obsessed about my avg

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carlfergy

Well-Known Member
Location
stourbridge
Haven't been riding long, doing it for fitness and i enjoy it. I go out a couple of times a week on my old steel framed road bike and i always try to go as good as i can. The reason i go hard is i want my avg speed to be as good if not better than last time on a comparable distance. I read on this forum people say dont worry about avg speed but i can help. May be i'm just competetive with my self,
 

gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
If its important to you carl, its important....
I used to do the same (still do, but not as often now). The thing i needed to know was that i was improving, getting fitter, getting faster. What better benchmark than yourself !
That was (is) important to me. Now i've achieved as much as much as i'm reasonably going to...i dont bother so much, rather just maintain reasonable fitness.

Competetive with yourself rings true for me as well...long before i got into road biking, i'd always go as fast as i reasonably could, whatever bike i was riding.
 

gb155

Fan Boy No More.
Location
Manchester-Ish
Funk-Meister said:
And its completely normal to record all the data on a spread sheet and to talk to people about it until their eyes glaze over. Yes this is normal behaviour.

PHEW Thought it was just me :laugh:
 

dodgy

Guest
Funk-Meister said:
And its completely normal to record all the data on a spread sheet and to talk to people about it until their eyes glaze over. Yes this is normal behaviour.
:laugh:

I think average speed is a pretty important metric to describe your current condition but it is easy to turn every ride into a 'training' ride instead of just 'going out for a ride'. :biggrin:
Now I only benchmark myself once a fortnight on a preset course with no traffic lights and only left turns, it results in some interesting trends.
 

Philk

Well-Known Member
Location
Coventry
:biggrin: ive created the spreadsheet if anyone wants a copy please let me know :laugh:
if you want additional metrics added to it let me know :laugh:

Cyclingprogress1.jpg


ps I thought it was only me getting obsessed with the data.
 

Funk-Meister

New Member
Location
whitstable, kent
dodgy said:
:biggrin:

I think average speed is a pretty important metric to describe your current condition but it is easy to turn every ride into a 'training' ride instead of just 'going out for a ride'. :evil:
Now I only benchmark myself once a fortnight on a preset course with no traffic lights and only left turns, it results in some interesting trends.

so are you saying it is possible just to go out for a ride?
 

colinr

Well-Known Member
Location
Norwich
so are you saying it is possible just to go out for a ride?

If your average wasn't good enough, it was 'just a ride'.
 

jimboalee

New Member
Location
Solihull
Take a look at last year's TdeF average speeds for the flat stages.

If you can ride at HALF that average over a comparable distance, you're doing well.
If, over a quiet country ride of similar distance, you can get 2/3 their average speed, you're doing better than well.

So on a roadbike, 13 mph average over 125 miles is the first target.
 

Rob3rt

Man or Moose!
Location
Manchester
carlfergy said:
Haven't been riding long, doing it for fitness and i enjoy it. I go out a couple of times a week on my old steel framed road bike and i always try to go as good as i can. The reason i go hard is i want my avg speed to be as good if not better than last time on a comparable distance. I read on this forum people say dont worry about avg speed but i can help. May be i'm just competetive with my self,

I too do the same, even though its flawed in some sense, i.e. somedays hit more lights than other etc, some commutes I'll go like mad until in in the red and putting in 18mph average. But what does this tell me? It could be that I was absolutely blazing that day or it might just mean I hit less red lights than previous days.

Try to measure your average periodically on longer rides where lights will be less of a factor (better moving time to stationary time). Or get a computer with an auto-pause feature.

Alternativelly you could try measuring other things such as your HR for indications of improvement, same speed over same distance with a lower HR is an improvement.

Just be careful, dont sacrifice road sense for a new PB, apart from that knock yourself out, if you enjoy pushing you average go for it.
 

Chrisc

Guru
Location
Huddersfield
I don't have a bike computer but I do use my phone gps tracker to record speeds, distances, elevations and the like and I have become a little too obsessed. I think I'll have to pack in recording stuff because it's getting to the point that I'm only concerned about not buggering up the averages with a slower ride.

May take on board the advice given earlier and just do a fixed run as a comparison every now and then. I have one hillclimb that I've got a few runs on and can see that I've improved dramatically over the last few months, last week getting up and back at 18mph avg which was a bit too much for me to be honest. Will probably use that as a benchmark and bin the phone the rest of the time so I can just go for a ride! :evil:
 

Hont

Guru
Location
Bromsgrove
+1 for all of the above. I using a Garmin / Sportracks and have taken to recording the wind speed and direction of each ride alongside all the other data. ;):blush:

Went out last weekend with my wife and didn't record it. Amazing how much more enjoyable it was.:biggrin:
 
OP
OP
C

carlfergy

Well-Known Member
Location
stourbridge
went out today with a promise to my self just to ride and take it easy, all was going well up to about an hour in then noticed i wasn't to far off my avg from the other day of 18.9 for 50m so then i started to push and sweat again but could only manage 17.3 for 44m disappointed know.
 

Matthames

Über Member
Location
East Sussex
I have been recording my average speeds. What I have also done is make a note of the route taken and given it a code. I am hoping when I have enough data I can then using a time series, analyse the trend and determine the rate at which I am improving.
 
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