Beginner rider help!

[Londondannw]

Hey all,

Complete beginner on here! I have owned my relative low end road bike for 6 months now which I mainly use for commuting and recreational cycling. I decided to time a 20 mile ride in London with very few hills on an almost windless day and recorded a time of 82 minutes. I would like to take up cycling as a sport next year and was wondering if that time was decent enough that I wouldn't be left for dead when riding with more experienced riders.
Would appreciate your opinions, thanks.

 

[HLaB]

That's just under 15mph (14.6mph); 15mph was used by my last club as a benchmark before joining; work on increasing your speed slightly and join a club (you'll find your speed will rise a fair bit then in a group, drafting/motivation) and take it from there. I don't race (other than a few Hill TT's lately), I just enjoy my cycling and I typically average around 15.5-16.5mph on my own depending on the terrain without too much effort but in a group, with folk who do race I get up to 18-20mph on a hilly route and 22mph on the flat, I think they race faster than that and they could leave me for dead. Visa Versa though the professionals would leave them for dead. With your speed it doesn't sound like you'll be racing straight away but with nurturing who know, good luck

 

[Londondannw]

Yeah 15mph sound achievable, considering a section of that 20 mile ride was going through central London where I had to dodge crazy black cabs and stop every once in a while

. I think I really need to improve my climbing considerably before I join a club as i'm often reduced to crawling speed especially when I go via Muswell Hill. Don't really think I could do any real sort of racing with my bike now as it's a bit of a fat cat, the pace of them group rides seems fast, but i'm confident with more practice i'll be able to keep up. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Becs]

If you want something that's between a pootle and a club run you could join us for The Sunday London ride (in "informal rides and events" section). Depending on which bit of London you'll be coming from you could clock up 40 to 50 miles quite easily. We will be doing over 15mph in some bits but not necessarily for the whole ride - it depends who turns up. Nice bunch of people, some of which run faster and longer rides too if that's what you're into.

 

[Scilly Suffolk]

Excuse me if you already know this, but changing your tyres is an easy way to up your speed a little; it's also relatively cheap too, especially if you wait until they need replacing anyway.

You don't say exactly what you're riding, but from what you have said it is likely something like 38mm and with a tread.

Thinner tyres produce less rolling resistance, so they take less effort to turn. The tread on a tyre also has the same effect. So you'll go faster with thinner slick tyres!

The pay-off is that thinner tyres will cushion you less: the ride will be harsher. When I swapped the 38mm on my hybrid for 28mm, I almost wept at first, but now happily ride 23mm on my racer.

Don't worry about slicks being less "grippy" than tyres with a tread: contrary to what common sense would suggest, they actually grip better as there is more rubber in contact with the road. The tread on car tyres is there to dispel water, bike tyres are too thin to suffer from aquaplaning.

How thin you can go is dependent on the width of your rims; have a look here for some guidance. 23mm is common on racers, but 25mm is a good compromise between speed and comfort on UK roads.

Bonne route!

 

[Londondannw]

Thanks Becs for the info on the Sunday London rides, but i'm off back to Leicester for Uni this week

, but at least i'll have a few more opportunities for a bit of more hill work.
Another glance at my tyres show they are actually 25mm and I'm not sure if that extra 2mm is worth investing in, but that link is very well appreciated as I only now know what 700c x 25 actually means.

 

[Dilbert]

Might be worth giving these folks a shout, they look quite active and are a Go-Ride club so should have a decent coaching setup. You could start by doing time trials which is a good entry into the club scene and allows you to track your progress.