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Bike Times

Quincyceltic's picture
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128
Member
363 days
started by Quincyceltic on May 29, 2009

New to Cycling so not sure what are times to be shooting for. I don't have a power meter or anything like that just the bike computer and a garmin 405. Just did a 25 miler the other day and I averaged 3:30 miles, which I think is around 18 mph?? From what I gather pros are well above 20mph (not trying to be a pro). What times should I be reaching for? My goals are to be in the top 1/3 in any race (tri or road run) I enter so where does that put me. Also while I have you how about swim times for 1/4 mi OWS (also the other distances one might encounter in tris like oly/him/fulls) thanks

jsk85's picture
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1091
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674 days
jsk85 posted 25 weeks ago.

It's going to vary depending on the course, but you're a little off in your estimations...for a flatter course of Oly length (~25 miles), pros average around 27-29mph from what I've seen, that's why they're pros.

If you're breaking the 20mph avg pace as a guy, that will put you usually in the top 1/3 depending on the competitiveness of the race...however it might be the lower end of the top 1/3 for Oly's.

Also, 3:30 miles is just over 17mph (17.1ish) just for reference...if you have a Garmin 405 I think you can set it to read mph pretty easily.

All that being said, your race speed and training speed can be vastly different depending on traffic, stop signs/lights, etc...so unless your 25mph ride was on a closed course or very isolated, you likely will go substantially faster in a race. For reference, most of my road bike rides (hillier, traffic) avg around 17-18mph for 30-40 miles, my tri-bike training rides (bike path, flatter, more isolated) avg 18.5-20mph, and I race sprints and olys in the 22-23.5mph range and did an open 40k TT with a 23.9mph average recently. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what to expect

To improve...ride more, ride harder, ride varying terrain...all have paid off big for me w/o investment in race wheels or powermeters to this point

TriSooner's picture
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2255
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702 days
TriSooner posted 25 weeks ago.

First, you have your Garmin set to measure run pace. There is a setting to change it to return MPH avg instead of run pace avg. And a 3:30 = 17.14, but again, switch the function to measure in MPH not run pace. Next, for your question about 'good' times, you can get that information right from the race results (any race's results) and you can see for yourself, on a given course and in your AG, exactly what 'top 1/3' would be.