Since acquiring a Garmin I've been paying more attention to my ride stats. What I've seen is something that I suspected for a long time - I always ride at the same speed. Some days I feel really strong and have the impression I'm whizzing along. Other days I feel like my legs are made of lead and I can hardly move. But apparently the difference in speed is minimal, if any. I'm not aiming to beat any records, but a sense of improvement would be nice!
Actually this is not a new thought. When I had functioning knees and was running a lot I mentioned it to another runner and he said "if you want to run faster, you have to run fast. Do sprint intervals". I followed his advice for a while, but never got any faster.
Maybe I'm just slow ...
Ride with a fast group,they make you try harder and leave you less time to slip in to your default effort/speed.
Oh, and you need to put a lot more effort in as you get older 😉 🤣
If you're just checking your average speed after riding around a lot then its unlikely to really change much and when it does its probably down to the weather or the traffic as much as anything else. I find it something of an intangible mirage really and not a reliable number to gauge your fitness.
For me, I've always found structured training the only way to really improve my fitness on the bike (and my speed). So, a few turbo trainer sessions a week and then a long ride as well, or something similar. Riding to power or heart rate means I am much more attuned as to what is an easy effort, a tempo effort or a hard effort and so forth.
Loads of people will list all kinds of training methods and theories below that have worked for them and they may be of interest or not- but, they will all in the end boil down to a mixture of doing structured/planned sessions that are some mixture or other of short/hard sessions and easy long sessions and something in-between.
I train quite a lot but if I just go out for a standard flat "ride" without thinking about it I could pretty much nail-down what my exact average speed will be before I set-off as it will simply settle into my usual "not thinking" pace (which is a nice way to ride).
Personally, if I want to a do a "fast" 100km it takes a fair bit of mental effort as well as physical: constantly on the pedals as much as I can, constantly trying to get aero, minimising any freewheeling as much as I can and really getting my head down the whole time. Which is also fun in its own way.
Edit to say the above is for road riding, I haven't MTB's in about 15 years 😬
There's quite a range of how people respond to training, but the number of people who don't respond at all to interval sessions is really small (apparently they exist). This is unlikely to be you, so if you want to get fast you need to heed your running mate - start riding fast.
That being said, mountain biking is a pretty hard sport to just do at a decent level. The just ride your bike more approach works very well up to a point, because a typical 3 hr Peak / Lakes / Wales / wherever ride is its own interval session. You must notice the difference when you're riding a lot / little. In any case, try pushing hill segments, or riding longer, enter a challenge event to ride somewhere new (kinda like a MTB sportive), or enter a race if you really want to benchmark things.
I agree that some form of structured training programme is the only answer. Mine mixes running, weights, turbo sessions for sprint intervals of varying lengths and recovery times. The long weekend rides are the fun bit I do it all for
I have never trained but just ride regularly (3 or 4 times a week 52 weeks a year) and have done for 25 years. As above, any average speed differences are going to be down to the weather, how much I am wearing, and a bit of how I am feeling that day. I have a lot of Strava data since 2013 and see very little change over 12 years which I suppose is good as I am now 57 rather than rather than 45. Saying that, my absolute fastest segment times tended to be more at the 45 end than the 57 end...
You forgot to tell use you ride an ebike on pretty flat roads and ride at the assistance limit of 15.5mph? 😉
Muscles, heart, lungs, blood vessels etc. are just body parts at the end of the day (and they respond to the right stimuli).
But there's a certain mental disposition... a way of being/thinking. That's what separates the fastest from the slowest IMO. All other things being equal (like age/health etc) - you can get faster. 👍
So things like sticking to a training/nutrition program, setting some milestones/goals, and allowing yourself enough time to actually see those benefits month to month, season to season.
You forgot to tell use you ride an ebike on pretty flat roads and ride at the assistance limit of 15.5mph? 😉
You're not far off 🙂
You have to scream if you want to go faster. Apparently.
Is the answer "cake"?
It's probably the answer to why I can't go fast. I'd like it to be the answer to "what do I need to go faster"
I'd like it to be the answer to "what do I need to go faster"
Cake. There you go, you have my permission 😉
IANAC
For a few years I was aware I was often getting decent power numbers, but they weren't converting to speed, compared to others on flattish Strava segments (when I tried to give them a best I could manage go on the day, rather than saving such efforts for hills as normal).
My "58cm" Cube Attain GTC is an aero brick, crazy tall 610mm frame stack and it came with 42cm wide bars at the hoods.
Lowered stem to under all spacers (30mm) when lower back ok, fitted an adjustable Deda stem to -30 degrees (lowered bars another ~4.5cm) and fitted a pair of 38cm DHB Primavera carbon bars.
This then put my vaguely in the ballpark of a typical racey frame.
Front tyre width chosen to blend nicely into the from wheel rim wall, not so important on rear tyre within reason, latex tubes to lower rolling resistance to near tubeless.
Ironically, I bought some Vel 50RL wheels in autumn '22, but I've not some anwhere close to my early '22 numbers since due to long covid.
Maybe I'm just slow ...
Buy a new bike. Probably a red bike.
Red bikes are faster, everyone knows that.
😉
More seriously though, everything that @Duggan says above ^^.
You can pootle around all you want but what'll happen is you'll settle into a default "just riding along" mode that will work absolutely fine for getting you places but it won't do a lot for your fitness or speed. Sadly if you want to get fitter and/or faster, you actually need to put in some structured training and effort.
It's not fair. Cake would be a far better answer.
I'm enjoying the marginal gains game right now, waxed chains, TPU tubes, thinking aero thoughts, even shaved my legs 😂 (in part due to lots of KT taping...). Not sure I really believe any of it but definitely picking up a lot of PBs recently.
Other thing is general efficiency on the bike, I noticed over 4 big days of riding that I was pedalling differently as different muscles fatigued, think it has taught me better pedalling in general, more glute dependent and actually lowering cadence.
Try fuelling better? I'm trying harder to at least manage 60g carbs per hour on longer rides, it really is surprising how hard it is to do, I'm generally relying on multiple bottles of energy drink and gels on harder rides. Easier on slower rides as can stop to digest proper foods.
Find a really strong headwind and then ride the other direction. Instant improvement!
Since acquiring a Garmin I've been paying more attention to my ride stats. What I've seen is something that I suspected for a long time - I always ride at the same speed. Some days I feel really strong and have the impression I'm whizzing along. Other days I feel like my legs are made of lead and I can hardly move. But apparently the difference in speed is minimal, if any. I'm not aiming to beat any records, but a sense of improvement would be nice!
Structured training, but you also need to work out what's limiting you and be proper motivated to improve rather than just wondering whimsically if you could. Any intervals much above threshold hurt a lot, but are probably going to give the biggest bang for your buck. That said, I recall reading that a percentage of the population simply don't respond to training, so if that's you, you're doomed 🙁
You need an aero base layer
You need an aero base layer
It’s hard to overstate just how obscene that would look on me!
