Originally Posted by
genesis5521
I'm 64 years old. I've had a pretty nice Gary Fisher Mountain bike (Hoo Koo E Koo) for over 10 years. I really like it. Most years I just played around on the fire roads with it. This year I started riding it on the road (cause the deer flies were eating me alive on the trails). I just put 80 PSI mountain bike slicks on it.
Three weeks ago I started out with 10 mile road rides (averaging 13 MPH) and thought I was doing pretty good. So I went to 20 mile rides (still averaging 13 MPH). Now I'm up to 40 mile road rides every other day (still at 13 MPH average). I just can seem to get past that 13 MPH average. I go for 20 miles straight (no stops). Then I take a half hour (3 cigarette) break, and do the next 20 miles none stop. 40 miles takes me just over 3 hours, and I'm hump'n (and I mean hump'n) the whole time at the fastest rate I can sustain (13 MPH average). My body still isn't use to this "abuse". This is all on flat level roads. No hills. No ups or downs. I'm 64 years old, 5'10, 200 pounds, 38 waist. One chart I found said that I'm burning 885 calories an hour. That's 2655 calories burned over 3 hours. That's gotta be a good thing ~ right. I'd like to do a century 100 mile ride, but I think my average MPH would drop to about 12 MPH over 100 miles. I was checking out some road bikes. One store told me that if I'm averaging 13 MPH with a mountain bike, I should be able to average 16 to 18 MPH with a road bike. I just don't think that's possible given my age and level of physical condition. On a physical condition scale from 1 (lowest) to 10 I'd rate myself a 6 (maybe just slightly above average for my age) only because I do 40 mile, 3 hour, sustained work-outs. And much of that is just by sheer determination, and not because I'm in such great shape. If I'm averaging 13 MPH on my mountain bike on a 40 mile (3 hour) workout, what's a realistic average MPH if I got a road bike. Lets be realistic. Given the same level of effort, I don't think it would go up at all. What do you guys think.
Don <><
PS: Hey I just noticed that I'm a Junior Member now. I joined this forum just 2 weeks ago as a "Newbie". Thanks for the "promotion".
Gotta give you an A for effort. I use to ride a Walmart Schwinn S30 and it was 32lb. I averaged around 12MPH for an hour at most. When I got an 22lb aluminum roadie, I was biking 16MPH because road bikes make you try harder to catch up with other roadies and going faster was sooo cool. When I finally switched to my latest bike with good gear switching, I can do a consistent 20MPH because I learned to bike at a much higher cadence. I'm 5'8 and 185lb with a 34 waist and 22 y/o. If I had nerves of steel, I can probably do 23MPH for an hour. I can dance past some of my lighter friends on flat land but get left in the dust on hills. I think you should be able to do 16-18 with a good bike.