Cycling UK Forum

Nearholmer wrote: ↑22 Aug 2023, 9:11pm

Because 100 years ago, people used to do hard physical work. People lifted 50 Kg easier than modern humans manage to lift 25 Kg. People would walk 5 miles to work then back. Lift a shovel for 8 hours

…… then died at, by modern standards, impressively early ages.

In the 1950s average life expectancy for a man was c65, its now c15 years greater. Lots of factors involved in that change, but not wrecking the body by hard manual labour is one. There’s a point where beneficial exercise tips over into debilitating hard work, and a lot of the guys doing the jobs you mention were prey to the latter.

Anyway …… I still think your “any fit person can do twenty miles in an hour” has so many caveats and conditions to be attached to it, and it probably breaks down completely if the question is averaging 20mph over several hours, that it isn’t really all that meaningful.

The club I’m a member of has a large membership and puts out many rides each week, as many as ten or fifteen in summer, and it’s noticeable that it usually only musters one Cat A each week, with c8 riders. That’s the only ride that averages 20mph. The vast majority of members ride in the various Cat B subsections, so c15mph over various distances, and there are usually two Cat C, what amount to a “beginners and older pensioners”, rides each week, running at 10-12mph. And that’s people who are keen enough to join a club and might consider themselves ‘cyclists’.

In another thread there’s a discussion about sustainable power outputs of cyclists going on, and that amounts to the same subject looked at differently, and there too I sense people overestimating what is ‘normal’, especially for older riders.

As for packing it in if you can’t maintain a 16mph average, or is it a 12mph average: madness.

On some rides I average as low as 6mph (so over two and an half hours to go sixteen miles) and they’re sometimes among the most enjoyable. OK, they’re the ones where a lot of pushing and/or carrying the bike is involved, so might be counted partly as hiking, rather cycling, but they’re still a lot of fun, and they certainly pack in the most aerobic and cardio exercise per unit time.

There is much to agree with in that.
Yesterday I went out for a 32km ride - it took me two and a half hours - for a distance that sixty years ago I could easily do in one hour.
I'm old and slow although I don't feel old riding my bike and I still enjoy it.

Ok, I should go back and edit my original statement

Get the fuel right, and the training right, then any fit person should be able to cycle 20 miles in one hour, on average.

to say

After an appropriate length and depth of training, and good nutrition, dressed in appropriate clothing for cycling fast, and riding a racing or a proper touring bike with road tyres, and without excess weight or panniers etc, a healthy person between the ages of 20 and 50 might just about manage to pull the skin off a rice pudding.
Have I missed off any other qualifying criteria that someone will nitpick over?

I do feel that because some individuals responding to the thread are not average, but by the sounds of it, significant proportion are retired, some had ill health, and it seems the majority prefer to be noodling, as befits a touring club more than a racing club, and are all assuming that everyone else has the same fitness level as them.

If all you do is noodle, then you won't be fit enough to do faster times.

I did say "in one hour" rather than 20 mph. I suggest that implies an all-out or near all-out effort over that hour. i.e. not stopping to take pictures half way, not chatting to a companion, not feeding, not stopping for that obligatory pee behind the hedge that most of us do in the first 30 minutes of exercise.

Maybe I should have in the first post qualified my statement to exclude very young, the veterans, and people with ill health or disability, but if I had, then I then would have been accused of being ageist, sexist, disableist etc etc.

I did end that opener for six, with the phrase on average. That could be taken several ways. I guess I was thinking in a broad sense, not only implying that it wasn't a windy dreich day, but also if your chosen route wasn't all the way up rather than a modestly graded road suited for fast rolling. But also by saying average, I didn't mean absolutely everyone, but most could. The faster amateurs among us could do 25 or more miles in an hour. And sure, the slower people, even after making all efforts to get faster, might only manage 15 miles.

Lastly, the original post was about getting better. One could have said to the OP, yeah bud, it's annoying but you're totally normal, you won't ever get faster, be happy with how fast you're going now, cos you can't go any faster, so give up trying.
I'd prefer to be offered a carrot to chase, rather than been told that's it, give up. That isn't the same thing as not being compassionate to those doing their best. Does a school teacher waste their time testing all the students, because whatever their ability, it's fixed, in fact kids, don't even bother with school, there is no room for improvement.

It just seems rather strange that so many posters are taking the time and effort to denounce any suggestions that cyclists can train to go faster or something. It feels like I am back at school doing cross country running, and having some other kids pulling on my top as I pass them, because they don't want to run faster themselves. And I was hardly a fast runner either.
Yes I know this is the touring club side, rather than the road racing. But you haven't cycled much if you've never headed into a horrible strong wind that has you dropping down to gears you'd normally use going up a hill. So that is justification in saying that even touring cyclists should try to improve their top power, if not to cycle at 20 mph all the way, but to have that reserve for when going home is the rational choice. The topic was about going faster and I'm trying to support others who want to investigate ways of becoming faster. So why emphasise about going slower?

or tell the OP to ditch his friend...:

My friend who does much less training and has a BMI of at least 5 more than me, beats me up every climb and every flat, comfortably.

I'd like to think that any rational cyclist could see how these two statements are contradictory:

harriedgary wrote: ↑24 Aug 2023, 7:25pm Ok, I should go back and edit my original statement

Get the fuel right, and the training right, then any fit person should be able to cycle 20 miles in one hour, on average.

<snip>...

And sure, the slower people, even after making all efforts to get faster, might only manage 15 miles.

Can YOU see the difference? You should be able to.

If you're one of nature's 15mph-ers, being told you that you should train to get to 19-20 might be very demoralising. Espectially by people dropping you on a 19mph-average ride.

Mostly very depressing - clearly I should accept that I am not a proper cyclist and put all my bikes out for the scrapper.
Didn't really ride (without a big engine) until about 50 and certainly never managed 20 miles in an hour. From early 50s until present, now 75, basically cycled every day except for holidays or medical care. With extreme copd, speed and distance on a steady decline, now at 9-10 mph moving average on my retro mtbs, 10-11 on a lightweight "road" bike. Aim to average 100-120 miles per week, sometimes hit 150, but 3 hols so far this year drop the average!
I very rarely miss a day - managed 144 days on the bounce at beginning of covid!
But I am so slow obviously I should give up.
Shame when I do so enjoy it and have been termed remarkable by my copd nurse specialist.

mattheus wrote: ↑29 Aug 2023, 4:16pm I'd like to think that any rational cyclist could see how these two statements are contradictory:

harriedgary wrote: ↑24 Aug 2023, 7:25pm Ok, I should go back and edit my original statement

Get the fuel right, and the training right, then any fit person should be able to cycle 20 miles in one hour, on average.

<snip>...

And sure, the slower people, even after making all efforts to get faster, might only manage 15 miles.

Can YOU see the difference? You should be able to.

Is it that the 15 mph people are implied to be unfit to cycle and should be culled?

If you're one of nature's 15mph-ers, being told you that you should train to get to 19-20 might be very demoralising. Espectially by people dropping you on a 19mph-average ride.

Even that's not too bad, but what happens far too often is that a ride is advertised as 10mph-average no-drop and then some "any fit person should be able to cycle 20mph" zealot turns up and makes it into a 19mph-average no-waiting horror show.

Have I missed off any other qualifying criteria that someone will nitpick over?

The things you are consistently missing in your assertions are the route and conditions, which are a tad important in the real world.

If you took an infinite billiard table, in completely still air, at an equable temperature, on a half-decent bike, yes, nigh-on anyone could do twenty miles across it in an hour, given time to build to that speed, because the resistances involved are so low, which means that the power needed to overcome them is low.

The reason clubs full of pretty fit cyclists don’t schedule more than a few 20mph average rides is because the real world has bumpy road surfaces, hills, adverse temperatures, and wind in it, often combined in adverse fashions.

Nearholmer wrote: ↑22 Aug 2023, 9:11pm

Because 100 years ago, people used to do hard physical work. People lifted 50 Kg easier than modern humans manage to lift 25 Kg. People would walk 5 miles to work then back. Lift a shovel for 8 hours

…… then died at, by modern standards, impressively early ages.

In the 1950s average life expectancy for a man was c65, its now c15 years greater. Lots of factors involved in that change, but not wrecking the body by hard manual labour is one. There’s a point where beneficial exercise tips over into debilitating hard work, and a lot of the guys doing the jobs you mention were prey to the latter.

Exactly. The "golden ageism" of the idea that somehow the hard manual labour of "the good old days" was in some ways health promoting is nonsense. Some activity is good for health and fitness, obviously. But long hours of demanding physical labour over a lifetime are not.

As a young man I worked in the construction industry, initially as a labourer. I'm not particularly muscular, but I could handle it. Some of the men I worked with were well into their 50s and 60s. And a lot of them were knackered by the work they had done, backs, joints, hernias and so on, from years of lifting heavy stuff and working in the damp. A lot of my work was in civil engineering. Driving past sites these days I'm very pleased to see that kerb stones are now transported in a sort of clamp thing attached to diggers. Try moving a kerbstone around with your bare hands and tell me it's "good for your health". And as 50kg was quoted as an example, that's more or less what bags of cement used to come in. I've wrestled a few of those off the ground - it's impossible to do with correct lifting technique. Thankfully the packaged weight seems to have halved, and quite right too.

I'm going to sell the bike. I can only manage 12 mph average.

maximus meridius wrote: ↑29 Aug 2023, 6:01pm I'm going to sell the bike. I can only manage 12 mph average.

What size is it?
Sounds like it could up my average speed!

In the land of the blind,the one eyed man is king.As a 60 yr old ,I had many rides on my own at that sort of pace.I used to log speed then,maybe 12.5mph to 13.5mph but can,t recall it ever bothering me very much.Now,at 71, I,ve got my 1.5 hr,2hr,2.5hr,3hr, routes,all of which are rough times.I no longer record speed,it,s largely irrelevant to me.What is important is how I felt .Plenty of energy ?No saddle issues?No elbow issues?No back issues? A Yes,No,No,No and I,m a happy bunny. By the way I,ve only got one eye and the field of of view in my good one is down to about 50 degrees ,like I said,"In the land of the blind.............

Hi guys, late to the party yet again.
Sorry, but I'm on here much less often than I used to.

20mph average?
Goodness me!

Try it with hills.
What you gain on the down hills at circa 40mph, you lose on the up hills at circa 5mph.

When I was younger - 40s and 50s - I would average 14mph or so, and never ever EVER managed an average of 20mph.
Now I'm older - early 70s - doing the same rides but fewer miles - I average 10mph or less.
Still live here, still cycle, same routes.

I used to think nothing of riding 50/60/70/80 miles, but 25miles is more than enough now.
Round here, all the rides are circa 100ft of ascent per mile.
25mile ride = 2,500ft of ascent or thereabouts.

Yesterday's ride to Gunnislake station for the Plymouth train was 1.1mile with 352ft of ascent = 320ft per mile at an average speed of 4.8mph.
Followed by a ride of 23.2miles into Cornwall and a circular route back to Plymouth station with 2,280ft of ascent = 98ft of ascent per mile at an average speed of 8.6mph.
Then, from Gunnislake station home was 1.1miles but with only 86ft of ascent = 78ft per mile at an average speed of 25.8mph.
Max speed was 42mph coming down to the village!

Precisely....Chapeau !

I'm in my early 50s and have never averaged 20 MPH, yes even pushing myself. Not that I'm ever pushing myself to "I'll vomit when I stop" levels, but still. I've averaged 17-18 a few times.

Part of it may be the terrain. There are hills around me, and stop signs, and traffic lights, and winds, all of which kill the average. On my steel gravel bike I can generally cruise what feels like indefinitely at 20 MPH when the road is flat and the wind is calm, but that never works out to more than about 16-17 MPH average when the ride is over.

I'm definitely in the 95th percentile for fitness for my age, but maybe 50th percentile for "fit regular cyclists" my age.

Andy Stow wrote: ↑6 Sep 2023, 6:59pm I'm definitely in the 95th percentile for fitness for my age, but maybe 50th percentile for "fit regular cyclists" my age.

I'm not sure i even know what that means? how is it even measured? where do i fit in this graph of performance?

As i'm in my seventh decade now, i find my perception of my riding has changed somewhat.

As a teen i raced about everywhere, i was fit enough but older, more experienced riders would often glide past me.
In my twenties my riding had calmed down and by my thirties no one passed me! (I was a weekly top 6 finisher in tt's across the land at this point)
By my forties things were going the other way, i'd get passed occasionally but always by younger, fitter riders (i'd stopped racing by this point)
As i moved through my fifties i was less and less bothered by the young guns passing me, after all, when i rode a sportive i'd usually be in the fastest 10% of finishers!
And now, in my sixties i get passed often by the younger, fitter racing crowd, i still give the young uns a ride in the sportives and i still pass a few riders - mostly older than me who probably chunter about young racing whippets as they enjoy their run to the cafe/pub (delete as approipriate).

20mph? well i didn't quite manage that on this years big sportive, just a mere 19.4mph across the day's 228km! (the fastest rider on the day managed 19.6mph) Between the first and second feeds, some 59.5km, i averaged 21.1mph for 1.75hrs! But i must be slowing down, previous editions i managed in excess of 20mph for the full distance!

I've only scanned the last few pages of this, but there seem to be a lot of, shall we say, senior cyclists contributing.
I'm 72, reasonably fit but not going to win any prizes for speed or endurance. Like many, I got back into cycling during covid following a gap of over 50 years. Initially I was very enthusiastic. Bought a simple bike computer and started getting "competitive" with myself. I was knocking off the same scenic 20 mile route in less and less time until it reached a point that I wasn't looking at the scenery anymore - and that was fast enough.
Last Christmas I seemed to get ill. Nothing dramatic, but lost nearly two stone - which I thought was OK until I realised that most of it was loss of muscle mass. Try as I might, I cannot recover to the fitness that I was last year.
I reluctantly concluded that this was going to be permanent. Trying to get up hills was a heart pounding, scarey experience and I contemplated giving up. I bought an electric conversion kit for one of my bikes and haven't looked back. I can cycle regular runs of 30 miles or more without distress. Intially, speed was the goal. I was able to "tweak" the controller settings to attain around 20-23mph on the flat. It was the help on hills that I really needed though - and that's what I've got. Now I take pleasure in riding slowly and enjoying the view. It helps that I ride solo, so I don't have any competitive "mates".
So, to all you older cyclists who seem to be agonising over whether 20mph is achievable, I say ride within your limits and be grateful.
I really couldn't give a flying flamingo how fast I go, just so long as I can complete the ride with a smile on my face!