Getting your speed up

[giant rock]

I have been riding for a couple of months now mainly on the mountain bike, just started using the road bike and I was just wandering how long it was before you seen your speed start to increase???? Noticed that I have slowed a little on the mountain bike and I have no idea why!!

 

[davidtcr]

Can you give us some idea of what sort of riding you are doing on the different bikes, such as how many kms you are doing, what sort of specific training, etc? Also when you started using the road bike did you use this to do a big jump in your weekly distance, or did it replace existing rides?

 

[shue]

Variable- depends on how fit you are/ are getting. Speed is all about cadence. The longer you can spin your gears at a high RPM, the faster you will be overall.

 

[giant rock]

I started using the road bike as I thought that I may get into road riding. I have done about 10km at least once a week on the road bike as it is hard to get out their on the road when hubby is away. When he is away I ride the mountain bike and also have done some trail riding with my cousins for fun. I enjoy riding both bikes and love every chance I get to ride either one.I always sit in the saddle as I feel comfortable their.

 

[davidtcr]

I doubt if 10 km a week is going to make much of a difference to your speed, either up or down. The general rule of thumb is that MTB kms have double the impact of road kms, so a 10km road ride is roughly equivalent to 5km on dirt.

Generally there are a couple of areas where road riding can be a very effective part of a training regime:

• It allows longer rides at a steady pace. That is, you can help to build endurance by doing longer rides without the wear on the bike and body of a MTB ride. Longer is obviously subjective dependent on your current ride lengths, but you will find many (generally weekend morning) group rides of 2 or so hours.
• It allows more structured training. That is, you can easily incorporate things like interval sessions without the terrain interrupting you. These are excellent ways to improve speed.

It would be very useful for you to find a group of riders in your local area that you can ride with. Group riding is a very useful road skill, and the company makes the longer rides enjoyable. You just need to make sure that the group is of similar ability, and with similar aims, to you.

 

[akashra]

Depends what kind of speed you refer to. There's different types.

I still can't hold the XC B grade bunches on long flats, and tend to fall back over long climbs, but can outsprint virtually everyone I race against off the start and up short hills, but can't put in high power finish sprints. On any track which involves lots of starting and stopping, or short sprinting between trees I've just unconsciously put in a lot of training (ie, STXC).

I saw the biggest improvement in straight-line in-the-saddle power after riding single-speed for a few weeks/months. OTOH I'm now not as quick up hills since I changed my riding style to be a lot more in-the-saddle, but can hold that pace longer. All that's just about trying to develop more power through my glutes - which at my current point I don't need to get out of the saddle anymore accelerating out of corners in C grade road bunches whereas others need that extra power for those accelerations.

You'll notice where you need to improve when you try to sit on fast bunches or crits - eg, few weeks ago I rode a crit in Elite Men (way out of my league), and could really feel it in my glutes. Guess what area needs improvement for that kind of riding?



Also remember that if your position on your road and XC bikes aren't matched, then you're using different muscle groups. Effectively, if they're not the same, you end up needing to re-train yourself for each bike, and if they're too far different effort on one won't help (much) effort on the other.

My point is here, there's different kinds of speed. Pick one.

 

[alexb618]

where you are at in your 'cycling career' its not rocket science.

you just need to ride more and push yourself a little bit, the speed will come naturally.

 

[giant rock]

I know that when I do my 10km ride on the roadie that I feel kind of queasy and my legs feel like jelly. Is it still wise to do a 2 hour ride??? Went mountain biking today just for fun and to relax enjoy the scenery and my cousins came along. Only thing is that he likes downhilling and I hate it. So I had quiet a boring and disappointing ride should have stayed home. But I love road riding and I should find a group to go with that I know.

 

[davidtcr]

I should have mentioned that you do need to build up your distance gradually, so you should not just go out and start doing 2 hour rides. The general recommendation is about 10% increase per week, so if you are currently doing around 5 hours per week, then you don't want to go much more than 5.5 next week, 6 the week after, etc.

 

[castillo]

If your legs feel like jelly, perhaps try spinning in an easier gear for your first couple of rides. Its just about getting out there and riding, really - the more you ride the more you'll figure out.

 

[s73v30]

Ok don't mean to be rude or anything but 10kms on the roadie shouldn't cause your legs to turn to jelly, unless your sitting at like 50kms an hour(which i doubt you are if your asking for speed tips).

If I was you I would worry about getting your fitness up first.
Try to extend your ride a bit further then maybe do some leg exercises to build strength which will then give you the speed your looking for.
Also if your not spinning when riding. Try spinning it makes things much easier and you would be surprised at the speed vs power required when you compare to grinding gears.
Then learn to spin and grind you'll take off then.

Hope it helps.

 

[bazza]

Ok don't mean to be rude or anything but 10kms on the roadie shouldn't cause your legs to turn to jelly, unless your sitting at like 50kms an hour(which i doubt you are if your asking for speed tips).

If I was you I would worry about getting your fitness up first.
Try to extend your ride a bit further then maybe do some leg exercises to build strength which will then give you the speed your looking for.
Also if your not spinning when riding. Try spinning it makes things much easier and you would be surprised at the speed vs power required when you compare to grinding gears.
Then learn to spin and grind you'll take off then.

Hope it helps.

pretty much all of that advice. i am really worried about your set up, again if your feeling like that after 10km something is seriously wrong. see if any of your lbs guys will take you out for a road ride just to give you some advice, how to sit on a bike, how different positions are useful in different situations etc etc. theres a lot to it and it will take time before you can just jump on the bike and nock over 2-3 hour rides and feel comfortable the whole time.

i feel real bad everytime i see someone with a horrible road bike positioning set up or someone that rides on the drops as a normal position.

 

[dunk]

i feel real bad everytime i see someone with a horrible road bike positioning set up or someone that rides on the drops as a normal position.

What's a normal position on a roadie?

 

[mushroom]

There are a couple of other adjustments that you can make that will lift your speed fairly dramatically, without requiring much/any extra fitness.

Firstly, ensure that your saddle is at the correct height. As a very rough guide, you should be on tippy-toes when standing over the seat. Another rough seat-height check is that your leg should be straight if you put your heel on the pedal (when the pedal is at its lowest point). If your seat is too low, it will cause you to use much more energy and have a lower speed while riding.

Next, check your tyre pressure. The maximum pressure of the tyres will be printed on the side of the tyre somewhere (can be slightly hard to spot if you haven't looked for it before). You should inflate your tyres as close to the maximum as you feel comfortable with. The front tyre should have slightly lower pressure than the rear. On the mountain bike, 40-50 psi is reasonable. Lower pressure for riding on looser dirt, higher for hard packed/road riding. The road bike pressure should be far higher, 80 at least and up to 100psi. Having the highest practical tyre pressure will produce a noticeable speed boost.

Lastly, consider using toe clips, or clip in pedals and shoes. These allow your legs to pull upwards while pedalling. This too will boost your speed, particularly when riding up hills.

 

[giant rock]

Hey all, I am trying to catch up with another person to go riding with but tomorrow I am hopefully going to join up with a group in the morning hoping that they won't mind. Maybe they can help me out a little but probably they will help me a lot hahaha. I have been told not to use the clipless pedals yet as they are hard to get use to and I have had the bike set up for me by experts from the bike shop. One thing that I have noticed is that I can get my speed up more on the mountain bike then on the road bike and I am using both bikes on the road so not sure what is going on there.

 

[s73v30]

Hey all, I am trying to catch up with another person to go riding with but tomorrow I am hopefully going to join up with a group in the morning hoping that they won't mind. Maybe they can help me out a little but probably they will help me a lot hahaha. I have been told not to use the clipless pedals yet as they are hard to get use to and I have had the bike set up for me by experts from the bike shop. One thing that I have noticed is that I can get my speed up more on the mountain bike then on the road bike and I am using both bikes on the road so not sure what is going on there.

Go clipless. Don't stuff around and hide from it. It doesn't matter how you long you put it off your going to fall over at some stage. Also none of this makes sense do you have speedos on both bikes or you just gauging it by feel? Your speed on a roadie should kill that on your Mountie. The only other thing I can think of is your gear ratios.

 

[giant rock]

I have speedo's on both bikes. The MTB is a Giant Rock and the roadie is a Trek 2300 WSD. So could be the gear ratio's????

 

[mushroom]

It probably isn't the fault of the gear ratios. Road bike gears are generally suited to going faster than those on a mountain bike.

Don't be afraid to adjust seat height and air pressure, they are easy changes to make and can easily be changed back if you don't like the result.

The tyre pressure drops over time anyway, it is something that needs topping up!

 

[davidtcr]

You may like to check that your brakes aren't rubbing. I know I have been caught a couple of times with not getting the wheel perfectly straight and then having it rub on the brakes. This would definitely lead to the symptoms you have described.

Also I would agree with some of the other comments that you should go for clipless pedals, they will make an enormous difference. However you may find it better to run MTB pedals even on the roadie. They will still work fine, but are generally easier to get in and out of, so will be better to learn with. It also means that you can run the same pedals on both bikes, so that you can get away with just one pair of shoes if you want to.