What's average speed?

The same as with any other bike on any other terrain in any other
condition:

Fast enough to give you good workout without leaving you totally
wasted.

- -

"May you have the winds at your back,
And a really low gear for the hills!"

Chris Zacho ~ "Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"

Chris'Z Corner
http://www.geocities.com/czcorner

Sid said:

Comrades,

What's the feeling on a respectable average speed? OK, we've
obviously got to take some controls and circumstances, so let's say...
what's the average speed that would be considered reasonable for a
knobbly mountain bike along the flat, on a good road with zero wind?

What would be reasonable, as a sustained pace (considering one might
be doing 30-50 miles which includes significant hills at many stages),
when travelling along the flat on a decent racer?

You've made the question too complex. In general, with a consistent,
non-athletic, recreational rider riding on the flats with no wind, the
following are not unreasonable:

Year one - 12mph, with bursts up to 15mph.
Year two - 15mph, with bursts up to 20mph
Year three - 18 mph, with bursts up to 25mph.

There is usually continued improvement, but at a slower rate. Even
experienced recreational riders have difficulty riding a 10K ITT at 24mph,
or so I'm told. ;-)

Athletes with talent and phenoms would routinely bypass this.

Those 'levels' are roughly similar to Class C, B, and A type group rides.

Some people never train consistently enough to get up to group A rides,
however they still have a lot of fun riding the bike. Many cross-country
riders will travel at average speeds of 11 and 12 mph for 50-80 miles per
day, for 5-7 days in a row and then recover for a day and do it again, on
literally no training - they aim to get fit 'on the road'.

Some non-athletes who train very consistently and put in 8-10 years of base
training can expect to lead group A rides even in their 50s and 60s, and
beyond.

Quoted message said:

Hills are so variable it hardly makes much sense to look at average
speeds up them, so I'm asking anyone kind enough to tell me what they
think would be a decent effort along such flats, but also assuming
it's not a one-off effort and there is much hill work to be done
later.

Hills are more about cadence than speed. Typically a 5% hill is ridden by
most consistent, non-athletic, or recreational riders at about 8 to 12mph,
depending on the length of the climb. If they specialize on hills this can
go up to 14-15mph. Pros and talented young riders will ride up a 5% hill
like there is no hill.

Care to explain your need to know this information? It's mostly about
finding your own level, consistency in training and putting in miles and
time in the saddle. No matter what your speed or ability, in cities with
active clubs you'll always find some nice person(s) to ride with.

Again, these numbers are relative. When I was 19 I jumped on a 'racing'
style 10-speed bike for the first time and rode 25 miles in hills in about
80 minutes, and felt no negative effects the next day. However I had lots
of training in other sports, and had a quite strenuous summer job for the
preceeding two seasons. In addition, iirc, I had no sense of 'trying to
race', or trying to ride hard. Now, 30 years later, I hope to be able to
ride like this in about 3-4-5 years from now. YMMV.

jj

Quoted message said:

Thanks,

James.

jj <[email hidden]> wrote:
:> On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:43:37 GMT, Sid <[email hidden]>
:> wrote:
:>
:> >Comrades,
:> >
:> >What's the feeling on a respectable average speed? OK, we've
:> >obviously got to take some controls and circumstances, so let's
:> >say... what's the average speed that would be considered reasonable
:> >for a knobbly mountain bike along the flat, on a good road with
:> >zero wind?
:> >
:> >What would be reasonable, as a sustained pace (considering one might
:> >be doing 30-50 miles which includes significant hills at many
:> >stages), when travelling along the flat on a decent racer?
:>
:> You've made the question too complex. In general, with a consistent,
:> non-athletic, recreational rider riding on the flats with no wind,
:> the following are not unreasonable:
:>
:> Year one - 12mph, with bursts up to 15mph.
:> Year two - 15mph, with bursts up to 20mph

After riding a 36-mile course this weekend in NC (where my new GF lives), I
discovered I'm about in this range now. I haven't been riding that much
this year, due to various reasons. I find it hard to get above 20 mph on a
flat with the gearing on my bike.

I'm a little bit disappointed. I gotta find more time to ride. Having
bursitis in my right knee ain't helping, though.

You sound as if you're making good progress, though. Keep it up, bro.

Quoted message said:

Hills are more about cadence than speed. Typically a 5% hill is ridden by
most consistent, non-athletic, or recreational riders at about 8 to 12mph,
depending on the length of the climb. If they specialize on hills this can
go up to 14-15mph. Pros and talented young riders will ride up a 5% hill
like there is no hill.

Wow! you know a lot of super climbers. We have a "hill" here in Tucson
that goes at an average of 5% for ~25 miles. My experience on this hill
(even for parts of it, is quite a bit slower.

Here is what I see:

Most "recreational" riders ride it at between 6 and 8 mph.
Talented and/or well trained recreational riders can add 1-2 mph to the
top of that range.
Young amatuer racers are faster yet but still not much above 10 mph.
There are many pros who train here in the winter and they are faster
yet- but no one rides it like there is no hill.

You may be right if your 5% hill is short, say ~ 1km but on a long
climb at that grade speeds will come down a lot.

gds said:

Quoted message said:

Hills are more about cadence than speed. Typically a 5% hill is ridden by
most consistent, non-athletic, or recreational riders at about 8 to 12mph,
depending on the length of the climb. If they specialize on hills this can
go up to 14-15mph. Pros and talented young riders will ride up a 5% hill
like there is no hill.

Wow! you know a lot of super climbers. We have a "hill" here in Tucson
that goes at an average of 5% for ~25 miles. My experience on this hill
(even for parts of it, is quite a bit slower.

Definitely depends on the length of the hill. I have a 2 mile hill that I
do hill repeats on and I'm still 30lbs overweight. I get to the top in 9
minutes, and that's at 70% effort. Not sure what that calculates out to,
but I see a lot of 8mphs on my speedometer. Perhaps I've overestimated and
this hill is closer to 4%. I think the site says 4-5%, but there's one
section that goes up to 5-6% for a short section.

The longest hill I've ridden is 4 miles and I was in one gear above granny.
I'm sure I was in the 5mph range. Sorry about the confusion. During that
ride I saw a paceline of thin, fit looking riders accelerating up the hill
going the other way and they literally rolled up that thing (2 miles) like
it was not even there. So it's a matter of my skewed perception. Perhaps
they were riding at 10 mph, but it looked like 15 to me. Apologies.

Quoted message said:

Here is what I see:

Most "recreational" riders ride it at between 6 and 8 mph.
Talented and/or well trained recreational riders can add 1-2 mph to the
top of that range.
Young amatuer racers are faster yet but still not much above 10 mph.
There are many pros who train here in the winter and they are faster
yet- but no one rides it like there is no hill.

You may be right if your 5% hill is short, say ~ 1km but on a long
climb at that grade speeds will come down a lot.

I was definitely talking about hills that are just barely 5% and short (2
to 4 miles). My experience is quite limited. Sorry about that. ;-)

jj

jj said:

The longest hill I've ridden is 4 miles and I was in one gear above granny.
I'm sure I was in the 5mph range. Sorry about the confusion. During that
ride I saw a paceline of thin, fit looking riders accelerating up the hill
going the other way and they literally rolled up that thing (2 miles) like
it was not even there. So it's a matter of my skewed perception. Perhaps
they were riding at 10 mph, but it looked like 15 to me. Apologies.

I was definitely talking about hills that are just barely 5% and short (2
to 4 miles). My experience is quite limited. Sorry about that. ;-)

jj

]

Yep, it is often a matter of perception of relative speed. When
slugging up the hill at 6 or 7 mph if someone passes you doing 9 mph it
seems like they are flying. But remember 9 mph is almost 30% faster
than 7 mph - so they really moving on by at a fast clip.

gds said:

Wow! you know a lot of super climbers. We have a "hill" here in Tucson
that goes at an average of 5% for ~25 miles. My experience on this hill
(even for parts of it, is quite a bit slower.

Here is what I see:

Most "recreational" riders ride it at between 6 and 8 mph.
Talented and/or well trained recreational riders can add 1-2 mph to the
top of that range.

A couple of things to consider:

1 - length of the climb; a 500-yard hill at 5% is a lot different from
a 25-mile climb at the same gradient

2 - without survey measurements it can be difficult to get accurate
hill gradient figures: one man's 5% can be another man's 8%. I once
rode with a guy on what I thought was a 6-7% grade, but his
inclinometer said it was 10%. (I use topo maps to get an overall
average for a hill, but that's error-prone due to gaps between contours
and measuring curvy lines.)

With those qualifiers, my experience has been: a long, ~5% grade means
~6MPH for beginners, ~6-8MPH as you get more fit, and ~8-12MPH for very
fit riders. Racers and pros will be considerably faster than that.

I put a stopwatch on some local pros on a local hill one time. The
hill's about 1/4 mile long and rises about 160 feet (approx. 12%
gradient). For a non-racer, I think I'm a pretty strong climber. On a
good day, I'll do this hill in about 2.5 minutes (6MPH) but I'll gasp
for air at the top. The pros did it in 1.5 minutes (10MPH) and they
were chatting to each other all the way.

-JR

SlowRider said:

With those qualifiers, my experience has been: a long, ~5% grade means
~6MPH for beginners, ~6-8MPH as you get more fit, and ~8-12MPH for very
fit riders. Racers and pros will be considerably faster than that.

Still wow for me. Around here Beginners don't climb long 5% hills :-)

On 13 Jun 2005 09:54:31 -0700, "SlowRider" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

gds said:

Wow! you know a lot of super climbers. We have a "hill" here in Tucson
that goes at an average of 5% for ~25 miles. My experience on this hill
(even for parts of it, is quite a bit slower.

Here is what I see:

Most "recreational" riders ride it at between 6 and 8 mph.
Talented and/or well trained recreational riders can add 1-2 mph to the
top of that range.

A couple of things to consider:

1 - length of the climb; a 500-yard hill at 5% is a lot different from
a 25-mile climb at the same gradient

2 - without survey measurements it can be difficult to get accurate
hill gradient figures: one man's 5% can be another man's 8%. I once
rode with a guy on what I thought was a 6-7% grade, but his
inclinometer said it was 10%. (I use topo maps to get an overall
average for a hill, but that's error-prone due to gaps between contours
and measuring curvy lines.)

With those qualifiers, my experience has been: a long, ~5% grade means
~6MPH for beginners, ~6-8MPH as you get more fit, and ~8-12MPH for very
fit riders. Racers and pros will be considerably faster than that.

I put a stopwatch on some local pros on a local hill one time. The
hill's about 1/4 mile long and rises about 160 feet (approx. 12%
gradient). For a non-racer, I think I'm a pretty strong climber. On a
good day, I'll do this hill in about 2.5 minutes (6MPH) but I'll gasp
for air at the top. The pros did it in 1.5 minutes (10MPH) and they
were chatting to each other all the way.

-JR

Thanks JR. Nominated as the sexiest post of the day, uh, in the spirit of
'bike pron'.

Appreciate your august input, good buddy.

jj

SlowRider said:

2 - without survey measurements it can be difficult to get accurate
hill gradient figures: one man's 5% can be another man's 8%.

I picked up my bike from a resurrection/overhaul on Saturday and took
it out for the first time in too many years. I live in a one street
small town along a river, with only three possible exits from town.
One way is up a 3 mile climb with no shoulders and no sight lines.
One way is a long 7 mile climb through the woods over a badly surfaced
road with no shoulders and no sight lines. Hobson's choice says that
I am leaving town on a ride on the third way, starting with a two mile
climb up a hill with a state highway administration "Trucks 8% Grade"
warning sign on it, which at least has shoulders. I was actually
surprised to make it to the top on the first try, using my granny
gear. Guess all the ice skating the last year has left me with some
sort of leg muscles...I can't say much about the speed, though.

Rob Dean

I am a beginner and I have been riding 3 times a week for the past 2-3
months. My usual route is a mostly flat 15 mile course and I can do it in
an hour. I usually do the first 2 miles at 10-12 and finish the last 3-4
miles at about 16 mph (which is my uppermost sustained limit with my hybrid
bike and my outta shape self). I am 35 and this is the first exercise I
have gotten in 10 years (and I have lost 12 pounds to boot).

Interesting side note; I was riding and a much younger kid on a street bike
was about 100 yards ahead of me and I decided to try to pass him.. I swear
he must have made a point NOT to let me, but it didn't take long and before
I knew it he was behind me. Now the funny part. As I was passing him I
looked at my speedo and I was amazed that I was doing over 20 mph!!! I was
on the flat and I never even approached this fast before. I guess it was
the excitment of catching him that made me forget to look down at my speed.
I usually watch my speedo every 2 seconds and I guess it has been working
against me. Unfortunately, my legs realized that I can't ride that fast and
I was passed myself a short while later. Anyway, the morale is I should
throw my damn speedo away and just ride, I bet I would go faster and with
less stress....

FWIW

"Sid" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Comrades,

What's the feeling on a respectable average speed? OK, we've
obviously got to take some controls and circumstances, so let's say...
what's the average speed that would be considered reasonable for a
knobbly mountain bike along the flat, on a good road with zero wind?

What would be reasonable, as a sustained pace (considering one might
be doing 30-50 miles which includes significant hills at many stages),
when travelling along the flat on a decent racer?

Hills are so variable it hardly makes much sense to look at average
speeds up them, so I'm asking anyone kind enough to tell me what they
think would be a decent effort along such flats, but also assuming
it's not a one-off effort and there is much hill work to be done
later.

Thanks,

James.

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 23:11:42 -0700, "kramer" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I am a beginner and I have been riding 3 times a week for the past 2-3
months. My usual route is a mostly flat 15 mile course and I can do it in
an hour. I usually do the first 2 miles at 10-12 and finish the last 3-4
miles at about 16 mph (which is my uppermost sustained limit with my hybrid
bike and my outta shape self). I am 35 and this is the first exercise I
have gotten in 10 years (and I have lost 12 pounds to boot).

Interesting side note; I was riding and a much younger kid on a street bike
was about 100 yards ahead of me and I decided to try to pass him.. I swear
he must have made a point NOT to let me, but it didn't take long and before
I knew it he was behind me. Now the funny part. As I was passing him I
looked at my speedo and I was amazed that I was doing over 20 mph!!! I was
on the flat and I never even approached this fast before. I guess it was
the excitment of catching him that made me forget to look down at my speed.
I usually watch my speedo every 2 seconds and I guess it has been working
against me. Unfortunately, my legs realized that I can't ride that fast and
I was passed myself a short while later. Anyway, the morale is I should
throw my damn speedo away and just ride, I bet I would go faster and with
less stress....

Why must it be one or the other? Unless you have some kind of
compulsive disorder, just don't look at the "speedo" every 2 seconds.
Having an odometer, comes in handy, no, they are not an absolute
necessity, but they have their uses.

It is nice to be able to track your progress. They are helpful on
organized rides, that often show distance to the next turn.

After rereading your last couple of sentences, maybe you should remove
it. I doubt that you will go faster, but if it is causing strees, then
maybe you can't deal with it.

Life is Good!
Jeff

Jeff Starr said:

Why must it be one or the other? Unless you have some kind of
compulsive disorder, just don't look at the "speedo" every 2 seconds.
Having an odometer, comes in handy, no, they are not an absolute
necessity, but they have their uses.

It is nice to be able to track your progress. They are helpful on
organized rides, that often show distance to the next turn.

Get a speedometer with cadence, and watch that. Or check the odometer.
There's more interesting things to watch than your speed, and if your
"speedo" is set to the more boring stuff, it gives you an incentive to
look at the interesting things.

Pat