As cyclists, we are always keen on enhancing our speed as a beginner or even a professional. Riding fast gives a sense of achievement and mental satisfaction that we are setting the bar higher for ourselves to make the most out of our cycling sessions.
Average Speed A Cyclist Should Have (minimum) To Start Making a Difference to Their Routine Cycling Workouts.
Well, the answer depends on a lot of factors, and a few prominent ones are as follows
- The kind of terrain you ride your bike on – roads or hills. It either increases or decreases your speed depending on how much effort you put into the paddling hoe efficiently you can resist the friction and cut through the wind.
- The kind of bicycle you ride on – mountain bike, road bikes, folded bikes, electric bikes, indoor bikes, etc. Some bikes may require more strength to spin the wheels while others may require less strength, which is a vital speed determining factor.
- It also depends on a cyclist’s strength, weight, and resistance to stroke the paddle and riding faster. To cycle swiftly, you need to have healthy body weight and a lot of resistance to keep going for long without losing the strength to paddle.
- The average cycling speed of the cyclists depends from country to the country provided the kind of weather conditions, air density, and overall temperature that persists over the world across different regions.
- For beginners an average cycling speed would be about 12 miles per hour. For moderate-level cyclists who are no more beginners but not even pros, the average speed would be about 16-19 mph. Anything beyond that is for professional and enthusiastic cyclists.
Effective Ways to Increase Your Cycling Speed as An Enthusiastic Cyclist
1. A Nutritious Diet Is Important to Ride Faster
A wholesome diet filled with lean proteins, sufficient carbs, and veggies in abundance will make your ride complete and chances are you will never go out of energy. Your body either needs to be fitter or stronger, which are the main factors that decide if you will be able to cycle faster or not.
2. Try to Paddle Continuously
The first rule to ride faster and increase your average cycling speed is to always keep the bike in motion. Make sure to take a different route every time you see there is a scope for a halt.
This doesn’t need to be followed literally all-time but most of the time. This will ensure you maintain a flow and gradually increase the speed which makes you confident on the road.
3. Don’t Hit Breaks Too Often
In continuation to the previous point, this automatically is achieved when you try to eliminate your bike from taking a resting position. You witness yourself riding faster and uninterrupted when there’s no need to hit breaks.
This does not mean every time you will be lucky to find a road that isn’t congested with traffic but sometimes you need to look at the road and decide where not to get stuck. So, to begin with, when you feel you need to stop, instead, slow down and avoid using breaks.
4. Train Indoors Twice a Week to Improve Speed
Training outdoors is the best way to increase your average cycling speed, however, to get you into the groove on uninterrupted paddling, it’s best to warm up on an indoor cycle.
You can go as fast as you want without worrying about stopping the bike unless you start becoming breathless. This will help you form the momentum and tell you for how long you can keep going.
5. Try Riding in Intervals for an Instant Speed Boost
Short but powerful and intense cycling training sessions can be of great help if you are trying to increase your cycling speed. Apply a combination of high-intensity drills, cadence workouts and challenge yourself to ride without break for stretched hours.
6. Cadence It Up, Increase The Paddling Frequency
Paddling non-stop and paddling at a certain rate is completely different. You can be paddling for an hour but with a mellow speed which can have a little to no impact on your cycling speed.
On the other hand, when you follow a cadence like paddling a certain number of times in a minute and constantly work on increasing the frequency with time, is what’s going to make a huge difference.
7. Go Aero to Ride Like A Pro
This means you need to position your body in a certain way that improves the aerodynamics positioning when riding a bicycle. You can simply bend to structure your upper body by which you can cut straight through the wind. This will help you automatically speed up your paddling.
Also, lowering your head and forming an arc-like structure intensifies you to increase your riding speed. It’s much more useful than riding with a straight back as it becomes challenging for you to go against the wind in that formation.
8. Don’t Forget to Track Your Progress
Once you start implementing all the above ways to increase your cycling speed, make sure to keep a track of your progress after regular intervals and evaluate if the tips are working for real or not. You can either measure the average speed with the help of your smartwatches or even your mobile phones by any of the in-built health apps.
Winding It Up
Everyone should at some point begin to push themselves harder to ride faster and better. However, this should not come at the cost of straining and setting unrealistic cycling training goals.
So, always make it a point to never compare your cycling speed with your fellow cycling buddies. At Spoke Herd we believe that every cyclist has their way of picking up velocity, and the path they follow to achieve it can vary.