Do you really go that fast!

A lot of interesting comments get left on the road-bike site in the 'cycling speed' section - interesting because they start to give a picture as to how we cyclists each compare with each other.

But something troubles me. If we are all cycling along at such different speeds why am I not constantly overtaking slower cyclists and being overtaken by faster cyclists? Really it's pretty rare - and that suggests to me that perhaps we all cycle at quite similar speeds when on the same type of terrain.

Problem is, knowing another cyclists average speed doesn't tell us very much unless we also know where they live and what the ride was like - my average speed on a flat road, on a windless day, in warm but not overly hot weather is significantly different to when I cycle up lots of a hills on a very hot or very cold day (hot is worse).

Reading how someone who has been cycling for three months and can already cycle 80 miles at 18 mph is discouraging for us mere mortals. I can try and blame my age and the 20 years where I chose beer and cigarettes instead of cycling but who wants to hear that?

I came across a useful map-route-planning site that helps make the comparison a bit fairer - you can map out your route and it tells you the distance, and also how much climbing there is along the route. Turns out most of my routes are about 600-750 metres of vertical climbing in 50-75 miles - that might not sound much, depending on where you live, but it sounds more impressive than none at all. And gives me a good excuse for having a lower average speed than some people.

So from now on I will only be impressed (and intimidated) by people who not only say how fast they cycle, but also how much change in vertical level they have along the way.

The site is www.bikeroutetoaster.com by the way, give it a go. It's also useful for seeing whether that 'long steep hill' you ride is more like a 2% or 10% gradient (hills I ride near home are usually 2-4km, 3-6%, with only short sections at 8-10%+)

I have to come clean. My own average speed on most of my own routes, when I'm cycling on my own, is around 17-19 mph. Yes, I know, there's always room for improvement - embarrasingly I'm quite good going up hills, and not too bad on the flat, it's my descents that let me down.