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1. 1. (about 2 hours later)

   nukeedit

   Doesn’t your bike computer have an ‘average speed’ display?

   Anyway, to answer your question, I generally see between 18 and 29 mph on my spedometer. That’s not including climbs and descents, of course. Were I to include those, then I’d have to say that I see anywhere between 8 and 55 mph. :-)

   Did that answer your question?

   Seth

   
   

   Seth

2. 2. (about 4 hours later)

   nukeedit

   Yes, it does have an average… which winds up reading 15.5 in my example.

   But what I wanted to know, and which you’ve now told me, is what speed you travel generally… I guess I’m doing a bad job explaining, but I find that average doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m sure the math is right on, that my ride averaged whatever it says, but it seems to me that a few slowdowns will “kill” the average. That is, I may be traveling so slow over whatever distance that it skews the average downward. I can now skew it the other way as well with a careful choice of route for a short ride. :~)

   What I’d love in a computer is info over time (cadence and speed) so that I could grab the sections I know to be true and use those to calculate.

   I cannot afford that level of computer at the moment.

   So it goes.

   Anyway, so I while I use the average for comparison (ride to ride) despite the ever changing terrain, I’d also like to know the average of time spent at 16 or more miles an hour (or whatever).

   Thanks!

   
   

   Daniel

3. 3. (about 5 hours later)

   nukeedit

   OK, I understand what you’re saying, but I’m having a hard time finding a way to agree with you and still having some form of honesty.

   In other words, if you ever listen to the CarTalk guys, you need to hear one of them saying, “Booooooooooogus!” right about now, because that’s what’s going through my head ;-)

   There are certainly many other very useful ways to check and compare performance, besides checking average speed from ride to ride, but whittling out the parts of the ride that you “don’t like” or “don’t agree with” is NOT one of those (legitimate) other ways.

   For one thing, if you’re riding for speed then you need the discipline to keep that speed up no matter what. This is why I’m so very annoyed that I missed my 5 hour century by so little: it would be easy to just “fluff out” some of the slower parts of the ride, bu that wouldn’t be fair.

   Let’s say, for example, that you take out five or ten seconds for every stop sign or traffic light where you had to stop. That seems fair, at first, because you had to slow down and speed up, which wastes time. But… while you’re sitting there you’re also recuperating a little, or more than a little.

   Don’t get in the habit of clipping out parts of your ride, man. It’s a slippery slope, and even the slightest hint of it will make all of your numbers totally untrustworthy.

   I guess my point is that, once again, you’re only competing with yourself. Your numbers show how fast you were on that route on that day. As soon as you skew your numbers, they no longer represent anything at all.

   If you know you were noodling on a flat for a little while, and try to subtract that out of your final numbers, are you sure you can do it right? How long, exactly, in both distance and time, were you taking it easy? How much did the on-bike rest affect your performance later in the ride? If you take out the slower part, are you also going to subtract a little speed (that is, increase time) to the faster part that came after it?

   There’s no way to get it straight. Your rides are what they are. If you want to be faster, you have to either train smarter, or harder. Or mabye both. But lying to yourself about the numbers is never the way.

   Not that I’m opinionated on this subject, or anything.

   Seth

   
   

   Seth

4. 4. (about 7 hours later)

   nukeedit

   Hope that didn’t come across too harshly. :-)

   
   

   Seth

5. 5. (about 19 hours later)

   nukeedit

   No harshness, I understand. But I’m not riding for a given speed. Whatever my average is, it is, for any ride. But that’s not always what I want to know. For example, yesterday’s ride averaged (if I remember correctly) 13mph when we done, parking lot noodling around included. My comp includes any sensed motion… I don’t start it and stop it. If I’m moving one wheel revolution it’s counted in my average. I don’t modify this number to suit, it stands as the number of record for the ride. However, there was a nice section where I was cruisin with some guys at the front, chatting about this and that… when I glanced down once or twice we were in the low twenties. Now what was the average for that section?

   I felt good, sometimes someone else was pulling, sometimes I was. It was probably a decline, I’d have to ride it solo to check, Iwas chatting at the time) but I’d like to know what our average was over that section.

   Now since you brought up training and speed, to which I have only very recently begun paying any attention… any recommendations? I’m in no rush to get faster, but I wouldn’t mind ;~)

   
   

   Daniel

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