Ride speeds...

nasha48

Hey all. Just wondering how many ever go out for a 20 - 30 mile blast off road with the sole intention of getting the best average speed over the whole distance? When on my todd i tend to do this frequently. Small degrees of climbing locally (sub 1000ft) brings me in at shades above/below 14mph when fitness is good. Interested to know what others hit when pushing hard as a comparison? More like 10mph with friends and a few more hills.

kajjal

It really depends where you ride and how far. Trail centres are good fun but normally easy enough as they are designed to be ridden. Xc riding on natural trails tends to be harder as it is not designed to be ridden and not really maintained. Add in rough trails that are very steep and average speed dives.

Strava is good for seeing how fast you are just remember we share the trails with others so don't turn into strava man. On my last ride i was eight fastest on a segment at 9.5mph but on another 26mph which put me 6th fastest, both very different trails.

The main thing is enjoy your riding.

oodboo

I just ride my bike and have fun. Leave the worrying about speed to the roadies or pros. Ride enough and you will get faster, ride too much and you'll slow back down.

kickaxe

oodboo wrote:

I just ride my bike and have fun. Leave the worrying about speed to the roadies or pros. Ride enough and you will get faster, ride too much and you'll slow back down.

Exactly. To get better I do often decide to ride a specific trail as fast as I feel comfortable riding it, but neither faster nor slower. Really helps to keep your learning going.

nasha48

Cheers guys, interesting reading. Couldn't agree more about just going out to enjoy, which is exactly what i do. Suppose i just occasionally want to get the fitness up to enjoy it even more and find it helps me attack some of the downhill blasts even quicker when feeling stronger in body. Problem for me is that here in the New Forest its pretty flat in the most part so if I'm out for a ride on my own i find it good to make a flatish route more interesting by keeping a pace up and feel I've achieved a bit more once home. Obviously its also a good measure of where you're at compared to, say, 2mph slower doing the same route but still pushing hard, when you've not ridden much for a few weeks and the legs burn out a bit.

peat

Keep doing what you're doing.

While i do go out just to enjoy the ride, I enjoy it more if i can go fast and not blow out of my arse. I tend to do what you do, but i am intrigued by the benefits of targeted interval training. Going steady and then a couple of minutes of balls-out attack, then rest and repeat.

'Just riding' will only make you faster to a point. I did a 2 month cycle tour of New Zealand this winter and day after day of pottering around at 60-70% effort racked up some serious mileage but made me very slow when i got back to my racier bikes. I'm only just starting to get back to getting the odd Strava PR now.

Love and Light.

Crazyjenkins01

Would be interested in how the interval training helps. Where/when to attack... Uphill, descending? Both in a pattern? How long to attack? 30secs? 2mins? I spend most of my time climbing blowing out my as* then recovering on descent!

shawny

Get to know the local strava segments or create your own, and attack those for interval training. Gives you a good idea of how your trainings going and how you compare to others. Just a bit of fun

Rookie1986

I have a local up and down, it's a basic route so I usually ride this as more of a "fitness training" option. It's just about 10 miles in total so a good distance to measure time over and ideal when I'm looking to improve both speed and stamina. The best part is its mainly old railway so can be ridden all year round to keep fitness up ready for the main season