Originally Posted by
MattTheHat
Agreed. The amount of work done will be roughly the same.
And it depends on what you’re training for…if anything. If you’re training for riding 100 mile rides, going as hard as you can for 20 miles isn’t going to help…you’ll have 80 miles to go and you’re going to be tired. Lots of folks ride for the joy of seeing the world go by. The faster you go, the less time you get to enjoy the scenery.
I regularly ride a fixed gear on a flattish riverside trail. My speed varies quite a bit and there are a couple of segments where I sometimes do TT's all out. Both are about a mile long. Strava tells me my average most days is about 12 mph. At my age I can still to about twenty for a mile or so. If I don't stop so often to take pictures it goes up to fourteen or fifteen.