Cycling advice

New road racer

Hello im looking for a bit of advice, im new to the competitive cycling, i have a carrera 14 speed road bike I've been training on it for some time know but i cant seem to get, my speed up.. Will upgrading equipment help me keep a faster pace or id i need to get a new bike that's not an entry level.. I do about 150 to 170 km in a week normal cycle time i spend is 6 hours sometimes 3 hours.. Any help would be great

Beasty

Moved from Cycling Training Logs

Beasty

What sort of speed are you doing? You say you do 150-170km a week, which is a fair distance. How much variety is there in this? Are all your spins of a similar length for example? Do you build any rest into your week?

When I started out I built up distance - basically I was commuting on my bike to get fit. I started at 1 day a week (nearly 50km) and built up from there, so eventually I could do 5 days (which meant the weekend would become my rest days). I would then treat the commutes as time trials, looking to improve my times. Obviously wind direction would affect this, meaning I would push hard one way and take it a bit easier the other. Over time I increasd my average speed from perhaps 20kph when I was starting out. A year or two later I would have been averaging perhaps 25+ kph and increasing the distance to put more overall effort in, averaging 3-4 commutes and perhaps 200km a week. Nowadays, if I put my mind to it, an average of 30kph over the whole commute is usually doable, but I tend to focus more on shorter "segments" (with specific targets in mind;))

07Lapierre

Go for spins with people who are faster than you.

New road racer

I'm doing about 20mph thts my average pace im trying to increase my speed but I'm not going up or down, i can hold tht speed for about 2 to 3 hrs but if i try from start to increase speed no luck.. I train for 5 days and rest for two days, 2 days in the gym 1 day cardio and 2 days on the road sum times 3 days

WillyFXP

New road racer wrote: »

I'm doing about 20mph thts my average pace im trying to increase my speed but I'm not going up or down, i can hold tht speed for about 2 to 3 hrs but if i try from start to increase speed no luck.. I train for 5 days and rest for two days, 2 days in the gym 1 day cardio and 2 days on the road sum times 3 days

If you are averaging 20mph, that's 32kmh, doing this solo is a very good pace.

New road racer

If i got a more advanced bike would my pace increase ?

quozl

Are you doing any shorter, faster sessions?

Things like intervals?

Even just a once a week cycle at 24mph? Do twenty minutes at 24mph then ten minutes easy spinning then twenty more minutes at 24mph. If 20mph is your 2 to 3 hour pace then I'd guess that something like 24mph would be your threshold (1 hour) pace.

If you can't do 2x20 at that pace then do 2x10 first. If you can easily do 2x20 at that pace then do 2x20 at a higher pace until the end of the 2nd 20 minute interval is pretty tough. Threshold sessions will increase how long you can go at a harder pace for.

Otherwise you're just training the same systems all the time.

quozl

New road racer wrote: »

If i got a more advanced bike would my pace increase ?

It should but not by remotely as much as adding intervals to your training regime will if all you're doing is long steady rides currently.