Average Speeds over Long Distances

[Mick F]

10mph overall average.
100miles will take 10hrs .......... including stops for tea and cake etc.
This figure works for 1,000miles too, but not including overnight stops.
I tend to do 12mph on a ride round here as an average moving speed, but then I usually do 100ft of climbing per mile.

I could do 50miles in four hours, but that would be non-stop.
Also, if the terrain was flat - like it isn't round here - the average speeds would be much higher and 50miles could take me as little as three hours.

[meic]

and 50miles could take me as little as three hours.

That really depends on the wind. Hiding in the hills as I normally do, I forget how the wind can make days of crossing flat lands into a misery.
My average speed is much higher in France than it is in the UK because I can ride on all the prime roads without being hassled.

[al_yrpal]

Over a distance greater than 40 miles, 10.8 mph on my Tourer. 12 mph on my Mercian road bike. 8 mph off road on my mtb. All excluding any stops. Optimum touring day is 50 miles on the road.

Al

[PH]

At present I ride 100km in one day no problem. I'm planning my first 200km ride in one day. If I want to move up to 300km in one day, then if I don't bump up my average speed, I'll run out of day. There are a lot of interesting rides I could imagine myself doing if I could do 300km in one day.

If I could average 20km/hr including stops/lights etc. (Though, my routes tend to have exceedingly few lights.) then I could do 100km in 5 hours, 200km in 10 hours, and 300km in a feasible 15 hours. It's interesting to note that you're doing 20km/hr on a touring bike but could go faster if you don't feel knackered.

If you want to go faster you do need to work at it, some people got upset by this idea in a recent thread, but I don't think it happens to any significant extent if you don't get out of your comfort zone. That's not to say it shouldn't be fun in itself, but the primary purpose is that goal.
Probably the easiest way is to ride with a group who are a little bit faster and see how long you can hang on, but if you want to go it alone you need some sort of plan. Here's what worked for me in the spring to increase my average riding speed from around 20 to 23kph. Worked out a 10 km route home from work, set the computer to ave speed, rode it a 23 kph. if the average fell below 21, I'd turn the computer off and have an easy ride home, I'd do this alternate days. When you can do this comfortably, up the distance (Don't do this too soon) keep doing that and when you can do 50, you can probably do 100. It took me less than three months to do that and I've been riding at that speed since without thinking about it. If I can maintain that through the winter I'll have another go in the Spring to bring it up to 25.
How much time you need for stops and how effective they are is something you'll learn for yourself. I'm quite happy to ride 100 km without stopping, but after that I want a proper break of the bike not just a grabbed coffee. As thirdcrank has already said, there is time to be gained by minimising that time off the bike, that's often a matter of using the time well rather than taking less of a break.

[eileithyia]

All depends on the circumstances, I can do 50 miles in as little as 2h11 (have even done it inside 2h8) and would prefer to be faster, or can take over 4 hours.. so 62 miles could take circa 5 hours esp considering i have done a 200k audax in 10 hours (inc cafe stops). Weather, terrain, touring, audax, racing will all play their part, as can the company i am riding with... (faster or slower riders).

[meic]

If Eileithya is offering a maximum, I can offer a minimum I have happily ground along at under 4mph for over 40 minutes on many an occasion. Much faster down the other side though.

[hercule]

I trundle along on my recumbent trike at 13-14 mph, down to 12 mph on longer rides - admittedly that's a moving average. I used to think that I was happy trading the speed of my "normal" bikes for the comfort of the trike (I've got neck issues that are intermittent but can mean riding an upright bike is agony after 30 mins). Then I looked back at my old Garmin logs and discovered that on the uprights I usually averaged... 13-14 mph.

The trike's a fair bit slower on the climbs (I think I was doing 2.5mph at one point today), marginally faster on the flats especially if there's a headwind (better aerodynamics) and a lot faster on the downs (58 mph on the road between Grantown on Spey and Tomintoul - a little beyond my comfort zone...)

It's quite reassuring seeing these replies when you see the sort of averages posted on Strava. I'm reading Sean Conway's account of his round the world ride, and he seemed to be frequently hovering around the 19mph mark whilst covering up to 200 miles per day

[horizon]

Just curious, but what sort of average speeds can cyclists here maintain over long distances?

One way of expressing this is: how long does it take people here to complete 100km?

Wild approximations welcome in addition to known times.

I hate to say this but I ride at the speed they give on Google maps. I checked the odd ride against Google and it was quite uncannily if not quite spookily accurate, within minutes - how did they know? That was with a loaded, quite heavy bike, so unloaded I might be a bit quicker but it is still a really useful rule of thumb for me for the type of riding I do. They take into account hills as well (a couple were very hilly rides in south Devon which I thought would take longer than they gave (or vice versa) but didn't). I suppose there must be other speed checkers out there (Strava ?) but it is Google I've used. I have no idea whether they account for fatigue over longer distances (which I suppose is partly what the OP is asking).

So there you have it: if you want to know my average speed, just GoogleMaps a route and ... there you have it.

PS Yes, it is slow

[meic]

Google has been tracking you so long that they now know everything about you.
To quote The Jam they even know the size of your .....

[Annoying Twit]

I tried to do 'intervals' on the way to work. But, it's too short a trip to get more than about two intervals in. And, with it being largely through a park and on a canal towpath, it's hard to keep up a high speed. I'll see what I can do.

[Vorpal]

It depends...

On a organised ride, or tour (or other need to keep going) it's around 10 mph, plus a couple of stops. 10 mph accounts for little stops (to have a wee, fix the flapping sound, etc.).

I can go faster, up to 13 mph if I've been riding my bike a lot. I think I would have to join a weekely chain gang and train for it to get much faster than that.

I'm much more likely to go slower, because I stop to look at interesting things, take pictures, and pet the cats I meet. If I have the kids along, I have to wait for them to do that stuff, too, as well as fall over into the nettles and pick berries.

[Ben@Forest]

I've not done a century (miles) this year and am now unlikely to but normally I do two or three a year. I've done lots of 80-somethings and a few 90-somethings. A month ago I did 92 miles in 5½ hours and in a total of 6hrs 40 mins. There was just under 5,000ft of ascent. The ride included two short and one much longer stop(s ). So you could say I either cycled at 16.7 or 13.8 mph.

[Mick F]

I dream of riding only 50ft per mile.
Todays ride was 26miles with 2,500ft. Average moving speed 12mph.

One 90odd mile ride I've done a couple of times, is from here to Exeter and back. Stopping for lunch at the Double Locks.
http://www.doublelocks.com
That's about 7,000ft of climbing there and back as the Old A30 is ok in the hills department. It's getting from here to Okehampton and back that adds in the ascent numbers.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Its all about conditions and weather, on an audax going across Dartmoor I was surprised and depressed that I was in 2nd gear of 12 and struggling to maintain 12 mph on the flat
This is the same gear I would climb haytor in, at over 300 feeet per mile for nearly 4 miles.

Recently there was a hill climb up haytor winner was over two and a half minutes off the record, set in 69.........................79 even?
Heady gears

http://cyclinguphill.com/100-climbs/haytor-vale/
http://cyclinguphill.com/wp-content/upl ... 1979-1.jpg

[whoof]

Depends greatly on what type of riding I'm doing.
Touring with camping gear average of about 10 mph.
Touring staying in B & B s about 12 mph
Riding with Mrs Whoof about 13 mph
On my own about 15 mph.
In a group about 16 mph.
When I used to put some real effort in sometimes 25 mph+