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Speed issues on flat stretches of road

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  • January 15, 2018 at 8:46 pm #28026
    slippy62

    I’m 5’11, 70kgs and fortunate enough to ride good quality, lightweight bikes.  I’ve been cycling a little over 3 years now.  I average 100 miles a week.  I live in the Cotswolds.  Lumpy when I need it to be, or flatish over towards the Malverns.

    I ride with two other ‘enthusasitc amateurs’ on a frequent basis and can hold my own on the climbs, but have always struggled on the downhills (I am very cautious, and sit on the back brake all the way down).  No problem so far (I’ll never master going fast downhill, and that’s fine by me).

    Where I seem to fade, or at least, drop back consistenly on my group rides is on flat stretches of road.  I just can’t figure out what I am doing wrong!  It’s very frustrating.  I am fit, have an FTP of 255w and I can easily hold a cadence of 95/100 for 8-10 minutes.  

    The guys I pedal with seem to make it look effortless, yet I am pushing threshold just to keep up, having to sprint to catch up and then work hard to keep with them.  It’s disproportionate in effort compared to climbing.  I would be much happier at a permanent 8-13% incline that suffer the misery and embarrasment of 2 miles of 1% open road.  I know the segments locally that cost me time.  I’ve gone out solo to try and crack them and just can’t get quicker.   

    Fellow Roaders, please help – your candid views are appreciated (e.g./ man up, pedal harder, do more miles)… but even better would be useful advice about how I can train to be better at this.

     

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  • January 15, 2018 at 9:22 pm #909991
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    nadsta

    If you can actually hold your

    If you can actually hold your ftp for an hour in a reasonably aero position on a flat road then be happy. You’ll probably be averaging 35-40kmh which is good going.  If that’s the case and you’re getting droppped then you just need to find slightly slower buddies. And I hope you begin to enjoy descending some day, it’s one the absolute joys of cycling. There was a good ‘how to’ thread here about it not so long ago. 

    January 15, 2018 at 9:10 pm #909989
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    slippy62

    IanEdward – reassuring to

    IanEdward – reassuring to know that when I run out of excuses with my riding buddies, I can blame physics đŸ™‚

    January 15, 2018 at 9:08 pm #909987
    0
    slippy62

    Thanks for the advice sergius

    Thanks for the advice sergius.  The guys are somewhat heavier than me but not by a significant margin.  They are almost certainly putting more power through the pedals though.

    – My tyres are top quality.  I am a bit slack pumping them up, but I’m probably at 90psi on (on 28’s) at this time of the year.

    – Not in the tuck, ever.  Crouched down and elbows in is about as aero as it gets.

    – Tight lycra and Kask helmet etc, so all the gear on that front.

    Sounds like I need to just work harder on my power output to compensate for the differential on that type of terrain.  It’s just damn frustrating!

    January 15, 2018 at 9:04 pm #909985
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    IanEdward

    The way I’ve always
    The way I’ve always understood it is that wind/air resistance punishes the lighter rider more, something to do with the F=ma equation when F is the force caused by the air pushing on your body, m is your mass and a is the (backwards) acceleration caused by the wind.

    January 15, 2018 at 8:57 pm #909983
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    sergius

    Are the guys you ride with

    Are the guys you ride with much bigger than you?  I.e. 80+ kg chaps with a correspondingly higher power output?  The actual power number matters more (rather than w/kg) as the slope decreases or other factors (wind resistance) increase.

    On the random front:

    – Check your tyres, are they using better tyres than you?

    – Are your tyres inflated appropriately?

    – Are you riding in a vaguely aerodynamic position? Elbows-in at least if you aren’t on the drops

    – Are your clothes appropriate e.g. tight rather than baggy

     

     

    Similarly to you I tend to do better when climbing rather than blasting along the flat.  On a few sportives I’ve had to work very hard to hang on in a group, only to easily pull ahead on the climbs.  I only got a trainer with a power meter last week, but our numbers and experiences appear similar (I’m 62kg with a FTP of around 250 or so – must get around to doing a proper test!).

    Just get into the habit of sucking a wheel on the flat IMO!

     

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