I think club ride pace depends on the club. I occasionally ride with two different clubs:
Club 1: An A group at 22-25 mph with sprints and attacks, and a B group at 18-20 advertised as "no drop" although they don't always adhere to this; this club is oriented primarily toward racing
Club 2: 200-300 riders show, with groups split up from 14-16 mph, 16-18, 18-20, 20-22, 22+ (although the groups don't hold exactly to those speeds, they do break out along ability levels); this club is much more oriented toward recreational riding, although they do have a strong team that trains separately from the main club ride.
The main lesson I draw from this: Check around, and find a club that fits what you want to do (assuming you have a choice in clubs--I live near a major city)
What I see in the local randonneuring club is a big spread in pace from averages only a couple of mph above the minimum up to speeds that bump the maximum pace for shorter brevets. Riders at both extremes seem to be happy, although the lowest pace riders are occasionally stressed by trying to meet the time limits when conditions are tough.
Personally, I like to train at higher paces for shorter rides so that I get high intensity training. This lets me ride longer rides faster without struggling, and deal with hills or winds without struggling as much. I also do heart-rate based training for intervals, etc., to build speed and strength.
I have worked very hard on brevets to make a "personal best" and had a very good time doing it, but try not to get hung up on being faster than other riders.
Mark "make of it what you want" W
It just depends on the club, and even then the particular group within
the club. We have 2 large-ish clubs in Chico. Chico Corsa (racers)
and Chico Velo (everyone else, hundreds of people). Corsa ride
extremely hard, all the time. Their LSD (long slow/steady distance)
rides in the winter tend to sit at around 19-20mph. The Wednesday
night "Fast 50" seems to average 25mph, or higher. I got through about
half of one Fast 50 ride before I was dropped. I learned for certain
that style of riding isn't what I enjoy. They also crash way too
often. :-)
Then, there are several groups within Chico Velo that ride at
different paces. There's a scale that is used to indicate both speed
and hills, and usually the person putting on the ride communicates
that to the list beforehand. Here's the scale:
*************************************************************************************************
All rides start at One-Mile unless otherwise noted.
Terrain Rating
---------------------
1: Flat ride (example: River Road)
2: Some rolling hills (Keefer Road)
3: Moderate climbing (Neal Road)
4: Significant climbing (Centerville AND Honey Run)
Pace Ratings
--------------------
You should be able to ride this pace comfortably for 30 minutes on a flat road,:
A: 10-12 mph (ride as group)
B: 13-15 mph (frequent re-groups)
C: 16-18 mph (regular re-groups)
D: 19-21 mph (occasional re-groups)
E: 22-24 mph (possible re-groups)
F: 25+ mph
*************************************************************************************************
And, as others have said, if you do some amount of planned high
intensity riding, your ability to ride faster and recover at longer
distances will increase.
Me? I'm just slow like you. My first 200k I averaged 15.6mph (rolling
speed) for the first 75 miles or so, but I finished with a 14.6mph
rolling speed. I guess I need to train harder. :-)
If you can ride steadily at 15-17mph in a brevet, you'll do wonderfully.
Gino
> I'm not sure I can ride 15-17 in a brevet. I guess we'll find out in
> a couple of weeks as I plan to do my own 200k with rolling hills
> beginning and end and flat in the middle. I would be glad the first
> time out if I could average 11-14 mph with stops -- but we'll see!
>
The minimum speed to finish, if you don't stop, is 9.32 mph. Here is
how much time you "earn" for faster speeds: (I hope the columns line up)
Speed (mph) Time banked (min/hr)
9.32 0
10 4
11 9
12 13
13 17
14 20
15 23
16 25
17 27
18 29
19 31
20 32
21 33
Any faster than 21 mph and you have to wait for controls to open.
The figure I remember is averaging 14 mph builds a cushion of 20
minutes per hour, or one hour for every three. The faster you can go
at the start the more rapidly you can build up a nice time cushion,
but don't burn yourself out. Minimizing time at controls is
important. Once I have about 2 hours lead over the closing times I
linger at controls if I feel I need a bit of time off the bike. The
faster you can go the easier the entire ride will be, because
everything becomes more difficult the longer you are on the bike.
Surely you have already ridden centuries. A 200 is not much
further. You should do fine, although if your previous experience is
fully supported and organized rides over relatively easy courses your
first brevet might be something of an eye-opener.
Bill Gobie
One of the biggest things that affects overall time in a brevet is time spent at stops. If you're quick through the controls you can save lots of time. Talk while you're riding, not while you're standing around at the control. If you develop a habit of thinking about what you need to do, getting that done, and getting on the road you'll save time that will be critical in longer brevets especially.
And if you have good habits you won't end up 5 miles down the road realizing you didn't get your card signed!
Mark WW
Of course, how
fast people ride depends on terrain. We typically have around 10000
feet of elevation gain per 200Km.
The Audax UK website describes the system that they use for awarding AAA points that "encourage participation in hilly events and offer a challenge to regular long distance riders and also to those who do not wish to ride the longest events but who enjoy hard riding. It is popular, not only because of the challenge, but also because of the scenery it has to offer."
The formula is fairly complicated, but is based on altitude climbed and distance:
P = (c - (d * 14) + ((d-100)*(d-100)/100)) / 400
Where: P = AAA points for the distance, to be rounded to the nearest ¼ point
c = total metres climbed
d = distance in kilometers
There are minimum standards for awarding points, though, so not every ride even qualifies for anything. They have spreadsheets, etc., at: http://www.aukweb.net/aaa/index.htm
It sounds really interesting, and could be an incentive for riders to do hillier routes to pick up points that count toward the annual competition.
Mark W
> From: NickBull <nick.bi...@gmail.com>
> Subject: [Randon] Re: How fast do you ride? Am I really that slow?
> That's an interesting formula, but it doesn't seem
> like it addresses
> Frank Paolo's comments about difficulty not only being
> related to
> elevation change but also to rate of change and length of
> average
> climb.
>
Yep, it doesn't. Quantifying those factors would address that, but it gets tricky--first you have to decide what a "climb" consists of. Once you've determined that one you can work out the others. Is it some minimum length? A minimum altitude change? Minimum gradient? Some combination of all of those factors? I think we all have something in our heads, but it probably differs depending on the typical terrain we're familiar with.
I used to ride in Pennsylvania from Happy Valley--every local ride except one went up and over and up and over (feel free to repeat until you throw up like I used to) the ridge lines of the Appalachians. Lots of steep gradients and significant but not enormous elevation changes per climb. This summer I went riding in Colorado--lots of elevation change but many of the gradients were lower than PA. Home on the flatlands near the Gulf Coast we add up lots of little rollers without steep grades and come up with 5000 ft of climbing over 200k and are happy we came up with some climbing.
If you're rating difficulty by the characteristics of the individual climbs it would probably get tough to compute--and how do you handle a steep climb that briefly flattens (or descends 10 ft) then ascends once more? How do you get a volunteer to rate the hundreds of climbs that are encountered in a long rolling brevet?
Personally I'm not sure if a steep grade (but realistic--there goes that judgment thing again) that puts a lot of altitude in over a few climbs is harder than something that just goes up and down endlessly, but it probably depends on how steep steep is, what range of gears you have to choose from, and how hard you push the pace on that climb.
I think the Audax UK's formula tries to make a compromise between those factors without actually trying to quantify them and instead just uses something that's easily computed for a specific ride and still separate a ride with a climbing challenge from a flat ride. Maybe someone from the UK could chime in about their formula's origin and evolution?
Mark "PBP vs BMB" W
ps: I have a VDO computer that measures climbing, altitude, and gradient. It also computes "average gradient" but around here it always registers 1%, so it's not terribly helpful--maybe it does better in other areas.