Increasing overall speed

RichW1982

I have been cycling every week for over a year and just can't get my overall speed up. I'm averaging about 10mph over a 30 mile route. My bike is a giant dify5 and is standard apart from clip in pedals. Any hints and tips would be great

Many thanks Richard

slowbike

You're riding once a week?
30 miles @ 10mph - sounds slow, but it could be a hilly 30 or you're riding into a headwind.
If it's hilly then your weight may impact on it.
If your username indicates your DOB then at 35 you should be able to get faster - if that's what you want - but 30 miles once a week isn't going to be your way of doing it.

step83

Exactly what Slowbike said, I did 36 miles at the weekend an averaged 12.1 mph, 2,257ft of climbing (yeah im rubbish). Only way to get faster is ride more frequently be that in the wild or a turbo.

May be worth breaking down your ride, where are you slowest is it a hill(s) or are you running out of energy toward the end of the ride.

RichW1982

I cycle most days to work but i don't count them as it's only 1.5 miles. I do one big ride at a weekend. Might look at a turbo so I can ride at home while wife is at work

slowbike

you're right - 1.5 miles doesn't count ... I did that on the turbo just fettling the bike having not used it for a bit.

If you can up the mileage one way to between 5 and 10 miles that would help - and save the turbo requirement.

How do you approach your big ride? Do you break it down into sections, give yourself little goals to achieve?

Alex99

RichW1982 wrote:

I cycle most days to work but i don't count them as it's only 1.5 miles. I do one big ride at a weekend. Might look at a turbo so I can ride at home while wife is at work

If you're doing the same thing all the time, it might be unreasonable to expect to get faster, unless your effort / focus increases to meet a target of some kind. Are you pushing hard and making an intense effort when you're riding? In other words, are you actually trying to go faster, or just wondering whether you will?

MiddleRinger

Pedal harder!

ugo.santalucia

It must be a fairly hilly loop you do, or you have to stop a lot at junctions, otherwise flat 12-13 mph average speed are accessible to anyone without breaking a sweat.
Do you have an idea how hilly it is?

super_davo

When you say overall speed I think it's clear you mean average... It's often said that the way to a faster average speed not by going faster but by slowing down less. So where do you go slow? Up hills? Over particular terrain? Wind?

There is loads you can do to increase average speed but at your level, the best way by far will be to ride more. If your commute is only 1.5 miles take a detour a couple of evenings a week and extend it to 5 miles then 7.5 then 10 - anything to increase the volume. If you do it twice a week for a bit then up it to three times that will also help.

Keep doing your weekend ride at the same time, focusing on the areas where you are slow. If it's hills, use the gears and spin up. If you need to lose weight that will come in time from more riding (as long as you eat reasonably sensibly). Choose a route without too many junctions and decent roads to eliminate anything other than you and your fitness from the equation. Keep doing the same route from time to time to gauge improvements. If you set aside 3 hours for your route when you can complete it faster then up the distance so you keep you 3 hour slot but instead do 40, 45 miles etc.

That's the basics anyway. Report progress back and there will plenty more help from all sources I'm sure!

imafatman

The only way you are going to get faster is by pushing yourself. Try some high intensity interval training to start with. Do short sharp sprints as fast as you possibly can, rest and then repeat.

burnthesheep

imafatman wrote:

The only way you are going to get faster is by pushing yourself. Try some high intensity interval training to start with. Do short sharp sprints as fast as you possibly can, rest and then repeat.

QFT.

In his case, I'm still curious about route profile (elevation) and weight. Weight isn't anything to hold against someone, it should just be seen as a new challenge and outlet to get faster. If the terrain is steep and you weigh a bit, it will be slower.

I recommend starting up an app like Strava, if you haven't, and enter your weight. This will allow you to see a "fake power" it estimates for a ride. Do a ride, then post up here. Nothing to worry about, it could help a lot having someone look at it.

It will also give you a good idea of your power (for flats) and your ftp (overall and hills).

I'm right at a year now myself. I started at about 13 mph on short 10 to 12 mile rides. Probably was an ftp of about 2 (170w and 82kg). A week ago I tested at 220w and 75kg. Up right at 3. I fancy getting to 3.5 before the end of the year.

I'd love to break 3 hours time in a 1/2 IM in the bike segment.

I do an intense interval workout for 30 to 35 min once a week in-season and twice a week in winter. In winter I'd do one 2 hr ride per week. In-season now I do about 50 to 80 mi a week.

I am crunched for time, so I rely on off-days to recover. It's not advised but almost all of my rides are at solid pace. I enjoy going fast. I never really do a "zone 2" easy spin ride. I instead stretch/relax on my off days.

I'm more interested in chasing top 10's in segments and my ftp now, but for what it's worth I went from maybe 17 mph in flats a year ago for maybe an hour to 21 mph now for about as long as I want.

imposter2.0

RichW1982 wrote:

I have been cycling every week for over a year and just can't get my overall speed up. I'm averaging about 10mph over a 30 mile route. My bike is a giant dify5 and is standard apart from clip in pedals. Any hints and tips would be great

Many thanks Richard

Is a speed increase your primary objective?

Midlands Grimpeur

As a lot of people have said there are many variables such as terrain, fitness etc. which impact average speed. Whilst this is a massive generalisation a lot of people new to cycling struggle to increase average speed because they are either not fit enough or not pushing themselves. If it is the former ride more, if the latter ride harder!

To give my own experience when I started (a long time ago!), after a couple of years I had plateaued at around 15/16mph, generally cycling around 3-4 times a week. I had built up half decent fitness but was not pushing myself anywhere near as hard (I now know most rides I was doing would have been equivalent of zone 1/2). One day a mate told me to put it in the big ring and go as hard as I could without blowing up and that was the start of learning about riding at a greater intensity and making bigger fitness gains. From there an increase in speed came pretty rapidly.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Strava (and a gadget to use it on, such as an Android mobile), heart rate monitor, search out your local hills to link some together in a training loops. Create segments if they don't exist already, concentrate on your own records.

As I've found out recently, changing my own training from local hill loops and sometimes extending my commute home to venturing out into more rural parts, getting away from numerous junctions and traffic lights can make a big difference to average speed.

Another thing I have learnt the hard way since January is vary your training, trying to hammer it all ride too frequently will catch up with your body. Accept that some days will be rest days each week, other days mix up moderate/hard effort, other days hammer it.

RichW1982

Imposter wrote:

RichW1982 wrote:

I have been cycling every week for over a year and just can't get my overall speed up. I'm averaging about 10mph over a 30 mile route. My bike is a giant dify5 and is standard apart from clip in pedals. Any hints and tips would be great

Many thanks Richard

Is a speed increase your primary objective?

I am doing the London to Brighton in September and at 10mph im looking at 6 hours with no stops which is not possible once i add in water stops and food the time goes up.

RichW1982

Slowbike wrote:

you're right - 1.5 miles doesn't count ... I did that on the turbo just fettling the bike having not used it for a bit.

If you can up the mileage one way to between 5 and 10 miles that would help - and save the turbo requirement.

How do you approach your big ride? Do you break it down into sections, give yourself little goals to achieve?

Unfortunatly increasing distance is not possible i get home as the Wife goes to work so i have the kids. looking at a turbo trainer as i could keep cycling indoors when home

RichW1982

Not sure how to add strava info ?onto here

milemuncher1

Practice makes perfect. Vary your distance and the terrain ( hills etc. ) and also vary the terrain distribution ( the points in the ride where you put the hills in). Then alternate between the terrain-y rides, and a flat ride. You'll soon find your average speeds increase.

imafatman

RichW1982 wrote:

Not sure how to add strava info ?onto here

Login to strava.com and then find your ride and just copy the link in the address bar. E.g. one of mine: https://www.strava.com/activities/948939986

You can also hit the share button within the app itself and it will give you a similiar link which you can copy and paste. Just make sure you set your privacy settings within the app settings depending on how you feel about sharing data.

yiannism

When i started 1,5 years a go 5 km flat it was too much for me, now i feel confident that i can climb almost everywhere, and go as far as i want. As everyone said ride, and put target, every time try to go on longer rides, and climb a bit. Group rides its gonna help you a lot. At the beginning you will hate the bicycle, everybody will be faster than you, and will push your limits, but this is how you will get better. If you dont quit after 3-4 months you will be much much stronger than you are now, and your lvl the improvement will be rapid. So the answer is very simple. Ride as much as you can.

napoleond

You need to get a turbo to get some riding done in the week.
Consistency, overload and rest are all required to improve. Your current situation is not going to improve your fitness by much if at all.
Even just doing 20-30 mins 3 times in the week watching telly is a start. Then after a couple of weeks or so start adding hard efforts in to one of those sessions, so that you're breathing heavily and would find conversation difficult.
After a few more weeks, start doing that twice a week with one steady (conversational) session. Toy round with longer sessions, intervals of different length etc. There's loads on the internet and YouTube to look at.
But most of all enjoy it.

burnthesheep

I tried a GCN show youtube "spin class" on a trainer recently. It was easy to follow and interactive with a little catchy music. I'd give it a decent score.

Worth a shot.

dannbodge

As above.
The GCN training videos are very good if you want to follow some structured training rather than just pedalling for 30mins.

burnthesheep

Not to beat a dead horse, but last night my ride was a great example of avg speed being very misleading.

Avg of 14.5 mph for 50 mi and 2700 ft and a avg of 145 fake Strava watts. Seems low to me. But digging into the segments and actual hills and times spent pedaling I was close to around 200 watts avg. and 17 to 18 mph.

Why?

I had to roll at like 8-10 mph for a couple miles around a lake with tons of pedestrians. Got lost 3x and had to fart around in the street trying to decipher my route map. Had to carry my bike around a piece of trail that the recent flooding had lifted and moved 10 feet over. Rolled kinda slow on about 1 mile of sidewalk to bypass a busy 4-lane road without bike lanes.

So, this is some reasons why I abandoned my speed goals and now have different "metrics" for improvement.

Cheers and good luck!

daniel_b

RichW1982 wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

you're right - 1.5 miles doesn't count ... I did that on the turbo just fettling the bike having not used it for a bit.

If you can up the mileage one way to between 5 and 10 miles that would help - and save the turbo requirement.

How do you approach your big ride? Do you break it down into sections, give yourself little goals to achieve?

Unfortunatly increasing distance is not possible i get home as the Wife goes to work so i have the kids. looking at a turbo trainer as i could keep cycling indoors when home

I agree with you - I'm not in exactly the same situation, but two nights a week my gf is out at big band rehearsal and Yoga, and I use those opportunities (Once my daughter is in bed) to turbo for 3.5 hours.
Additionally as I work from home two days a week, I use those days lunch hours (Or extend and work later) to carry out another 2-3 hours.
Finally I complete a 5th ride on the Friday evening, usually at the same time as my gf - we are turbo geeks!#
If the opportunity is there, I will also go out on a Saturday.

Personally, I would recommend Trainerroad - I have seen a 50% increase in my FTP over a 12 week period, and it's made an enormous difference to my motivation to train, and I now look forwards to reaping the benefits out on the road, and doing my bike justice!
I'm currently a smidge under 3 watts per kg, and will be aiming to get to 3.5 this year, and hoping to achieve 4 by this time next year.

If you do go the turbo route, I strongly recommend investing in a fan of some kind, and also a 'smart' trainer, that the likes of Trainerroad can control the resistance or power output of during their workouts.

veryslowtwitch

If you want to do your 60 mile ride and can get out on the road then join a club and ride with people a little fitter than you. You will push yourself more and get fitter, but more importantly you will learn to ride in a bunch, feed and drink, how your body works, how to dress, how to set up your bike and how to ride efficiently and sort out problems. It's also fun to share the work. You can't do any of that on a turbo.
It's light until late and most clubs will have midweek sessions for an hour or two in the summer.

ProjectObject

Are you making the best use of your gears?

daniel_b

RichW1982 wrote:

Unfortunatly increasing distance is not possible i get home as the Wife goes to work so i have the kids.

I'm guessing this might limit/prohibit the op's opportunity to join any evening rides.

imposter2.0

ProjectObject wrote:

Are you making the best use of your gears?

If you were able to describe what 'best use' is, then he might be in a better position to answer...?

milemuncher1

Imposter wrote:

ProjectObject wrote:

Are you making the best use of your gears?

If you were able to describe what 'best use' is, then he might be in a better position to answer...?

Are you using your gears in a way that ensures your Powahhhh / heart rate is as constant as possible, without great big variations, that is to say, if you plotted a graph of Powwwaaaahhh against points on your route, would it look like an electrocardiograph, or a gently undulating sine wave, or in the best case scenario, completely flat for each stretch of the route, with some steps up where required to deal with terrain, is what I think he's alluding to, when he says "are you making best use of your gears".

awavey

Milemuncher1 wrote:

Imposter wrote:

ProjectObject wrote:

Are you making the best use of your gears?

If you were able to describe what 'best use' is, then he might be in a better position to answer...?

Are you using your gears in a way that ensures your Powahhhh / heart rate is as constant as possible, without great big variations, that is to say, if you plotted a graph of Powwwaaaahhh against points on your route, would it look like an electrocardiograph, or a gently undulating sine wave, or in the best case scenario, completely flat for each stretch of the route, with some steps up where required to deal with terrain, is what I think he's alluding to, when he says "are you making best use of your gears".

but how would you possibly know that without measuring the power accurately, Id assumed you were going to suggest something like work out your cadence, which you can just count how many times your knee goes up whilst pedalling across 15seconds, quadruple it to give a rough ballpark figure and keep it around 80-90 on the flat and 60-80 up hills, and change gear accordingly to maintain it.