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The 14 Mile Per Hour Club

01.22.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

So, here I am a couple of weeks into my easy riding phase, where I am concentrating on not pushing the speed when I’m out on rides. I’m doing it because it will allow me to rebuild my base (and easy exercise is a good way to burn fat!) and get ready for more strenuous riding in another month.

I noticed after an easy ride Saturday that I seem to be accomplishing my goal. I rode 25 miles at a whopping 13.8 mph average. Okay, there were some hills in there, and I did have to work a little harder to climb them.

But then I looked at my average speeds since the beginning of the year. On only two rides out of nine have I averaged more than 15 miles per hour.

Okay, that means I’m doing a good job at riding easy. But I’ve also noticed in the past that easy riding can lead to good average speeds. It got me to thinking — have I been losing speed over a longer period of time?

Way back when I started riding — about 2007 — my friend David observed, “You’re pretty even with me — in the 15 mile per hour club.” That seemed like a reasonable average to shoot for at the time, and since then, I’ve often gauged my rides based on whether they achieved that 15 mph average.

So I looked back at my riding stats — I enter my times on a simple spreadsheet — and came up with these numbers:

  • 2008: 15.09
  • 2009: 14.91
  • 2010: 15.06
  • 2011: 15.03
  • 2012: 14.69

Those are the average speeds of all my rides for each year. A very slight falloff in 2009, but for the most part, David is right. I’m a 15 mph rider. Until last year. That dropoff seems to be significant.

I’m trying to figure out what caused last year’s speed to fall. At first, I thought it was because I had increased the number of rides I take with my wife. These tend to be much slower than my usual pace. But a quick comparison of 2012 with 2011 and 2010 shows that i rode about the same number of rides with her each year. It also appears that my longer rides average a slightly higher overall speed.

More hills? Not so much. I do some rides that involve steep hills, but they’re mostly short. They pull down my average speed, but I’m riding about the same amount of hilly rides each year, so it’s not a big contributor to going slow.

Am I getting older and slower? Is it just a natural part of aging? Sure, I’m getting older. But several guys in my club are older than me, and they’re all a lot faster. I know there’s room for improvement on my part.

Well, I’m not going to dwell on it. I just noticed that last year, I migrated from the 15 mph club to the 14 mph club. As I said, in a month I’ll start some speed building exercises and see if they pay off. In the meantime, if anyone wants to ride slow, get in touch. It looks like I’m your guy.

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Categories // training Tags // avg. speed

Riding Alone, Riding Slow

08.12.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

I enjoy my Sunday morning club rides. It’s good to be with a group, good to see riding acquaintances, good to chit chat while riding.

I also enjoy riding alone, and do most of my riding that way.

But that creates a problem — when I ride alone, I loaf.

Take last week’s club ride as an example. By 10 miles into the ride, I was off the back of the group and riding solo. I didn’t think about my pace, but just enjoyed the route through Texas Hill Country. It wasn’t long, though, before I was caught by several clubbers who had stopped to refill water bottles at a convenience store. They breezed past me. Some of them were A riders, so no big deal there. But others were regulars in our B ride, and I knew I could keep up with them.

I picked up the pace a bit, and did just that over the next five miles or so. Coming back on the return leg, I found myself on my own again — my own fault for taking a little longer at the turnaround than the rest of the group. After pedaling alone for seven miles, I caught up to them at a convenience store, where we always take a rest stop.

“You’re doing great today, Ray!” said a couple of the riders.

“I can’t be. I’m not keeping up with you,” I replied.

“No, really — when Judy says you’re doing great, you’re doing great,” said her husband.

I went in to refill my bottles. When I came out, they were already waiting at the stoplight on the corner to ride the last 10 miles home. I sat on a curb and drank some water and ate a fig bar. That meant I’d be on my own again for the last leg of the ride. I took it easy.

Yesterday, on my regular Saturday morning route, I paid a little more attention to my progress. I climbed a favorite hill in the big ring, as I have been doing lately, and beat by previous best time by one second. Later, on a difficult stretch that looks flat but isn’t, I kept my speed at least one mph higher than I normally do. But when I finished the 28-mile route, my average speed was only 14.5 — no great shakes.

Today, the club wanted to do a hills ride. In this heat? No thanks. I went off by myself to the southeast, on a route that features some rollers, but nothing difficult. Sure enough, on the way out I did a mental assessment of how well I was doing. I was doing fine, really, in terms of riding steadily, but my average speed was on the low side again.

I  can ride well with B-level cyclists, but I have to have them nearby so I can feel challenged. It doesn’t matter if we as a group are trying to hit a certain speed, or if we’re just riding. As long as others are around, I’ll put out more effort. Once I’m by myself, my ride becomes a pootle in the park, so to speak.

The Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred is in two weeks, and I know I’ll do fine — because I’ll be in the middle of about 13,000 other riders. I won’t be lacking for inspiration to keep up the pace, and I’m looking forward to it. (Oh, by the way, I have decided that I’ll do the 100K ride instead of the 100 miles. It’ll take me about four and half hours to finish the metric century, and I think that’s plenty of time in the saddle.) But if I find myself out on a country road with no other cyclists nearby, I know my speed is going to fall off.

Do you need that feeling of being challenged by other riders, or are you capable of pushing yourself even when no one else is around?

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Categories // Rides, training Tags // avg. speed, speed

Biking stats update

09.01.2008 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

Back at the end of April, I took a look at my riding stats for the first four months of the year. Now, the second four months has gone by, so it’s time to update those numbers:

  • May-August: 54 rides
  • Total mileage: 1167
  • Total for 2008:1814
  • Average speed: 14.87 mph
  • Highest avg. speed on a single ride: 16.8
  • Highest maximum speed on a single ride: 39.5
  • Longest single ride: 52.5
  • Monthly mileage
    • May: 298
    • June: 203
    • July: 344
    • August: 322

The biggest difference in the January-April and May-August timeframes is the amount of riding I’ve done. It almost doubled over the second four months. That’s partly to be expected because of warmer weather and more available riding time. The measures of central tendency haven’t changed much, with average speed up only .2 mph. But, I’ve talked before about my preference for just riding over training. What the stats don’t show is that my endurance and strength are better. Despite the occasional dip, I feel like I am a better rider than I was.

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Categories // Records & stats, Rides, training Tags // avg. speed, Rides, stats, training

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