new to cycling--speed??

[Newbiecyclingme]

Hi all, I am new to cycling, only been on a bike 4 times. What is a typical Speed that a woman can do for a newbie, I want to improve but I feel sooo slow, Thanks

[redrhodie]

I wouldn't worry about speed if you've only done 4 rides. Just keep riding, and you'll see your speed improve naturally in a very short time. I actually remember my first ride, I went 8 miles, and I was toast. I didn't have a computer, but I probably averaged under 12 mph.

[kermit]

I ride for fitness and fun and the occasional sprint tri. You will get great responses from the hammerheads on here but I was always told to start with a high cadence (rpm) and low resistance and the speed would come. My friend who is training for an ironman duathlon just hired a trainer for her cycling. She was given a set time to ride in the small chain ring and keep a cadence between 80 to 90 rpm. The time on the bike increases every week and the speed for now is not a concern. Thats just my 2 cents. I know for me it has worked.

[owlice]

I often average under 12 MPH now! Last year, a lot of my rides were in the 8-9 MPH range, so my ~11 MPH is improvement!! I'd love to get to a consistent 13 MPH or so.

And oh, yeah, I ride mostly flat trails; we're not talking biking up mountains or anything here!!

[SadieKate]

Fast enough to keep the rubberside down. Next goal: ride in a straight line and predictably so you can ride safely with others.

[Tri Girl]

Like everyone said: don't worry too much about your speed. Most importantly- just have fun and enjoy yourself on EVERY ride. You'll get stronger, you'll get fitter, and you'll increase your speed.

When I started out I was obsessed with speed and getting faster. And I did. And then I got all burned out- and now I'm riding because I WANT to and I LIKE it and I go at whatever pace I want. I took the computer off my bike, but I think I'm averaging somewhere in the 10-12 mph range. A far cry from my 18-20 mph range from 4 years ago, but I'm having A LOT more fun now than I was back then and I'm riding for sheer pleasure instead of it being a "have to" kind of thing.

Ride the way you want. If you want to be a "hammer-head", do it. If you want to be a "smell the roses" kind of rider, do it. Just have fun no matter what kind of riding you do!!

[ny biker]

The bike you ride will affect this. Just by switching from knobby tires to slicks on my mountain bike, I rode faster on paved trails. Then switching from a mountain bike to a road bike sped me up again.

But yeah, just have fun.

[tangentgirl]

I often average under 12 MPH now!

Glad I'm not the only one.

[Chile Pepper]

Glad I'm not the only one.

You and me both. On the other hand, I'm so much stronger than I used to be--a much better climber, with much better stamina. Hills are part of the issue: nothing is truly flat here, so it's always slow one direction and pretty fast the other, which averages out to 12-13 mph for me. And realistically, I ride alone, I'm 45, and I'm not interested in speed training. The pace isn't going to magically pick up on its own.

[Jiffer]

I am a stat freak, so I am giving you specific stats. I started riding a tandem with my husband in the fall of 2006. I got my own road bike in summer of 2007. I started logging my rides in January 2008. Here are four rides from January that year and four recent rides from this year, one of them yesterday. Remember, I had already been riding a tandem for a year and a half before the 2008 first entries, along with my own bike for six months, though I didn't ride much, if any during the previous month or so during the holidays, so it was beginning of season, just getting back into riding at the beginning of the year.

I'm giving you miles, ride time (not including pausing for signals and breaks), average pace, and feet of climbing. The amount and grade of climbing makes a huge difference in over all time and speed. Note the lower mileage in the 2008 rides verses the 2010 rides. Of course I gave you some of my better rides for 2010, but some of the shorter and/or slower rides that I didn't post are recovery rides or training rides where I was focusing on intervals, not over all time.

1/19/08 - 8.91 miles, 0:37:25, 14.3 pace, 747 ft
1/21/08 - 17.58 miles, 1:24:39, 12.5 pace, 916 ft
1/29/08 - 8.79 miles, 0:40:41, 13.0 pace, 486 ft
1/30/08 - 16.80 miles, 1:16:00, 13.1 pace, 660 ft

2/13/10 - 64.50 miles, 3:42:59, 17.4 pace, 2,195 ft
3/05/10 - 70.95 miles, 3:50:54, 18.4 pace, 1,226 ft
2/19/10 - 43.78 miles, 2:23:41, 18.3 pace, 1,047 ft
3/20/10 - 32.47 miles, 2:00:36, 16.1 pace, 1,898 ft

The last ride, on 3/20, was yesterday. That is a club ride with some pretty substantial climbing. I have done that ride at a faster pace, 16.5, when the club happened to go especially fast during the first 10 mile flat section and I was able to keep up. Yesterday, the club went relatively slow in the beginning, but I wanted to focus on the climbs anyway. I keep track of how fast I do climbs on specific routes and I did all those climbs faster than I ever have before. I was SO excited. If you have a way to track laps on your bike computer, I highly recommend using it for small sections of rides that you want to improve on. It motivates me to go faster and I "know" if I did something faster. I don't have to rely on the average pace for the entire ride to know I am improving.

I hope my specific numbers are an encouragement to you to see how one can improve over a relatively short period of time. I remember a club ride a couple of years ago when I was climbing and being passed by pretty much everyone. A woman went passed me at a much faster pace and my first thought was, "I hate her." And then I though, "No ... I don't hate her. I want to BE her! Some day I'm going to BE that woman." But wondered if I ever really could be. And now I'd say I'm relatively close to riding at the pace she was riding that day. Woo hoo! It is only recently that I'm "really" starting to feel good about the speed of my riding and intervals is a huge part of that. I highly recommend intervals. But just getting out and riding at any pace and distance will help you improve.