average time for 10 miles

[marinyork]

I can see we all have different perceptions of what 'average' is. I think the only logical conclusion to this situation is to agree to disagree.

Not really. If you'd said very clearly that you thought to the OP that the average cyclist after training reasonably hard for several years would be doing 15mph on a regular basis I could pretty much agree with that (although I doubt I'll ever achieve that). You seemed to be saying something along the lines of someone starting off straight away should do that and that's where the disagreement lies. Sure some people could but it'd be a small number. The idea of a club being average seemed equally ridiculous. I'm not a fast cyclist but you go into the city centres and see people cycling and they are going slower than I do quite a few of them. That suggests there are a lot of people doing 10mph or less. Cycling in York was even slower. I think some of it is perceptions and snobbery as I went cycling with someone who used to do TTs and was in a club and he said I was the slowest cyclist he'd ever met (rather bizarre thing to say with the speeds in York) but on the other hand I actually got back from one of the rides first.

 

[jimboalee]

Not only mine, but some of the other suggestions have been equally ridiculous.
We’ve all told our situation, and each poster’s situation is different.

The only way to settle this is to lay down some hard and fast parameters.
What terrain and what bike.

If you were to ride 10 miles round an empty velodrome on ( for argument sake ) a Trek 1000 road bike, what time would you expect to achieve. That is the only situation where one cyclist can be compared with another.

I think you would be pleasantly surprised to see you could finish the 10 miles in 40 minutes.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

+1

Not being very eloquent I was trying in my limited way to say that average is subjective opinion and dependent on a vast amount of variables. Therefore it is impossible to state what an average time for an average cyclist is

 

[Neilwoo123]

Just to put the cat amongst the pidgons,

I am a returning cyclist after a 10 year break. I’m 32 years old purchased a Bianchi Via Nirone 7 on the 27/10/08.

Have done 47.38 miles on it since then at an average speed on 14.78 miles an hour!! Mapmyride!!

Now I’m relatively fit but smoked 25 a day until 2 weeks ago. I think a lot of you guys are doing yourselves an injustice.

Spend some time working it out you may well be surprised!!

Neil

 

[jimboalee]

You don’t have to get any cats excited and you don’t have to frighten any pigeons. I’ll put this one to bed right now.

May I draw you attention to a paper written by Albert C Gross, Chester R Kyle and Douglas J Malewicki entitled “The Aerodynamics of Human Powered Land Vehicles”.

A print was photocopied and handed to me by the manager of the Motor Industry Research Association climatic wind tunnel where Chris Boardman tested his bike (because he was a good friend and knew I was a cyclist).

Within the document, please study a graph which illustrates “Effective front area (square feet).
You will notice that ‘straight arm touring’ has been measured at approx 4.3 sq ft.
The curve which represents 0.1 HP, corresponds to 13 mph. The curve which represents 0.2 HP corresponds to 17 mph.
Therefore, an additional curve which represents 0.15 HP (112 Watts output) corresponds to 15 mph.

The research work for this publication was conducted at the University Chester Kyle was employed, and consisted of student ‘volunteers’ riding an assortment of bicycles. They initially rode an ergonometer in the lab and their VO2 uptake was measured. Then they went out onto a campus road on a real bike and their VO2 uptake was recorded via a long hose to a pick up truck holding the analysers.
Care was taken to negate the weight and drag of the hose by suspending a short length from a long boom. The truck was following the cyclist.
An ‘average’ figure was calculated (see above) for each type of bicycle ridden by untrained and under fit university students.

Many text books have figures of 260 Watts for walking at 3 mph. This includes Basal metabolic rate of 120 Watts and reaction to windchill at 20 Watts. So subtracting BMR and windchill, walking at 3 mph requires 120 Watts.

Gross, Kyle and Malewicki will go down as three of cycling’s highest deities.

 

[Downward]

Maybe us Newbies should find a nice flat 10 mile Circuit and pedal our knackers off so we can come back to this thread to show how big our balls are !

 

[marinyork]

Not only mine, but some of the other suggestions have been equally ridiculous.
We’ve all told our situation, and each poster’s situation is different.

The only way to settle this is to lay down some hard and fast parameters.
What terrain and what bike.

If you were to ride 10 miles round an empty velodrome on ( for argument sake ) a Trek 1000 road bike, what time would you expect to achieve. That is the only situation where one cyclist can be compared with another.

I think you would be pleasantly surprised to see you could finish the 10 miles in 40 minutes.

Well to be sporting I've just had a bit of a harder go at my 10 mile loop (10.3 miles) and did it in 49 minutes which is fast for me. If I'd had a couple of less reds and no wind I can perhaps imagine it being 45 mins but that's starting to get into what if territory and we can all do that. So 40 minutes, probably not but hey .

 

[jimboalee]

Thank you for being sporting.
While you were out on your test circuit, I was scrambling around in a freezing cold attic searching for the Gospel according to Chester R Kyle, the most influential individual ( slightly above Mike Burrows ) in cycling since the great J K Starley.

 

[Neilwoo123]

Jimboalee,

In english if you will good sir.

 

[marinyork]

I understand the physics of it, it just doesn't seem to work out like that in real life, for me anyway. Next time I'm cycling somewhere flat like Leeds, Doncaster or Lincolnshire I'll find a 10 mile stretch and see if it makes much of a difference. It's been that long since I've been somewhere flat I'm quite interested myself to see how much I've improved.

 

[epicurus.]

It probably will run longer than a helmet thread, because as I've described on an earlier post, The 'D', yes D ride, and that's what the BCF consider AVERAGE, rides at a 15 mph average speed.

Above average - CAT 1, 2 and 3 ---- 17 - 18 mph

Below average - Casual non club members - 10 - 12 mph, as in the 'Solihull Spinners' ride for Nervous and Novice cyclists.

If the Original Poster had asked for a BELOW AVERAGE speed, I would have said 10 - 12 mph.

Quite finished?

The effort required to ride 15mph average in a group on a club ride would achive much less (12mph?) on a solo ride. Aerodynamics. You don't have to be one of "cycling's highest deities" to understand that.

 

[jimboalee]

Chapter II, 'The real world'

Now we have established a benchmark speed for an untrained cyclist, this can be used as a basis to apply correction for the real world.

1/ Stop junctions. If you have a commute route planned, ride a 'dry run' and count how many junctions, traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, level crossings etc there are. Add on 1% for each stop junction.
If our 10 miler has ten 'stop junctions', add on 10% giving 44 minutes.

2/Wind. For every 1 mph of 'dead in the face' wind against you, add on another 1% to the total.
With a 10 mph headwind, our 10 miler now will be 48 minutes.

3/Hills. Find the lowest point on the route and the highest point on the route. Calculate the average gradient between the two over the length of the route in percentage terms and increase the time accordingly.
If this average gradient for the route is 1%, the total time is now 48.5 minutes. (I told you it wasn't much).

Chrisitalia, as your question was so open-ended, I hope this provides a guide to assessing your performance.

A steep learning-curve maybe, but you asked the question.


A below average cyclist who can cruise at 15mph, riding the typical route I described will have a net average of 12 mph.

An average cyclist who can cruise at 19 mph, riding the same route will have a net average of 15 mph.

I have only once ventured into the realms of 'above average' cycling. That was after training for my seven day LEJOG.

 

[jimboalee]

epicurus. There are only six of us on the D ride, and we take turns at the front ( two abreast ) for 45 minute stints. By the time we're half way home, we break up and go our seperate ways, keeping up the group average.

 

[Chris James]

Jimbolee, you want to get out more

By the way, your correction factor for hills ignores the road actually going up and down, rather than simply up. Using your method of just looking at the lowest and highest points my 25 mile route described before would involve a total ascent of about 400m rather than 800m. And if I rode a 50 miler, for example the highest and lowest points of the ride would probably be the same as the 25 miler and yet I could comfortably create a route with 2000m of climbing in that distance if I wanted.

A 1% average hill as pretty much dead flat.

I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and have a copy of Bicycle Science which covers much the same ground that you are on about. But I don't need either of these to know that riding hilly routes decreases your average speed.

Likewise, the point about group cycling is well made. You can add at least 2-3mph to your average speed, with less effort, if you wheelsuck.

 

[jimboalee]

Chris. I appreciate your comments.

I topographically mapped the entire first section of my LEJOG; 144 miles through Cornwall and Devon to assess the effect of hills. I have a curve of 'speed vs gradient', which is applicable to myself through years of climbing many hills. I also have a curve of 'speed vs descent' which is derived from a 'roll-down' test on a known gradient. Very sad I know but 144 on the first day of seven over those hills was mmmmm, pushing it.

After hours of entering contour elevations on a spreadsheet, and measuring the OS map (in the days before Garmin), it was depressing to see the result was not so far away from a flat road. I abandoned that labourious method to adopt the simpler method. My own view on this is after struggling up a hill, I will freewheel down.
There is an old cycling saying "Never pedal downhill, let gravity do the work". Some of those Cornish hills wouldn't allow pedalling anyway, they're that fast.

The time at which I achieved that section was very close to my prediction, and I reached my lodgings with time to shower and change for Dinner. One happy bunny.

I would not suggest a newbie meticulously chart a 10 mile commute, my advice was 'Ball park'. If the 10 miler is really hilly or the downward sections are interrupted by junctions, maybe 4 – 5% extra time could be allowed ?? It is up to the individual to gauge their capability.
I no longer plot hills and gradients, for all the AUK 200s I ride, including the Castleton Classic up to Speedwell Cavern. The effect of the long slow incline on the A53 out of Leek is countered by downhill stretches later in the route.
Incidentally, the Castleton Classic is 128 miles and I am by no means the first rider home. Average cruising on the road is 17 – 18 mph. Average speed after road junction etc considerations is 14.5 – 15 mph, and after some tea and cake stops, I like to average 12.5 mph for the whole ride. The fastest allowable speed is 18 mph, and some try to do this. The lowest limit speed is 9.5 mph, so I finish below average.

This is me. You will be different and if I suggested a newbie should attemp that Rando, lock me away.