I have been building in both miles and average speed on each of my rides since I started back to cycling the end of July. When I first started I could only do about 7 miles with avg. speed of 8.5. I can now do 20 miles 4 days a week with an average speed of 13.5 - 14.5 with faster sprints of 17 - 20 mph. DH and I try to get longer rides in on the weekends. Of course this is on the relatively flat trails near my home. I have been training on bridges for my “hills” here in Florida, but I have to slow down going up those - but at least I haven’t walked up them - I have muscled every one of those beasts! Nothing to compare to yall’s major hill climbing elsewhere in the world though. I just completed my first 50k - the trail had some pretty good grades so I had to work extra hard and faced a headwind most of the day going north on the trail. You are all an inspiration to me!!

Pardes: I train with full panniers too on my hybrid - comes in handy for packing my extra water and snacks - I got real spoiled on that SAG supported 50k! Now I am back to packing my own support stuff.