What Is a Good Average Cycling Speed?

What Is a Good Average Cycling Speed?

Open Strava after a ride and one number can decide how you feel about the whole session: average speed.

Faster than last week? Great ride. Fitness is flying.

Slower? Suddenly you’re questioning your training, your bike and whether those expensive wheels might solve everything.

But before blaming your legs, check the wind, hills, traffic lights—and whether the person you’re comparing yourself with spent the entire ride hiding behind a group.

Average speed may be one of cycling’s most popular measurements, but it is also one of the most misleading.

So, What Is a Good Average Cycling Speed?

The frustrating answer is: it depends.

An average of 18km/h on a hilly solo ride into a headwind could represent a stronger performance than 26km/h on a flat group ride. The number tells you how quickly you travelled, but not how hard you worked to get there.

A “good” average speed depends on:

• Your experience and fitness

• The route and elevation

• Wind speed and direction

• Your bike and riding position

• Road surface and traffic

• Whether you are riding alone or in a group

• The purpose of the session

For a new cyclist, completing an uninterrupted hour at 17km/h could be a huge achievement. For a competitive time triallist, 32km/h might feel disappointing. Neither number means much without context.

Speed Isn’t Just Fitness

Research by Martin and colleagues showed that road-cycling power could be predicted accurately by accounting for aerodynamic drag, rolling resistance, gravity and acceleration.

In simple terms, your legs are only part of the calculation.

You could be fitter than you were last month but record a slower ride because the route was hillier, the road surface was worse or you met every red light in south-west London.

Wind makes a particularly large difference. In still conditions, the aerodynamic power needed rises approximately with the cube of speed. With your position and air density unchanged, increasing speed by 10% can therefore increase the power required to overcome aerodynamic drag by roughly 33%.

That does not mean your total cycling power must rise by 33%, because rolling resistance and other forces do not increase in exactly the same way. It does show why every additional kilometre per hour becomes progressively harder to find.

If you are riding directly into a 16km/h headwind while travelling at 24km/h, the air is effectively hitting you at around 40km/h. Turn around and the same effort can make it look as though you have gained an enormous amount of fitness in thirty seconds.

Unfortunately, you have not. You have simply stopped cycling into nature’s resistance trainer.

Group Speed Isn’t Solo Speed

Average speed can rise considerably when you ride in a group because cyclists can shelter behind one another.

Aerodynamic research has shown substantial reductions in drag for riders positioned behind others. The exact benefit depends on the size of the group, your position, the spacing between riders and the direction of the wind. Research into organised peloton formations will not translate perfectly to every weekend club ride, but the overall benefit of drafting is clear.

This means somebody averaging 27km/h on a group ride may not have worked harder than somebody averaging 21km/h alone.

They may be extremely fit—or they may have spent two hours tucked behind six large cyclists while someone else did the difficult bit.

What Does the Science Say?

One small study compared cyclists’ peak power with their performance during an outdoor 16.1km time trial.

Peak power was very strongly associated with the average power produced during the time trial. However, it was not significantly associated with finishing time.

The study does not prove why that difference occurred, but it does demonstrate that power and speed are not interchangeable. Power measures the cyclist’s physical output, while finishing time reflects the complete interaction between the rider, bike, course and conditions.

Speed is not useless. It simply needs context.

Better Ways to Track Cycling Progress

Average speed becomes more useful when you repeat the same route on the same bike, ideally in similar weather and at a comparable effort.

Look for trends over several weeks rather than judging your fitness from one unusually fast or slow ride.

Other useful measures include:

• Power maintained during a repeatable effort

• Heart rate at a given power or speed

• Perceived effort

• How well you maintain your output during longer rides

• Whether you can ride further without fading

• Functional Threshold Power

If you complete the same route slightly faster at a similar heart rate or perceived effort, that may indicate improvement. Riding it at the same speed with a lower heart rate can also be progress—provided the conditions are similar and you are reasonably well recovered.

Heart rate is affected by heat, fatigue, hydration, illness, stress and caffeine, so it should always be interpreted alongside the wider picture.

Power records your mechanical output more consistently, although the physiological cost of producing it can still change. A windy day might reduce your speed while you maintain 200 watts, but heat, fatigue or poor fuelling can make those same 200 watts feel much harder.

This is why power and heart rate work particularly well together. We explain the relationship in more detail in our article on power versus heart rate for cycling.

What About Triathletes?

For triathletes, the fastest possible standalone bike speed is rarely the goal.

The bike leg needs to be paced so that you can still run afterwards. A faster bike split is not necessarily a better bike split if it causes you to slow dramatically during the run.

The run is often where an overambitious bike leg sends its invoice.

A successful triathlon ride means holding a controlled effort, fuelling consistently and arriving at T2 ready to run—even if the number on your bike computer is slightly lower than you hoped.

The Takeaway

There is no single average cycling speed that defines whether you are fit, fast or a “proper” cyclist.

Instead of asking whether your speed is good compared with somebody else’s, ask:

Am I faster at the same effort?

Can I hold the same power with a lower heart rate?

Can I ride for longer without fading?

Do I feel more comfortable and confident?

Can I still run well afterwards?

Average speed is worth recording. It just should not be allowed to decide whether you had a good ride.

At The Station by Give It A Tri, we offer FTP testing to establish your cycling threshold power and associated heart-rate training zones. This gives you a repeatable training baseline that is less distorted by wind, traffic lights and route choice.

References

Martin, J. C., Milliken, D. L., Cobb, J. E., McFadden, K. L. and Coggan, A. R. (1998). Validation of a Mathematical Model for Road Cycling Power. Journal of Applied Biomechanics, 14(3), 276–291. https://doi.org/10.1123/jab.14.3.276

Balmer, J., Davison, R. C. and Bird, S. R. (2000). Peak Power Predicts Performance Power During an Outdoor 16.1km Cycling Time Trial. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 32(8), 1485–1490. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005768-200008000-00018

Blocken, B. et al. (2018). Aerodynamic Drag in Cycling Pelotons: New Insights by CFD Simulation and Wind Tunnel Testing. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 179, 319–337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jweia.2018.06.011