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- Average speed can be really important to a cyclist.
It's quite a good measure of our ability,
and because of that, it's also therefore a really good way
of measuring your improvement as you get fitter,
and therefore you get faster.
- There are also plenty of benefits
to improve in your average speed, not least,
that you can become a bit more adventurous
'cause you can travel further in the same amount of time.
So if you have reached a bit of a plateau
in terms of the speed that you can average,
we've got some tips coming up for you now.
- Yup, some of which focus
on improving your ability on the bike,
and therefore how you get faster.
And then some of them, well,
they might also be called cheats
because you don't have to get any fitter,
but you will still go faster.
- Happy days.
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First up, we have body position.
Now if you want to improve your aerodynamics,
you could buy a swanky new frameset
or some deep dish wheels,
but by far the biggest difference
is your position on the bike.
So the difference between being
upright on the tops, like this,
and down on the drops, elbows bent, quite flat back,
is absolutely huge.
And actually, as well, the faster you are going,
the more important it is to be aero
and the more benefit you'll get.
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- Next up we have another one that doesn't necessarily
require you to be any fitter, your pacing.
If we imagine our theoretical ride is an hour long,
we have a finite ability over that hour,
but how we actually distribute our effort
can have a huge bearing on our ultimate average speed.
So if you set off too fast,
you will inevitably be going slower by the end.
And that kind of pacing strategy will be slower
then if you measure an even tempo for the whole ride.
But it's particularly important when you're doing things
like climbs, and actually, one of the most striking things
that I noticed when I did my first ever pro road race
was comparatively how slowly the Peloton rode up the climbs
but how quickly we rode on the flats and the descents.
And you can take that strategy for your own rides as well.
So actually think about actively backing off
when you're going up hills, and instead,
putting the effort in when you're on the flat
and maybe even, when it's safe to do so,
on descents as well.
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- This next one will, I'm afraid,
require a little bit of effort on your part.
If you get fitter and more powerful,
you'll go faster on your bicycle, that is a fact.
However, to get fitter, you will have to go training.
However, we will recommend to you
that you do quite a lot of training at sweet spot.
That's at 90% of your functional threshold power,
or a little bit under the maximum power
you would put out for an hour.
Now the reason this is so effective
and we say is the best bang for your buck
is because while this is very potent,
it's not so intense that you can't do
back to back days training at sweet spots.
So you can get a large volume of it
done each and every week.
If you do that, you should see
some very positive training adaptations.
You have more power, and therefore, more speed.
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- Eating whilst riding is a paramount importance
when you're on your bike for more than 90 minutes.
And yet, despite that, experienced riders and beginners
forget about this for quite consistently.
You see, when you're riding, you're obviously using fuel
and the harder you ride, the more fuel you will burn.
And so, if you're really serious
about improving your average speed,
you need to make sure that your muscles
have enough energy to actually keep going.
And so at the simplest, that would be
taking an energy drink with you to give you
about 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour,
or an energy gel as well.
It really, really can make quite a sizable difference,
particularly about maintaining your speed
as you get into the closing dying minutes of your ride.
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- The less weight you are carrying around with you,
the faster you will go on any ride
that involves some uphill gradient.
Just a few kilograms can make an enormous difference,
as Matt and I found out on the experiment we did
in Andorra a couple of years ago.
Or willing to that, at the end of this video.
Most people have got some weight that they can lose,
so you can over-exercise a bit more
or cut down your calories slightly,
or do a mix of the two.
The other option is to lose some weight from your bike.
But that as you know,
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is darned expensive.
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- Yes weight is important but as Dan's already touched on,
so too is aerodynamics.
And actually on rides where there's less elevation change,
aerodynamics is even more important than weight.
Now once you've got your body position sorted,
and let's face it, that is quite quick,
easy, and certainly cheap to do,
there are other avenues you can go down
even though it will require a little bit more investment.
So your clothing, for a start.
Make sure you have really tight fitting cycling kit.
Then, of course, there's your helmet.
You can invest in aerodynamic helmet.
And then when it comes to your bike,
there's almost no limit.
So aerodynamic wheels, for a start,
aerodynamic frames, certainly,
and then of course is the addition
of aerodynamic time trial bars as well.
That, of course, helps with your body position too.
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- I don't think so that it's escaped our viewer's attention
that we start this video by the sea,
and therefore at sea level, and we're now,
well, we're quite high up, aren't we?
Probably 800 meters here.
- Yeah, it's quite a long climb, this, isn't it?
And so this ride is definitely
not conducive to a high average speed.
But therein lies a little bit of a lesson
because if you are really, really keen
on setting record average speeds,
then you need to pay careful attention
to the route that you do choose.
- Yeah, not just the terrain
but also the weather conditions.
So if it's particularly windy out,
you might want to choose to go out
into the headwind or more sheltered road
and then use the nice luxury of big open roads
where the wind is right behind you.
- Yeah, and one last little cheat,
which actually I use regularly,
is that my average speeds now
are pretty much the same as when I was training
when I was a full-time bike rider.
But the secret is that my rides are probably a quarter,
or maybe even half, as long as they used to be.
But shorter rides, it's definitely easier to go faster.
- Yeah, so less climbing, shorter rides.
That's what I call a cheats there, isn't there.
I could probably do quite a good average speed,
one kilometer. - Yeah, but therein lies
also another lesson and that's
that average speeds are not necessarily
the be all and end all to fun bike rides.
Just something to bear in mind.
- In all seriousness, we hope that these tips
have helped you improve, or at least,
will do if you implement them.
If you enjoyed this video, give us a thumbs up down below.
And as I mentioned previously,
just down here is the video
that Matt and I did in Andorra
to see how much difference weight makes up climbs.