Seal,

This is an issue I myself have been struggling with since I started cycling more seriously about six months ago. I trained to ride a metric century which was a couple of weeks ago. I averaged 11.5 mph on that ride. The truth is that I actually love riding 12 mph. The problem is that on distance riding like that it translates into hours in the saddle (for example, it took my husband only one hour more to finish the 104 ride as it did for me to finish the 64 ride!) Go ahead and laugh!

So, I've started to ask myself...why do I ride? What do I want to get out of it? I have definitely figured out that I don't want to make myself miserable focusing so much on increasing speed that I stop enjoying cycling. I ride to be with others, be outside, stay in shape. Every once in a while I like to push myself to achieve a specific goal but most of the time I ride for pure enjoyment.

I guess what I'm saying is don't get too stressed about it. From what I can tell there is lots of obsessing about speed that goes on in the cycling world and that can make you feel external pressure to get faster (I've certainly struggled with that this year and sometimes started to feel I shouldn't be cycling or wasn't "good" at it) but there are also lots of different kinds of cyclists. So, find your niche and enjoy it!