Average speed (laden) for LEJOG

[afanasiew]

In May I reckon the odds are against you.

Thanks for the upbeat encouragement, Paulatic! Should I complete, it won't detract from your achievement, you know.

I

It wasn’t any form encouragement. Just a fact observed from many years of cycling that in the Spring there are lots of winds from N&E. It’s probably why the ground dries up and we can sow seeds.

Should I complete, You've recently said you never fail and now there’s doubt?

I’m not quite sure whatever it is I’ve achieved has any revelance

As I said, as long as the body permits. I fell and broke a finger on LEJOG last year but it didn't hinder me. There's has to be a degree of circumspection about the physique at my age!

I'll start 18/05 and so run into June. I can't count the number of times I've said 'Flaming June' with irony, standing in the pouring rain!

[bluelagos]

...4 other things will too.

Hills
Poor road surfaces
Rest/feeding time
Fatigue

All of these meant that at worst, we were averaging 7 to 8 mph where my normal speed is upto 15mph.

So worth taking on view on those too, fair to say the hills in the SW on gravelly lanes are slower than fhe flat lanes in Essex!

Hi

How was your state of fitness? Your normal speed was 15mph on the flat, but was that laden?

My training rides will necessarily by hilly, here in Dorset. I'm currently fit for walking (e.g. a recent 30-miler with 5,250 ft of ascent), but that doesn't translate directly into cycling fitness - yesterday's 20-miler has left my thighs tired! I'm also doing numerous exercises aimed at avoiding knee issues.

According to the guy on whose route mine is based, 90% is on tarmac, the rest on packed dirt of grass, e.g. towpaths.

I'd hope that, by going S > N, the prevailing wind will help rather than hinder but of course, in this country, you never know!

I tend to have a huge breakfast then only cereal bar/peanuts/isotonic en route, with maybe a coffee & cake thrown in.

So, I'd hope to average at least 10 mph, ideally 12 mph, but I certainly take your points about the obstacles to that target.

Cheers

Tony

My levels of fitness? I cycled 4k miles this year and was happy doing 70 milers. But, living in Anglia I had very little experience of hills and most of those miles was on good flat roads. So my 15 mph saddle time shrank quickly as our routes were on hilly crappy lanes. Think I would invest loads of time in searching out decent and safe A and B roads if I did it again given just how poor many of the sustrans routes are. Or get locals or Lejoggers advice from people who,know them and can recommend them.

Cant begin to emphasise how poor (gravel, potholes, steep) some were and had it been wet I'd say some of them would be treacherous /unrideable. And I am not overly cautious generally!

Good luck and am sure people on here can help finding a suitable route to suit your needs.

[afanasiew]

...4 other things will too.

Hills
Poor road surfaces
Rest/feeding time
Fatigue

All of these meant that at worst, we were averaging 7 to 8 mph where my normal speed is upto 15mph.

So worth taking on view on those too, fair to say the hills in the SW on gravelly lanes are slower than fhe flat lanes in Essex!

Hi

How was your state of fitness? Your normal speed was 15mph on the flat, but was that laden?

My training rides will necessarily by hilly, here in Dorset. I'm currently fit for walking (e.g. a recent 30-miler with 5,250 ft of ascent), but that doesn't translate directly into cycling fitness - yesterday's 20-miler has left my thighs tired! I'm also doing numerous exercises aimed at avoiding knee issues.

According to the guy on whose route mine is based, 90% is on tarmac, the rest on packed dirt of grass, e.g. towpaths.

I'd hope that, by going S > N, the prevailing wind will help rather than hinder but of course, in this country, you never know!

I tend to have a huge breakfast then only cereal bar/peanuts/isotonic en route, with maybe a coffee & cake thrown in.

So, I'd hope to average at least 10 mph, ideally 12 mph, but I certainly take your points about the obstacles to that target.

Cheers

Tony

My levels of fitness? I cycled 4k miles this year and was happy doing 70 milers. But, living in Anglia I had very little experience of hills and most of those miles was on good flat roads. So my 15 mph saddle time shrank quickly as our routes were on hilly crappy lanes. Think I would invest loads of time in searching out decent and safe A and B roads if I did it again given just how poor many of the sustrans routes are. Or get locals or Lejoggers advice from people who,know them and can recommend them.

Cant begin to emphasise how poor (gravel, potholes, steep) some were and had it been wet I'd say some of them would be treacherous /unrideable. And I am not overly cautious generally!

Good luck and am sure people on here can help finding a suitable route to suit your needs.

Crikey! I'd need to average 117 miles per week if I were to fit in 4,000 miles between now and my departure. That's not going to happen.

I've customised this route:

https://www.cyclelejog.com/routefiles.html

by halving the number of stages and removing the excursion to Leeds (the author's home). Going east of the Pennines makes for a slightly less lumpy route, I gather.

[Brianjeff50]

I’ve just finished mine - 14 days roughly 65-75 miles a day, depending on where I could book to stay. My average speed was a pretty consistent 10.5-ish mph. I was staying in Airbnb and Travelodge type places and what I thought was pretty minimal luggage though still ended up with a couple of quite heavy panniers.
I aimed to start quite early 8-8.30 with a finish around 5-6 so I had time in hand at the end of each day and warned B&B places that I could be late and would warn them.
I made sure my bar bag always had a good stock of Snickers bars, flapjacks, cereal bars etc and dived into co ops for quick sarnie.
I took a cable lock but rarely used it - bought a couple of ‘cafe locks’ - like big cable ties - from wiggle which secure bags to frame and tied bike securely enough for quick stops. Always stayed where there was secure bike parking. Premier inns and Travelodge let you keep bike in your room.
‘Just potter along’ was my motto.

I'll certainly try to 'potter' more than I did when walking it last year, but being 'on a mission' is more in my nature.

8.30 - 5.30 is 9 hours, so covering 70 miles gives an overall pace of around 7.75mph. If your pace was 10.5mph, you must have taken over 2 hours of stops each day. Fair play to you, I'd love to take such a laid back approach, but will probably prefer to reach my destination a bit earlier.

I think you’re over- examining my comments: it was an approximation to what I did. Every day was different - I had a destination booked and - basically - wanted to get there in time to shower, change, relax and have a meal. Along the route I frequently stopped for a few minutes to take pics and send them home to make the family jealous, maybe double check my route, visit a shop to re-stock with Snickers. I rarely stopped for longer anywhere than about 15 mins.
I’m happy with the way the days panned out - I’d rather stand and look at the beauty that’s around me than hurry on to get to my hotel room for ‘Cash in the Attic’

[nickyboy]

Here's what we're planning to do on our May 2021 LEJOG

Start 0900 and look to finish between 1700 and 1800. Our hillier days (Cornwall and Devon) are about 80 miles so, if we assume a couple of hours for stops that means we need to achieve about 12mph moving average. On our flatter days we are doing about 100 miles so we will need to average about 14mph

We will be bikepacking but this only weighs about 4kg fully laden so hopefully that won't be a major drag on speeds. My solo riding average speed this year (3.5k miles) is 14mph and that's really hilly stuff...84ft/mile average which is hillier than the hilliest LEJOG day. So the plan is that we could do the hilly days at 14mph as a one off but we'll ease off and do 12mph so as to not get too fatigued. What we don't know, obviously, is the effect of cumulative fatigue of consecutive long days in the saddle. Worst case scenario is we end up arriving later than 1800 so no big deal in May

The other thing is the wind direction. With a tailwind these speeds will be easy. With a headwind, we'll leave at 0800 to give us an extra hour

[Jamesh]

That sounds about right.

I did 12 - 15 mph average over 8 days

Struggled on day 2 with eating enough because I had a deadline to meet family.

Cheers James

[PH]

Here's what we're planning to do on our May 2021 LEJOG

Start 0900 and look to finish between 1700 and 1800. Our hillier days (Cornwall and Devon) are about 80 miles so, if we assume a couple of hours for stops that means we need to achieve about 12mph moving average. On our flatter days we are doing about 100 miles so we will need to average about 14mph

Yes, the idea of trying to get the same effort rather than mileage is IMO key if you're treating it as a challenge rather than a tour. We're all different but I went for 60 shortest day and 120 longest over 11 days, I think two days under 80 and three over 100. We were hostel/B&B and it is restrictive, some days we could have done an extra 20 and others less. I've camped on similar rides and it is way more flexible.

[Nessie23]

Here's what we're planning to do on our May 2021 LEJOG

Start 0900 and look to finish between 1700 and 1800. Our hillier days (Cornwall and Devon) are about 80 miles so, if we assume a couple of hours for stops that means we need to achieve about 12mph moving average. On our flatter days we are doing about 100 miles so we will need to average about 14mph

That sounds a sensible and achievable plan. I have no experience of cycling in Devon & Cornwall but a work colleague has recently completed an E2E and they said D&C was tougher than expected even with tailwind so planning for slightly shorter days at start makes sense. In my experience the weather/wind is the most significant factor on avg speed especially in the more exposed northern areas. Agree with Jamesh that re-fueling is vitally important to performance and once you get north of Perth the availability of supplies is reduced.