gear and standing up on the steepest part. There is no substitute for fitness and putting in the miles though but a well setup bike also helps a lot.

Moonbiker

Veloviewer score for a segment is more useful that segment ranking to gauge how good you are doing I reckon.

simon_masterson

Watch your cadence and gearing. Use a calculator (e.g. Sheldon Brown's) to figure out how fast you should be going for a given cadence if you don't have a computer that measures it, and try to keep it somewhere between 80-120rpm. If you want to go faster, you need to use harder gears, keep your speed above thresholds (e.g. 20mph on the flat, 10mph on hills, etc), hold a good position... but what it all boils down to is more training.

fudgey

IC. wrote:

Fudgey wrote:

Done the 10 miles in 29 mins average 19.9mph.

Something wrong with the maths there

Ok if you want 100% accuracy it was 9.6 miles in 28 mins 56 seconds @ 19.9mph...... According to strava....

Initialised

I know my last answer was a bit basic.

You mention commuting, keep it up. Assuming a four day shift pattern thats getting on for 140 miles per week.

Alternate days of easy and hard rides with one or two extended rides on the easy days.

Since we don't know your shift pattern, route profile and things like traffic light density it's difficult to advise.

Identify long flat stretches where you could go flat out.

Some days focus on cadence by riding in the small ring as much as possible. One drill I use to is to accelerate by changing up at 120RPM, staying in the small ring, this will give 29mph in 34x11.

Other days stay in the big ring even for the hills.

If you have a stretch with lots of traffic lights use each one as a sprint.

If you can, you should eat or drink something high in carbs and protein within 20 minutes of stopping. If you have a break around 2 hours from the end of your shift use that to fuel up for the ride home.

mrkev83

I don't have anything to measure cadence currently. I've only just got upto cycling the full commute with a days rest in-between. I work Monday Tuesday Saturday Sunday week one and Wednesday Thursday Friday the next week so will be cycling so I get a days rest in-between. I think it'd be too much getting up at 0445 which gives me an hour and a half to get there and then 12.5 hour shift and cycle Home and then same next day as it'd result in about 6 hours sleep in-between . It's far from a flat route. I go from eccleston to atherton either by a49 through wigan and then I think It's the a579 towards atherton. It's full of traffic on way Home so I have to be vigilant. I'm still working on my routes. Tried a few canals but I don't think they're good for me or the bike long term. Guess I'll just have to keep at it.

Cheers for all this advice. It's great

rickeverett

Buy a fast bike.


We all know that works every time.

mrkev83

rickeverett wrote:

Buy a fast bike.


We all know that works every time.

That would of been funny....yesterday. Keep trying buddy :roll:

StillGoing

First forget Strava. A lot of the times on there are falsely obtained i.e. done as a group, with favourable weather conditions, specifically targeted by individuals or even done with mechanical assistance in a few cases. Don't be fooled into going as hard as you can all the time in order to get quicker on the bike. Sometimes to go quicker, you have to go slower and build your base endurance. That means plenty of long rides around 65-75% of max HR or as some advocate, even lower. A couple of weeks at that and then try a hard tempo ride and you should find your pace has increased.

Work on your cadence. If you grind a big gear at a low cadence you quickly create lactate acid in the legs and risk damaging your knees. Use a lower gear and pedal at around 80rpm to start with to use less force to turn the pedals and avoid tiring the legs quickly. The alternative is get in a group and wheel suck being dragged along in the slipstream of the other riders at whatever pace they're doing.

IShaggy

As others have said, it's all about time in the saddle. It can take many years to reach your potential, but the good thing is that most of the gains come in the 1st few years, so you should see good progress if you ride often and consistently, and push the envelope from time to time. There's no need to over-complicate things at this stage. Just mix it up. Get out into the hills at the weekend. Ride hard when you feel strong, and ride easy when you don't. Put your feet up from time to time and eat lots of protein. As Initialised said - Eat, Sleep, Ride, Repeat. It's as simple as that.

Initialised

MrKev83 wrote:

I don't have anything to measure cadence currently.

Get something to measure it with, it makes a big difference once you learn how to pedal fast.
Something like a Garmin with everything built in to one device is good, but you can do it cheaper with separate HRM and Cadence monitors and relying on a Smartphone for data logging. If you have a Phone with ANT+ you can buy a Garmin Speed and Cadence sensor, hook that into Strava (other tracking apps are available) and use a Smart Watch as a head-unit with real-time data on your bars with the phone stashed safely in a pocket.

MrKev83 wrote:

I've only just got upto cycling the full commute with a days rest in-between. I work Monday Tuesday Saturday Sunday week one and Wednesday Thursday Friday the next week so will be cycling so I get a days rest in-between.I think it'd be too much getting up at 0445 which gives me an hour and a half to get there and then 12.5 hour shift and cycle Home and then same next day as it'd result in about 6 hours sleep in-between.

That's not enough sleep, I go really slow if I don't get enough sleep. You're probably best sticking to day on/day off or ride-in-drive-home/drive-in-ride-home and a longer ride (20 miles, increasing by 10 miles per week) on the second day off followed by a shorter recovery ride (10-20 miles in a low zone) the day after.

MrKev83 wrote:

It's far from a flat route. I go from eccleston to atherton either by a49 through wigan and then I think It's the a579 towards atherton.

So alternating between small (34T) and big ring (50T) between rides could be useful until you have a better idea of how you prefer to climb and what's faster for you.

MrKev83 wrote:

It's full of traffic on way Home so I have to be vigilant. I'm still working on my routes.

30mph traffic can be a great motivator on flat roads, use a high cadence and try to keep up for as long as possible.
If you ride the same routes at the same times traffic will adjust to your presence, you'll be passed by the same drivers doing their routine drive to and from work. This probably applies less to you since you work a shift pattern.

MrKev83 wrote:

Tried a few canals but I don't think they're good for me or the bike long term.

They are great for when you want to take it easy, when traffic is just too busy and when the bad weather hits. But they aren't good for speed, know them, use them when you want or need to but best stick to the roads.

MrKev83 wrote:

Guess I'll just have to keep at it.

I know it's hard not to go hard every ride but remember to do at least one or two slow and easy rides per week.

fudgey

How much sleep is enough then?
I get around 6 hours most nights before being woken up by the wife or kids around 6am typically.

Last night i went to bed at 12, was woken around 5:45 by the kids but didnt actually get out of bed till about 8 (that late is very unusual for me) so id class that as a good nights sleep.

We,started our ride at 10 this morning but the fairford air tattoo traffic was pretty horrific so we avoided that area and made up a different route along the way.
Stopped just after 12 for lunch having covered 35 miles, original plan was 65 miles - 20 up on my previous biggest ride last weekend.
We Finished having covered 85 miles in 5h46m 14.7mph average. There were some nasty hills along the route but i seemed to cope fairly well, unlike one of our mates who by 50 miles was done, so fair play to him for doing the other 35 miles. On all the biggers hills after, he stopped and pushed a bit. His biggest ride year to date is 25 miles. So not a bad effort still.

If it was just myself and my other mate i have no doubt that we would have carried on and cracked the ton!

Pretty chuffed tho, as last weekend we done 44 miles so to add on another 40 miles was pretty good going imo!

mrkev83

Did Fudgey reply to the right thread?

fudgey

Well, the bit about sleep lol.

Ok the op is asking about going faster, and i blabbed on about going further... My bad.

mrkev83

Sorry fella, I was confused. Good effort tho