Yearly Average Speed

yoda81269

On reviewing my performance data on the Garmin Connect website the other night I noticed that my yearly average speed was 25.7km/h for the year to date versus 25.6km/h for the same period last year, a pitiful improvement of 0.1km/h.
I know I have averaged 30km/h + on most sportives I have done this year which is up 2-3km/h so I am putting it down to slow speeds in training, especially on hill intervals etc.
I have only been cycling 2 years so maybe I am expecting too much or maybe this figure doesn't really mean anything but I am curious to know what sort of yearly average speed other people are seeing.

seamus

Are you using your Garmin outside of training/sportives, i.e. on your commute?

yoda81269

No, anytime I have cycled to work (35km each way) I use it as training spin

Beasty

There are clearly a number of factors to consider - if you are doing hill intervals, this will definitely slow you. In addition the stats can be distorted by a predominance of one particular type of cycling - my average speed commuting is much less than my average racing, and I do a lot more commuting than racing

Having said that, my average this year (29.4 kph) is slightly down on last year (29.6 kph), but I have done much more cycling, and spent a lot more time either recovering from or preparing for races, rather than pushing hard every time I go out (which was what I tended to do last year).

seamus

Well then it's probably just a function of numbers. Since you do 350km a week (assuming you cycle everyday), that's 9,100km over 6 months. If you've done 5 sportives this year of 200km, then assuming that your training spins are at the standard 25.6km/h, then a 10% improvement in your sportives averages, will only yield a 1% (10% of 10%) improvement in your yearly average, or about 0.2 km/h. I personally would focus on the actual improvement in sportives as opposed to the yearly average