I was a competitive swimmer, and also "endurance" but that was just because I'm also just SLOW and those were the only events with room for me. 400 I.m., 200 Butterfly... I have no upper body strength to speak of. My strokes are very nice - I perfected them trying to get fast. Pretty does not mean strong :-)

However, my experience in cycling has been different.

Do you workout like you owuld a swimming workout? That got me tons faster on the bike. I'd go out and do a long warmup, then some medium length sorta-hard intervals, then shorter and faster ones... just like a swim workout. I also focused on technique. If you're doing something inefficiently, then that could have you hitting that speed wall. I have a four mile grid that I use for "laps." Other cyclists would find it too boring... but it's more exciting than the swimming pool, especially 'cause I can watch that speedometer and see exactly how fast I'm going.

It meant going out on my own, in the dawn's early light, but that was part of the "fun" - the REAL fun was the look on that ride leader's face when I hit 17 mph.... going uphill on a 35 pound Western Flyer :-) ... and averaging 21 + with the guys for 30 miles... still on a toe-clipped hybrid (albeit aluminum).

Now, it *could* be that you have X amount of quadness or V02 or whatever stuff they talk about on that other bike forum, but maybe not.