The cycling season being well and truly back underway, I’ve been trying to get myself out a bit more often. My sexy new bike – a Specialized Allez Elite 27 if you’re interested – is a pleasure to ride, although I’m not sure that having a carbon-fibre seatpost really adds that much to my speed, or that aerodynamic spokes actually help me whizz down the hills any faster.

Be that as it may, it takes a few outings of hard effort to get the legs moving again after the lazy winter. Yesterday was the first ride of the season where I realy felt that my cycling was back on form – bounding up hills and racing along the flats with something that actually looked like pleasure on my face.

Although it wasn’t really pleasure, it was an attempt to breathe while keeping my teeth clenched together to stop insects flying in to my mouth. Still I think it will have convinced the drivers of the very occasional cars that had the bad luck to cross my path as I careered down the hill, out of control but happy.

In a rare moment of insight I have come to realise I’m a quitter. However long or steep a hill is, I will always get to the top, and maintain my ‘target speed’ for 99% of the hill, but then suddenly 5 metres before the end I let myself coast the last few metres, too exhausted to turn the pedals.

Which is fine, except the same applies on all hills. And it’s clear to me that if I can pedal 2995 metres up a 3000 metre hill, I must be able to keep going to the top of a 1000 metre hill, rather than running out of steam at 995 metres.

What is it that stops me making that tiny extra effort? I wish I knew because if I cross the top of a hill at 20 kmh instead of 10 kmh I save many valuable seconds. And trust me every second counts.

I often do the same cycle route when I’m cycling alone – it passes Chateau Biron and the Gavaudun Valley which is always pleasant – a route of about 50km. The route has about five notable uphill stretches (hills as we call them) and this year, to give myself extra motivation and excitement, I have attributed a ‘minimum speed’ to each one. So on hill number 2, for example, my speed must stay above 20kmh. In principle I will raise these minimum speeds as time goes by. In reality I’m less sure.

Anyway, I enjoy myself and that’s all that matters.

I feel under pressure to disclose my average cycling speed because I noticed that quite often cyclists find a previous entry in this blog by searching on that subject in google, and I am probably a representative ‘OK but nothing like a professional and a bit over 40 years old’ type of rider.

So I will admit that on our local terrain, hilly not mountainous, with typical hills being 2,000 metres long and rising 100-150 metres in that distance – overall I average 26 kmh. On the flat bits about 30-32kmh, on the uphills about 20kmh but often less on the steep ones, and about 45kmh coming down the same hills. Hope that helps.

You needn’t post a comment to tell me I’m rubbish, but you’re welcome to post to tell me how superfit I am. You might like to check out this ‘how to go faster‘ ebook – although it is aimed at those who are racing it has some good tips for ‘non-racers’ to do better as well.