Working towards 20mph

homers_double

At a push I'd say the average speed of this thread is 16.4mph and slowing gradually.

onyourright

It’s hilly terrain, though.

markhewitt1978

MrB123 wrote:

I can manage a 21 minute 5k but I have NEVER averaged 20mph on any ride, let alone one of 60 miles, although none of my rides up here in Durham could be described as flat. I would consider myself to be a stronger cyclist than runner.

I've done 60 miles around the Lumley Circuit, which is almost flat

mrb123

markhewitt1978 wrote:

MrB123 wrote:

I can manage a 21 minute 5k but I have NEVER averaged 20mph on any ride, let alone one of 60 miles, although none of my rides up here in Durham could be described as flat. I would consider myself to be a stronger cyclist than runner.

I've done 60 miles around the Lumley Circuit, which is almost flat

Yeah, my fastest averages have all been recorded on rides out from Durham and doing a couple of laps of the Leamside/Great Lumley circuit. Still 958ft of climbing for 20 miles though according to Garmin Connect for my most recent ride there.

You must have been wearing a groove in the tarmac doing 60 miles round there!

markhewitt1978

MrB123 wrote:

You must have been wearing a groove in the tarmac doing 60 miles round there!

Was actually 100km and yeah I was going a bit dizzy and cross eyed at the end! https://www.strava.com/activities/252011417

okgo

Why do people care about average speed? Its so dependent on so many things, such as wind, terrain, temp, traffic levels, garmin autpause blah blah etc. If you really want to get a higher average then ride on big roads where traffic sucks you along and there are limited stops. A bit like a lot of time trials!

20mph riding requires a half decent amount of power for the average person in the average position, but I'd not say its out of reach of most, its not, and I know many riders that on the right terrain easily manage it despite not really doing a vast amount of cycling.

Comparing a TT bike to a road bike in terms of average speed is fairly pointless, I went for a ride on my TT bike the other day and its easily a fair chunk quicker with no difference in power output (as you would expect).

noodleman

okgo wrote:

Why do people care about average speed? Its so dependent on so many things, such as wind, terrain, temp, traffic levels, garmin autpause blah blah etc. If you really want to get a higher average then ride on big roads where traffic sucks you along and there are limited stops. A bit like a lot of time trials!

20mph riding requires a half decent amount of power for the average person in the average position, but I'd not say its out of reach of most, its not, and I know many riders that on the right terrain easily manage it despite not really doing a vast amount of cycling.

Comparing a TT bike to a road bike in terms of average speed is fairly pointless, I went for a ride on my TT bike the other day and its easily a fair chunk quicker with no difference in power output (as you would expect).

Surprised you find your TT bike "a fair chunk quicker". I've ridden plenty of TT's and triathlon and the difference is maybe 0.5 to 1mph quicker in speed and thats only when conditions favour it, ie low winds and very flat.

onyourright

okgo wrote:

20mph riding requires a half decent amount of power for the average person in the average position, but I'd not say its out of reach of most, its not

You can say that all you like (for some reason, people like saying it!) but it doesn’t make it so.

Here’s a chart of sustained human power versus time from the International Human Powered Vehicle Association.



It shows that “healthy humans” can sustain just short of 0.2 horsepower or about 145 watts for three hours. That is quite a lot less than needed to do 20 miles per hour.

“Average humans” do much worse at about 95 watts.

“First class athletes” perform much better, but that’s not a surprise.

markhewitt1978

Nice graph. I never cease to be in awe of just how fit pro-cyclists - and all other pro-athletes actually are. Even the fittest and fastest guys in our club who take Strava KOMs and we generally think of as being about as strong as it gets wouldn't be able to stay with a pro rider for more than a few minutes.

okgo

There was some study done by Coggan or Allen, the people behind the Training with a power meter book and trainingpeaks etc. They said that anyone should be able to get to around 3.5 w/kg I think, might be slightly different, but it was around there, which should be enough for most people to ride at 20mph over a course if they were so inclined.

Re TT bike - shaved 1.5 mins off my 10 mile time straight away without even having a good position really. Massive difference, and that was from an aero roadbike on aero wheels in a skinsuit also. No tri bars though.

ugo.santalucia

okgo wrote:

There was some study done by Coggan or Allen, the people behind the Training with a power meter book and trainingpeaks etc. They said that anyone should be able to get to around 3.5 w/kg I think, might be slightly different, but it was around there, which should be enough for most people to ride at 20mph over a course if they were so inclined.

Re TT bike - shaved 1.5 mins off my 10 mile time straight away without even having a good position really. Massive difference, and that was from an aero roadbike on aero wheels in a skinsuit also. No tri bars though.

I think I am around that ballpark, with an "aerobic VAM" of ca. 950 for long climbs and at 70 Kg with a 10 Kg bike... yet I can't average 20 mph for hours, unless I tweak the way I measure an average or I tweak a course to suit my needs. I would say 18 mph is more like it if the course is reasonably flat and everything works for me rather than against

markhewitt1978

okgo wrote:

There was some study done by Coggan or Allen, the people behind the Training with a power meter book and trainingpeaks etc. They said that anyone should be able to get to around 3.5 w/kg I think, might be slightly different, but it was around there, which should be enough for most people to ride at 20mph over a course if they were so inclined.

Sounds about right. Although w/kg probably isn't the best measure as to get a decent average you need a flattish course and if you have a low power output then a light weight isn't going to help you very much htere.

e.g. At the minute my FTP is 200W. At my current 75kg thats 2.6w/kg. If I were to drop to 57kg (which is my intention) then that same 200W would be 3.5w/kg. That would put me faster on climbs but on the flat make little difference and I'm still likely to be a nervous descender!

okgo

True, but 57kg is very light, and if you're 75kg now and you can get to 57 then you're probably very overweight (or overly ambitious!) I think there may have to be some common sense applied but for an average weight person 3.5 w/kg probably is enough to do it on most easier terrain for a while.

Anyway, point I was making is that its not really the barometer of much, it doesn't mean someone is anything amazing due to all the reasons I mentioned above and I feel average speed still has a hold on people when it shouldn't (outside of TT's!)

markhewitt1978

okgo wrote:

True, but 57kg is very light, and if you're 75kg now and you can get to 57 then you're probably very overweight (or overly ambitious!) I think there may have to be some common sense applied but for an average weight person 3.5 w/kg probably is enough to do it on most easier terrain for a while.

True, 63kg is actually the 'ideal' weight for my height of 5'6"

okgo

I'll have to look that up to see what the figure was, there was some counter argument that 4 w/kg was more realistic, but I'll see if I can dig it out.

Re your clubmates, you may be surprised. The gap between a very good club rider and a very bad one is likley bigger than the gap between a world tour pro and a very good club rider.

fenix

OYR - well that graph is a bit pointless. It's no surprise that the average bloke in the street can't do it.

But we aren't talking about the average bloke.

He's a cyclist so he's already shifting towards the right.

You don't have to be an elite athlete to get to 20mph - but you will need to train.

If you set him off on a RTTC 60 course (if there is a 60 ?) with aero bike and hat - its definitely possible that he could do it.

But he's got an old road bike, no aero kit that we know of, and doing it on a path. He's bleeding speed from the get go.
Whatever speed he can get on his path you know he'd be faster under ideal conditions. If he can do 20mph there he'd probably be in the shape to do 25mph on a proper TT course with all the kit.

markhewitt1978

okgo wrote:

I'll have to look that up to see what the figure was, there was some counter argument that 4 w/kg was more realistic, but I'll see if I can dig it out.

Re your clubmates, you may be surprised. The gap between a very good club rider and a very bad one is likley bigger than the gap between a world tour pro and a very good club rider.

I guess it depends how you measure it? If it's in terms of w/kg, then perhaps you're right. If it's in terms of the amount of training needed to get there, perhaps a different story?

okgo

You say that but there are many pro cyclists who do fairly 'normal hours' in the scheme of very committed cyclist terms - i.e. I know two riders well who do 20+ hours a week who are not professionals, one is trying to be, and the other is a vet man and I think most pro's are probably doing a similar amount. Hutch's book, Faster, is a good read and shows you that when you get closer to the top then perhaps all is not as simple as it seems. And actually talent and physiology which cannot be trained are a huge factor. Its very likely that if your best club riders quit their jobs, they might in time be able to adapt to the training load of your average pro cyclist, the result of course would be very different and their FTP numbers would likely not move into the 400's or whatever.

To further muddy the waters, I believe the gap between the Chris Froome's of this world and the random climber guy on the small team in the TDF is almost as large as the gap between top amateur and pro. Cancellara riding back on the other day through the groups at E3 was a good example of the best vs the rest, he was riding past them like they were amateurs.

DavidJB

Pick a better target. It's actually fairy hard to ride at 20mph on rolling terrain (gets easier in the summer) I have to be riding at around 260-270w @70kg on my training bike to average over 20mph...most people on here would really struggle with that (my training bike does have big winter tires and ins heavy as fk though)

A majority of my training rides average 18.5-19.5 MPH.

Oh I actually did it 2 days ago this was a fairly constant block of tempo (70 minutes) with a warm up and sprints in the middle. It involved going up a long overall climb (generally around 2-3% over 7.5 miles, turning round and coming down and generally undulating terrian). I did a similar block on flatter roads and did 20.5mph

Distance: 35.8mi
Moving Time: 1:47:18
Elevation (?) 1,797ft
Weighted Avg Power: 281W
Speed 20.0mi/h
Power 266W
Calories 1,906

I've also found exactly what is mentioned here...a 270w session for 3 hours I did in Jan.

Distance: 61.3mi
Moving Time: 3:00:08
Elevation: 2,338ft
Weighted Avg Power: 271W
Speed 20.4mi/h
Power 270W
Calories 3,254

SO there you go 270w on my shitty training bike in winter on a rolling course is just over 20MPH...bare in mind I'm not in the drops or anything on the hoods so will lose some speed that way. I'm 70KG to give it some context.

okgo

But these guys won't be riding their shitty training bikes I suppose...

Having looked back at a few of my rides, on my good bike (I don't have a shitty one) it seems that it takes me 250 or so as well, but I'm a lot heavier than you.

ForumNewbie

ugo.santalucia wrote:

How do you measure average speed? If it's distance A to B versus time, then 20 mph is probably out of reach for long distances. If you use computers, then each of them will "speed you up" in a different way, depending on the stop/start settings.

For me average is the former method, the latter is susceptible to tweaking and trherefore meaningless... lots of mediocre pedallers average 18-20 mph with a few tweaks of Garmin & Co., but using the former method they are probably around 15-16 mph at best

Moral, if you want 20 mph avewrage, there are many ways of doing that, some more meaningful than others...

Ugo, I'm puzzled by what your are saying about Garmin average speeds being meaningless. I appreciate the average speed showing on Strava is based on Moving time rather than Elapsed Time. If I go on one of my short loops, 13.7 miles on country roads, I can quite often do it without having to stop at any junctions. In these cases my Moving time and Elapsed time on Strava will be exactly the same, so for these rides I know my average speed showing on Strava is definitely a true average speed, albeit not very fast.

DavidJB

okgo wrote:

But these guys won't be riding their sh!tty training bikes I suppose...

Having looked back at a few of my rides, on my good bike (I don't have a sh!tty one) it seems that it takes me 250 or so as well, but I'm a lot heavier than you.

What I describe as 'Shitty training bike' is probably as good than most peoples good bikes just shittier than my race bike.

burnthesheep

Pop-in update:

The weather has turned locally for the good for spring. The days are getting longer. I've been able to get out more often.

This weekend did 17 mph avg for an hour and a half. No changes to start/stop settings on the app. All it is set to do is track the distance and the time, and give some split data every 5 miles. It never stops the timer.

So, this includes getting around "obstacles" such as some switchbacks by the river and slow areas over wooden bridges and busy areas, pulling into/out of the parking lot.

Again, the avg speed isn't the best indicator. Either way, I'm going further and quicker.

That last hour and a half trip could have gone better but I neglected to take anything but water and was damn hungry about 45 minutes in. Big breakfast but the ride was through lunch time.

See you again in a while.......

markhewitt1978

Good work! Keep at it. Note that it's said that every mph increase is twice has hard as the last!

homers_double

DavidJB wrote:

I have to be riding at around 260-270w @70kg on my training bike to average over 20mph...most people on here would really struggle with that

DavidJB wrote:

What I describe as 'sh!tty training bike' is probably as good than most peoples good bikes just shittier than my race bike.

You're quite something aren't you.

Dodger747

Alex99

Dodger747 wrote:

20mph for 3 hours is pretty good going - I don't think I've ever managed that apart from when riding in a group/racing.

Realistically, it will have to be pan flat to get anywhere near that...

"I don't think I've ever managed that apart from when riding in a group/racing."

...with 4.9 w/kg? Is that for one minute then?

Bobbinogs

burnthesheep wrote:

Pop-in update:

The weather has turned locally for the good for spring. The days are getting longer. I've been able to get out more often.

This weekend did 17 mph avg for an hour and a half...

Great stuff, that's really good progress but the problem is always that with increasing speed comes the increasing resistance. A few times I get back from a ride to find my avg is, say, 19.6mph and think "Oh, with a little more effort I could have got over the 20mph" but I know from painful experience that it is a lot easier said than done. 17 -> 18 is a big step, 18 -> 19 is a lot tougher still, and then getting over 20mph is really hard for us mere mortals, particularly if done alone (pan flat or not). Keeping that for 3 hours will be a good challenge so it is a very commendable target and could amuse you for some time.

"was damn hungry about 45 minutes in". Your body will adapt. It doesn't actually need anything after 45 minutes if you are eating a decent diet as your glycogen should easily carry you for a hard effort of up to 2 hours (you need to start eating after 90 mins to avoid depletion before then). Gels are for pros or the odd pickup when needed, real food will suffice for most rides even all day ones.

Keep riding the bike!

Dodger747

Alex99 wrote:

Dodger747 wrote:

20mph for 3 hours is pretty good going - I don't think I've ever managed that apart from when riding in a group/racing.

Realistically, it will have to be pan flat to get anywhere near that...

"I don't think I've ever managed that apart from when riding in a group/racing."

...with 4.9 w/kg? Is that for one minute then?

Terrain!
Avg. speed is a pretty useless metric...

Alex99

Dodger747 wrote:

Alex99 wrote:

Dodger747 wrote:

20mph for 3 hours is pretty good going - I don't think I've ever managed that apart from when riding in a group/racing.

Realistically, it will have to be pan flat to get anywhere near that...

"I don't think I've ever managed that apart from when riding in a group/racing."

...with 4.9 w/kg? Is that for one minute then?

Terrain!
Avg. speed is a pretty useless metric...

I know.... but, are you riding on sand dunes?