From a Hybrid to a Road Bike - finally!

[chicagogal]

If you are serious about training to get stronger/faster, you need to remember that to get faster, you have to ride faster.

This means doing INTERVALS, where you ride fast/hard for a short distance, recover, and repeat. There are lots of different interval training plans out there. They are all hard, but they make a HUGE difference.

[marni]

I have been reading selena yeagers ride yourself lean from velo press and she has some good advice including some interval programs and some other training info. I also find the podrunner 5k,8k, and 10k interval podcasts, downloaded to my ipod/radio which plays loud enough to hear without earphones, have upped my speed from a low 15mph to a consistent low to mid 16 mph. Still kind of discouraging slow after 5 years of riding and weight loss, but I figure my age is a bit against me, that plus lack of frquency of rides since the FIL moved in with us and started taking up my two free days with his physical training and medical needs. Still I love the podrunner stuff for both bike and gym, and an overal speed for the duration of a ride, in spite of wind, highway overpasses (what passes for hills around here) and attitudinal texas drivers is perhaps not too shabby for an over 60 er.

marni

[Ritamarie]

A couple of miles an hour is a huge difference. If you are riding on relatively flat roads you won't see a whole lot of difference in a heavy bike vs a light bike. You will see the difference on a hilly ride. On my road bike, I'll range from 14 mph for a hilly ride by myself to 19+ if it's less hilly (we don't have anything flat here!) or I have someone pushing me. If I ride my fat tire bike, I can count on the average being about 2 MPH slower ... though I think I would top out at less than 16 mph. It's just not that kind of bike.

[Owlie]

I can't speak about the speed (see my avatar), but:

Ooh, nice bike!

[featuretile]

Do rolling hills count as intervals? You go down fast, get half way up, and then crawl up - repeat over and over again.

I have no idea what my speed would be on a flat ride as I have never been on one.

[tulip]

On a century ride, you need to pace yourself. Typically, you don't ride the same pace on a century ride as you do on a speedy 45-mile ride. There are plenty of century plans out there. Do a search here, or go to the library. Selena Yeager has several good books out with century plans. There are others, too.