# Slow, slow, no quick slow.



## compo (5 Nov 2012)

My average speed has been dropping off and I now struggle to even get up to 11mph over a ride and more often come in at 10.5mph. The distance I travel doesn't seem to make a lot of difference so I still have good endurance but not speed. Now at 65 I don't expect to ride like I did in my 20's and 30's but I would like to improve on my pathetic speeds if possible. Last year I was averaging 12/13mph.

As a start to try and improve and working on the principle that one has to ride faster to get faster I went out on a short ride and rode some intervals this morning. I also made an effort to keep the speed above 10mph. The first couple of miles are always slow for me until I warm up then I am OK. I made an effort to power up the hills, and did two and a half miles at 17mph (on a slight descent), then did half mile intervals, pushing up to 17 mph, then recovering before powering up again.

All that, covering 11.24 miles and my overall average........A measly 10.5 mph.
I know that one session isn't going to work miracles but I guess I am going to have to try and speed up during the recovery periods. I certainly can't go any faster during the power phases.


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## Rob3rt (5 Nov 2012)

Curious, is this a moving average or otherwise?


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## Andrew_Culture (5 Nov 2012)

It's one of the mysteries of cycling as far as I'm concerned, if I really push I get a certain average, if I can't be jiggered and take it easy I get the same average...


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## compo (5 Nov 2012)

Rob3rt said:


> Curious, is this a moving average or otherwise?


 
It's a moving average. My clock stops when I stop. However this morning I was non stop. Next outing I am going to start my clock at 2 miles and see just how much that first little bit does drag my time down.


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## snorri (5 Nov 2012)

I'm happy to believe my lower speeds are due to the increased density of the air at this time of year.


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## Davidc (5 Nov 2012)

I've found the same as you, compo, for some years now.

My (moving) average speed was down to 14mph when I turned 50, stayed about the same up to when I had a heart attack aged 56, and has hovered around 10 to 12 in the 4 years since.

I know one of the drugs I have to take restricts power, but I feel I should be able to do better. I can't though.

I can go almost any distance, but with a slow average speed. I know I'll never do the sustained 25mph average over 125 miles that I could do when I was 20, but 12.5 mph over 62.5 miles would be nice.


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## numbnuts (5 Nov 2012)

I'm in the same boat as you, 61 with emphysema and my rides have got slower this year, OK my rides are hilly, but I have a job to get over 12 mph average and now most of my rides are taking over 20 minutes longer than they use to I put it down to my emphysema as I'm getting out of breath on the hills.


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## compo (5 Nov 2012)

I also think in the New Year, once Christmas is out of the way, I am going to make a determined effort to lose weight. I wonder how many MPH equals a stone in weight!


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## Davidc (5 Nov 2012)

compo said:


> I also think in the New Year, once Christmas is out of the way, I am going to make a determined effort to lose weight. I wonder how many MPH equals a stone in weight!


I've found that's got more difficult with age too. Although I'm not ridiculously overweight I'd love to get rid of a stone.


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## Davidc (5 Nov 2012)

numbnuts said:


> I'm in the same boat as you, 61 with emphysema and my rides have got slower this year, OK my rides are hilly, but I have a job to get over 12 mph average and now most of my rides are taking over 20 minutes longer than they use to I put it down to my emphysema as I'm getting out of breath on the hills.


 
With any chronic disease like yours or mine all we can do is 'make the best of a bad job'. They're not going to go away. The other side of that is that we and many more on this forum who have these conditions enjoy cycling, which is probably as good as it gets for keeping fit and keeping any progression of nasty conditions to a minimum. The averages may go down but we keep going.


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## Asa Post (5 Nov 2012)

Well, this thread has cheered me up 
I read so many posts about people averaging speeds that I can't get near to. I thought it was just me that was slow, and getting slower. Now that I have evidence that it's an age thing, I can stop worrying about it - while still trying to reverse the trend, or at least delay it.


compo said:


> I wonder how many MPH equals a stone in weight!


In my case, less than 0.5 mph


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## steve52 (5 Nov 2012)

compo said:


> It's a moving average. My clock stops when I stop. However this morning I was non stop. Next outing I am going to start my clock at 2 miles and see just how much that first little bit does drag my time down.


 this has made me so happy my average includes any stops so im soooooooooooo fasttttttttttttttttttt (i wish)


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## compo (5 Nov 2012)

Davidc said:


> I've found that's got more difficult with age too. Although I'm not ridiculously overweight I'd love to get rid of a stone.


 
A stone is easy. It's the next 5 or 6 stone that will be hard. I am 18.5 stone!


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## snorri (5 Nov 2012)

I was out on a regular circuit yesterday and got off and walked on hills I had previously cycled struggled up and put this down to wearing too many clothes on a day that turned out less cold than anticipated.......perhaps it's the advancing years.
Maybe we should ask Shaun to consider an over 60s section in CC


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## Smurfy (5 Nov 2012)

> Slow......Quick..Quick.......Slow......


 
Sounds like an instructional on dancing the Rhumba to me


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## Davidc (5 Nov 2012)

compo said:


> A stone is easy. It's the next 5 or 6 stone that will be hard. I am 18.5 stone!


I'm 5'10" and around 13st 7lb (in medieval measures). I'd like to be down to 12stone but I just can't get it down any more. I can put it on and then bring it back down to the 13.5 st but that's as far as it goes.

Your problem sounds worse, hope you can find a way to defeat it.


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## compo (5 Nov 2012)

My weight has really gone on since having a total thyroidectomy and becoming dependent on Thyroxine to replace the missing thyroid hormone. So many people say that thyroxine doesn't cause weight gain, which may be true for many people, but for many it does. This may be down to the efficiency of the body to convert T4 to T3. However the rules of weight loss still stand, eat less move more!


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## MattHB (5 Nov 2012)

compo said:


> I also think in the New Year, once Christmas is out of the way, I am going to make a determined effort to lose weight. I wonder how many MPH equals a stone in weight!



A huge amount more wattage is required to move even a kilo up a slope. It's truly staggering how much.

Power to weight is everything


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## Oldspice (5 Nov 2012)

Replace the barrel with a bottle


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## Pauluk (5 Nov 2012)

I think you definitely loose power as you get older. Couple this with excess weight and it has an even bigger effect. I'm 59 and can't pedal with any where near the power I could when I was younger (say 15 to 20 years ago).

I think you have to increase your speed markedly and consistently to get your average up by any significant amount and its surprising how slowing down in traffic, for lights etc pulls your average down. Seems to me your average speed can be reduced a lot easier than it can be increased if you see what I mean.



compo said:


> Next outing I am going to start my clock at 2 miles and see just how much that first little bit does drag my time down.


Quite a bit I would expect.


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## screenman (5 Nov 2012)

Do not forget a lot of average speeds mentioned on forums are internet speeds, which often bare no resemblance to real speeds. On my ride today I averaged 34 mph, now I could stop there but I will carry on and say it was only for about 200 yards downhill and wind behind, internet speed talk would not mention the last bit.

As I have said before stick another magnet on the wheel and enjoy to sudden lift in both speed and distance.

Please also remember that you guys are fit, very fit to be able to do those distance at your age as most in that bracket would struggle with 6 miles let alone 60.


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## Andrew_Culture (5 Nov 2012)

screenman said:


> Do not forget a lot of average speeds mentioned on forums are internet speeds, which often bare no resemblance to real speeds. On my ride today I averaged 34 mph, now I could stop there but I will carry on and say it was only for about 200 yards downhill and wind behind, internet speed talk would not mention the last bit.
> 
> As I have said before stick another magnet on the wheel and enjoy to sudden lift in both speed and distance.
> 
> Please also remember that you guys are fit, very fit to be able to do those distance at your age as most in that bracket would struggle with 6 miles let alone 60.



A magnet on the wheel? Huh?


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## screenman (5 Nov 2012)

What do you mean? Huh!


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## Andrew_Culture (5 Nov 2012)

screenman said:


> What do you mean? Huh!



I don't understand how putting a magnet on a wheel would make any difference?

Am I missing a joke that was set up elsewhere?


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## screenman (5 Nov 2012)

Now I am not sure if you have a speedo on your bike, if so you will have a magnet on one of the spokes that basically moves something inside the part attached to the fork leg which then sends a signal to the bit on the handle bars. " magnets = 2 signals and the bit on the bars reads twice as fast.

To surmise, sorry but you did miss my very poor attempt at humour.


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## Andrew_Culture (5 Nov 2012)

screenman said:


> Now I am not sure if you have a speedo on your bike, if so you will have a magnet on one of the spokes that basically moves something inside the part attached to the fork leg which then sends a signal to the bit on the handle bars. " magnets = 2 signals and the bit on the bars reads twice as fast.
> 
> To surmise, sorry but you did miss my very poor attempt at humour.



Ha, now I get it! Very good


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## deptfordmarmoset (5 Nov 2012)

I think a magnet on each spoke might be fun. My cheap replacement Decathlon one would probably catch fire. But don't worry, with the speed I'll be going at it will blow itself out again in no time.

58 and getting slower, just that I'm getting slower at a slower rate than you. (Actually, to be fair, I'm mostly riding a tourer this year and it really doesn't want to go any faster than its own speed - which wasn't in the technical details - and I'm adapting to it. Slowly.)

Hang on, if I get slower than you at a slower rate does that mean I'm twice slower than you?


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## compo (7 Nov 2012)

compo said:


> It's a moving average. My clock stops when I stop. However this morning I was non stop. Next outing I am going to start my clock at 2 miles and see just how much that first little bit does drag my time down.


 
This morning I did just that. I went out on a short 12 miler but didn't start my computer until the two mile mark so I was nicely warmed up. My average speed over the remaining 10 miles was 11.9 mph. I was pushing it along a bit, especially up the couple of hills on the route.

Also I taped my sat-nav to my bar extender. That constantly read .7mph (point 7) faster than my bike computer. I would have thought the sat-nav to be the more accurate. It is beyond my arithmetic abilities to work out the difference that would make to my average speed, or if I should add or subtract a few mm's from my wheel circumference setting. (I am not going to obsess over a small inaccuracy by the way. A few yards a mile isn't going to be the end of the world).


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## Davidc (7 Nov 2012)

^^ That would suggest that the figure you have in the computer for wheel circumference is wrong, but the difference shouldn't be constant for all speeds.

The satnav and computer will never consistently be quite the same. The satnav doesn't measure (afaik) the up and down bits, just the horizontal component, whereas the cycle computer measures the length of tarmac you've crossed. The difference you quote, if taken at 10mph, is far too high for that to be the cause though.


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## dave r (7 Nov 2012)

Why are we worrying about average speeds? The most important thing is the enjoyment, as long as you are enjoying the ride thats all that matters. I'll be 61 next month, I've had angina in the past, my speed, both average and top is down a bit and I can't keep up with the club lads like I used to, but out on a Sunday ride, or a commute, the grin readily comes to the face after a mile or two and I still get that feeling of anticipation before the ride same as it always has, thats whats important.


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## gavroche (8 Nov 2012)

weather conditions, what you had to eat and when, terrain, your own mood, tyre pressure, temperature, witdh of tyres, weight of bike and rider, distractions ( pretty girls on pavement), time of the day , they can all affect your speed ,so.............. ignore all that and ride at a speed you feel comfortable with . After all, we are not training for the TdF.


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## compo (8 Nov 2012)

gavroche said:


> weather conditions, what you had to eat and when, terrain, your own mood, tyre pressure, temperature, witdh of tyres, weight of bike and rider, distractions ( pretty girls on pavement), time of the day , they can all affect your speed ,so.............. ignore all that and ride at a speed you feel comfortable with . After all, we are not training for the TdF.


 
I suspect that "riding at a speed I feel comfortable with" is partly why my performance has fallen off so badly.


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## Nebulous (10 Nov 2012)

compo said:


> I suspect that "riding at a speed I feel comfortable with" is partly why my performance has fallen off so badly.


 
I'd agree with that. I'm particularly interested in speed and I've had to push myself very hard to keep improving. I think its worth it, but that has to be an individual judgement. There can be a fine line between improving fitness and causing damage to health.

Some people regard it as worth while. I was talking to a lady a few days ago, using a stick, not much older than me, and she needs a hip replacement. I was sympathising with her and she said, "I don't regret a bit of it. I've played a lot of competitive sport, I rode a motorbike for years and I wouldn't change any of it. If I could do it again I would."


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