prj71

My average is up to 18.5 now after dumping the croasstrail for a giant fast road

jskash

What do you attribute your increase in speed to in the difference in the two bikes?

ColdCase

Seems to be some rider variations as both my neighbor and I can maintain a 1-2 mph higher speed on my Crosstrail than his Fast Road. It may be more about the tires and weight, however. Then its much easier to go faster (on asphalt) on my buddie's Sirus than either of them. Perhaps something about the suspension fork and weight.

prj71

Less effort to pedal a 21 lb carbon bike vs. a 30 lb aluminum bike and 25c tires vs. 38c tires.

If Specialized were smart...They would offer the Crosstrail with a carbon fork option. The suspension fork on the Crosstrail is more or less useless dead weight in my opinion.

king_boru

Top speed on my Roam 2 was 48.2km/hr. Average speed based on 25km+ rides are 28.5km/hr. That's on new Continental Speed 700x35c tires @ 60psi. Will go up when I switch forks hopefully.

chong67

I did 43 miles my last ride and its the longest by far and I average about 9.5 mph using my Runtastic app. Is that good or bad?

king_boru

That's relative. Your fitness, weight, atmospheric conditions, lay of the land all play a part.

chong67

Does hybrid/fitness vs road bike make any difference? Big, small or no difference?

sh00k

if 9.5mph was your average for 43 miles, i'd say that's quite good. there's no good or bad and i am probably in the same range as you albeit on shorter rides, roughly ~10 miles.

As you ride more, shed weight, and take longer rides, your times will get better, especially if you push yourself when you feel like your legs are about to fall off. lol

chong67

Thanks. I use to get leg cramp, but I dont have it anymore. Maybe its getting better? I think I need to work on endurance next.

Laurido92

I've been doing a 6 mile (one way) commute and have been averaging 15 MPH going (morning) and about 13 MPH returning (afternoon). On the greenway ride (about 12-14 mile ride) I ended up with 12-14 MPH avg.

rnothog

12.7 mph on a Giant Roam 1 with stock tires and heavy thorn-proof tubes (almost mandatory here in my neck of the woods...er...desert).

The longest straightaway is about a quarter of a mile, lots of 90 degree turns (8 per mile). Those slow me down a bit.

Most of my rides are between 8 and 10.5 miles, and the temperature when I ride has seldom been below 100 degrees, even in the early hours of the evening.

By 10.5 miles, I need water, so I wrap it up. I'm nearly always within a half mile of home on these rides.

When I ride the canal bank, I carry H2O and ride about 13 miles. Average speed declines to about 11.7 mph factoring in road crossings and heat (brutal and unrelenting).

I want to go longer, but I think it'll have to wait for October and the slightly cooler daytime temps.

Thinking about a Specialized Roubaix, or the Giant FastRoad Comax, as n+1. Really like Giant. Big bang for the buck.

Milton Keynes

Looking through my stats, my average speed has been around 13.5 MPH and rising, though it does vary a lot from ride to ride. But more importantly, my average pace is getting better. In May the average was a 4:49 mile, June 4:36, in July 4:25. Not fair using August since I've only had one ride this morning which was 4:13. But as my weight drops and my legs get stronger, hopefully the average will be around a 4 minute mile or better.

rubiconazoid

My rides are a mix of modest climbs and flats and 2 or 3 downhills and I end up at about 12mph. Some days a little more, some days a little less.

rzhunemagu

Typically average 14-15mph on my Trek 8.3 DS
Distance could be anywhere from 20-50 miles. Fastest was 16mph on a 20 mile ride.

Bike Life

12.5 but if I ride all paved roads it goes up to maybe 14

SlinkyWizard

To me, that's impressive, I also work with the metric system, so an average of 28.5km/h over a distance of 25km +, my hat off to you, to me , as hard as I push , I have failed to reach that mark , you got good legs, torso, arms, the whole works. The only time I hit 28km/h is when I am riding on flat , and am lucky to have a nice tail wind.

king_boru

I played rugby when I was a younger man and worked manual labor jobs for years. Fortunately I have been blessed with massive legs. I sure didn't start off with those speeds when I climed back on a bike. My body has just seemed to remember what I once was in terms of fitness and strength. Long way to go still though.

khutch

Two weeks ago I did RAGBRAI. I'm sixty-something and ride a 2009 Fuji Absolute 1.0 with 38 mm Vittoria Voyager Hyper tires, a Jones Loop H Bar, and a trunk bag loaded with more stuff than I probably need, ever! Here is what my Garmin Edge 500 reported:

18.3 miles 10.7 mph 374 foc
68.81 miles 11.5 mph 3212 foc
76.3 miles 12.5 mph 4531 foc
58 miles 12.7 mph 3291 foc
97 miles 13.8 mph 3356 foc
50 miles 13.7 mph 1601 foc
65 miles 15 mph 2267 foc
48 miles 14.3 mph 1181 foc

Those are the mileages, average pedaling mph, and the feet of climb. The first day was a short ride to a tire dip site in the Missouri River the day before the ride proper started. It was beastly hot and humid that day and I felt so bad during that ride I seriously questioned whether I would make it through the week. The only bright spot was by the end of the ride I felt like maybe I was finally becoming accustomed to the heat (its been rather cool much of this year). I'd done around 1200 miles by RAGBRAI with very mixed results: sometimes feeling beat at the end of a ride, sometimes feeling strong. I've done close to 2k miles total each of the last seven or eight years.

During the week the temperatures started to moderate and they were quite pleasant by the end. You can see my performance increasing to match the temperatures and perhaps also as I became more accustomed to riding the hills of southern Iowa, hills are not a feature of my local riding. My Garmin altitude results are similar to but not identical to the figures published for the ride which are probably far more accurate. Friday's 65 miles at 15 mph is the longest I have ever ridden at that average speed, best previous effort was 50 miles and I don't think I have ever averaged more than 15 mph for any significant distance.

These RAGBRAI results are probably a good indication of what I can do on a course with few to no stops but many hills. My training rides all involve slow speed running through congested areas in towns so I rarely do better than 13 mph on one of those rides. You also tend to eat quite well on RAGBRAI whereas running short of glycogen is often a problem for me on my training rides. BTW, I had done little in the way of physical exercise except for brisk walking for several decades prior to taking up cycling again at 56 and there are people my age who do a lot better than this. Don't let your age fool you into thinking you can't ride well. I think I am riding better than I ever have because I just did not try very hard when I was young. The oldest person to register for the full ride this year at RAGBRAI was 90, I don't know if he did the full week but I am pretty sure he is the same person who passed me on a hill one day in Iowa last year with a sign on his bike that read "89 and going strong!"

OwenM

~13 when it's up and down, ~18 if it's relatively flat.
Averaged 14.6mph for 50 miles last week(only my second ride of that length). Mostly flat rail trail, but included a brief stop and half an hour of cruising around a small town.
Rail trails sure are a lot of fun compared to just riding hills around home for exercise!
2015/16 Trek FX 7.5

chong67

All my rides so I have been able to average 10 mph. I say I got to do better, then its always avg to 10 mph again. That means I am not improving?

Roamer2

My 15.1 on a short ride (6 miles) fell to 13.2 over 20.

Mostly flat, winding greenway trail. Only a few smallish hills is nice but it's hard to really get cranking because of all the turns & bridges, etc.

Oddly, the bike slowed way down as I got near my favorite micro brewery on the way back.....

immortal216

Last week was 8.7MPH
This week i am up to 10.2MPH spinning instead of mashing is the reason for the increased speed. I am still new to the whole riding thing. The area i live there are a lot of hills nothing really flat near me. The fastest i went (on a flat streach) was 18MPH it was awesome.

Craptacular8

Impressive, and a lot of good information. I don't know if the person you're referencing is one and the same, but I had heard of a man on this year's ride, about that same age, supposedly had done each ride since it's inception in 1981 (IIRC). Looking forward to doing RAGBRAI sometime in the near future.

The Chemist

Recently I've been doing about 25.5km/h average (moving), which is about 16mph. Total average, including stops (which are unavoidable due to all the traffic lights) is usually about 24km/h (15mph).