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8 Tips to Improve Your Speed as a Professional Cyclist

Average Speed A Cyclist Should Have (minimum) To Start Making a Difference to Their Routine Cycling Workouts.

8 Tips to Improve Your Speed as a Professional Cyclist
Written by Editorial

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


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. 

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