this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Today I did my first 20 mile (33km) ride on my hardtail XC bike. I learned how to ride a bike about 1.5 months ago, but I've been riding pretty consistently since I learned. I ride exclusively in the city, it's a very walkable city, but the paths aren't always the best. I did 33km in 2 hours 53 minutes, not including breaks for water or to eat.

I see people saying that 10MP/H (16KM/H) average is a good average to shoot for, but i can't even get my average above 7.1MPH (11.5KM/H), even on shorter rides. What am I doing wrong here? How are people going so freaking fast on bikes in cities?

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As an (ex currently post child..) mountain biker my threshold for having good endurance or not was being able to ride at pace for hours without sitting down. It takes a lot of fitness to do, but I found when you train like that it comes fairly quickly.

I say that because riding standing I found let's you put more power down and also makes using minimum suspension comfortable as you use your knees instead. You need to find what works re bars and stem though as you can fuck your back up in the wrong position. To ride xc or full sus bikes off the trails I had a second set of wheels with smooth road tyres. Anything but road tyres will dramatically increase your rolling resistance on tarmac.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

How long are your breaks? How much time do you spend waiting for traffic lights or letting other vehicles pass? What's your standard speed?

Maybe you could go faster if you did shorter distances. 3 hours is kind of a long time for doing a sport you only picked up 6 weeks ago.

[–] ThePiedPooper@discuss.online 1 points 1 week ago

My breaks are maybe 3-6 minutes, depending on if I'm eating or not.

I generally don't ride on roads as I'm still a bit nervous to do that, so I'm generally riding on paths.

My speed on shorter rides is the same for some reason, which is weird.

[–] HejMedDig@feddit.dk 2 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Are you riding on pavement or trails? Mountainbike tires are generally a lot slower on tarmac, due to the tire pattern, and width, compared to a road tire. Also on tarmac you should increase the pressure in your tire quite a bit.

Don't listen to which speeds people tell you to aim for. Look for improvements in your own rides.

Road surface, hills, wind, tires, style of bike, your height, position on the bike, traffic and many more things have an impact on your speed. Compare yourself with yourself

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[–] Wahots@pawb.social 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Gearing, tires, and geometry make all the difference in the world.

My Transition Sentinel is only geared for mountain biking. It's a terrible city bike. Tons of shock, high torque gears for steep hills, cannot go very fast. But it's insane when you need to climb or descend mountains. It has knobby, 2.4in tires.

My city bike is an ebike, and even though it's a single speed, it's pretty comfortable going between 10-30mph on that gear alone. The battery allows me to haul lots of groceries or baggage (and climb steep hills), and it's tires are wide enough to not get stuck in tram rails or gaps in the concrete road. I have knobby tires to avoid popping tires, but smoother, thinner tires will be more efficient.

Edit: if you have a shock, try locking it out if it has lockout.

I'd also recommend checking out city bikes, such as road, gravel, and upright bikes. There's an incredible amount of diversity, and a downhill mountain bike is about as far from a road bike as one can get. One can roll over a rock the size of a watermelon, the other can coast for meters off of a pedal stroke. Ebikes also are phenomenal as car replacements (or even just as car offsets), but generally cost $1,500+ with tariffs.

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