How to get to work faster on a bike?

June 4, 2009 8:50 AM

Two years ago I sold the car and started riding my bicycle to work, about 26 km a day. However, over those two years, my average speed has not increased, in fact I think I'm actually a little slower than last year. Help me get to work faster! I'm interested in a simple approach: a basic training program, maybe- I don't want to change bicycles or go single speed.
posted by Siberian Mist to health & fitness (20 comments total)

Just leave your home later than normal, so you might not get there on time. Having a good reason to go fast fairly often speeds people up.

Apart from that, interval training is the best way to gain speed. You could simply play the old fashioned speed game [fartlek] on your bike. Sprint to fixed points somewhere in the distance, or try to ride faster uphill than you normally would, and freewheel for a short while after that, without losing too much speed. Try to outsprint cars whenever a traffic light turns green, etc. etc.

Play with your speed.
posted by ijsbrand at 9:07 AM on June 4

You could always cheat. Buy clipless pedals.

Indeed, focusing on pedaling technique will get you faster results. Assuming at least that you have pedal clips, are you pulling up on the upstroke of each pedal?

If you don't have clips or clipless pedals get them.

Also pay attention to the orientation of your legs. If you're moving them side to side, you are losing energy. Stay in the saddle and spin.

Spinning is the technique of changing the orientation of your feet in a clipless pedal or toe clip so it is always in a position to put max energy into the pedal stroke. It is done at high rpms. Look it up on the internet, but avoid anything on the exercise bike fad of the same name, it is an imitation of the real thing.

Also check seat height. You should have a slight knee bend at the end of each pedal stroke.

Finally, do lots of hills. Build a base of endurance before adding speed intervals and the like. Mainly build endurance all of the time. Easy gear, high rpm. Watch the Tour de France for 10 minutes. See how they pedal on flat ground. That is the type of RPMs I'm talking about.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:08 AM on June 4

I'd second clipless pedals, if you don't have them. My cycling has since been much easier and my stride more powerful.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:16 AM on June 4

How often/well do you maintain your bike?

Low pressure in your tires will slow you down, as will a gritty chain.
posted by hpliferaft at 9:17 AM on June 4

Also, make sure you have a speedometer on your bike so you can see the speed you need to maintain to get to work on time.
posted by WeekendJen at 9:35 AM on June 4

Thanks for the answers so far. I have a speedometer and a well-maintained (trekking type) bike, but no clips or clipless pedals. Do they make that big of a difference? Oh, and I leave home a little later than normal often enough. I usually end up being late for work.
posted by Siberian Mist at 9:48 AM on June 4

I do about the same commute. I've had my speed go up a fair bit in the last year to the point where I'll top out my speed some days - my mountain bike only gears so high.

To basically reiterate what others have said:

1 - tune your bike up. Get slick tires. Clean your chain, etc.
2 - dress for it. Get SPD pedals. If you don't already do it, wear the tight bike shorts. Dorky looking but practical.
3 - intervals. Somewhere in the middle of your ride do a sprint. spin up until you literally cannot pedal any faster then gear up and do it again. I do this between certain lights when I know I have enough of a space to actually build up some speed.
4 - pedal at high RPMs. Get a cadence sensor if you want, but the idea is to pedal faster, in lower gear if necessary. But you really want to spin and not mash the pedals.
5 - feedback. Do you have a speed sensor? Seeing my speed every day really motivates me and helps me know when I'm slacking or when I'm doing well. You can't improve if you're not measuring what you're doing.
6 - a little cross training. Go for a run sometimes, swim maybe, on the weekends go find a hill and do some climbing (not sure how hilly your route is - mine is dead flat). That will help get your cardio strength up without tiring out the same old cycling muscles. Or hill climbing will tire them out way more than your daily commute does.
7 - depending on what kind of bike you have, you may eventually need/want to get a new bike. I ride a mtn bike and I top out around 40 kph right now. I think it's great, but in absolute terms it's not really that fast for a cyclist. On a road bike I'm pretty sure I'd be going faster for the same level of exertion.
8 - I eat when I get to work. crazy, I know, but biking on a full stomach isn't conducive to a fast ride for me.

Finally, reward yourself. Get a bike computer and see if you can cut 10% off your commute time. If you can do it, go treat yourself. A little motivation goes a long way.
posted by GuyZero at 9:51 AM on June 4

Also, I see you're in Belgium. do you bike in your work clothes or shower at work? If you have to wear your work clothes to ride in you probably can't get a real workout in. I shower at work and it makes a huge difference as I can get as sweaty as I want and not worry about being that way all day.
posted by GuyZero at 9:53 AM on June 4

Giving us some idea of where you are at training-wise is vital. The techniques for when Lance Armstrong say "I want to ride 26km" faster are completely different than if my 350lb neighbor wants to ride 26km faster, and are wholly incompatible with each other. How long is it taking you right now? What other kind of athletic background do you have? How old are you? Which gender? What kind of bike is it?

Lacking that information, consider this:

• Your body really likes stasis. Once you've exposed it to a stressor, further exposure to that same stressor won't make it adapt. That is, you will indeed become less fit if you only keep riding 26km a day, at the same speed, because your body becomes increasingly efficient at it. You need to go faster, to ... uh ... go faster.
• As other people have said, intervals are a great way to train your body to go faster. Explosive, anaerobic training like short intervals is almost certainly better at increasing aerobic endurance than aerobic-only training is.[1] So try to outsprint those cars.
• Above a certain speed (that's really not very high), the vast majority of your expended energy on a bike is pushing air out of your way. Improving your positioning on your existing bike to reduce drag is always worthwhile (with the exception of a few weird corner cases that don't apply to you, unless your name is indeed Lance). It's been a few years since I was racing at a high level, but I think most bike shops now have fancy computerized bike-positioning tools in-shop. That's worth it.
• Bolting your feet to your pedals, through clips or, preferably, clipless pedals is incredibly worth it.

[1] Explosive-strength training improves 5-km running time by improving running economy and muscle power. J Appl Physiol. 1999 May;86(5):1527-33
posted by oostevo at 9:56 AM on June 4

when i was a teenager, i did squats and cross-country skied all winter. when summer came around, i was as fast as a pro (though i couldn't go as far). i could average in the high 40s (km/h) on the way to school.

the equipment upgrades are all good, but the best way to go fast is to be powerful. wind resistance increases exponentially with linear increases in speed beyond a certain point. to overcome that, you need power.
posted by klanawa at 9:57 AM on June 4

Why not do interval work to and from the way to work? Couple minutes sprinting, then slow down, then repeat.
posted by schroedinger at 10:08 AM on June 4

I was at a plateau last year (riding about 30 mi/day) and one week, just did short (7 mi) rides, full fuckin' blast. For that 22 minute period of time, I slowed down at stop signs and nothing else. Then I tooled around to cool off.

The next week, when I went back to 30 mi/day rides, I didn't make any extra effort. And yet, my average speed, which before the Hell Week were usually 17.5mph, jumped up to 18.5 mph or better. And this, despite it being much hotter.
posted by notsnot at 10:22 AM on June 4

I am a contrarian on clipless pedals, for more or less the reasons that Grant Peterson sets out in "The Shoes Ruse." However, it is important to learn to spin quickly (70-90 revolutions per minute is good for touring and commuting), to pedal through the entire circle (not just up and down), and to lift your legs on the upstroke, so that the leg that is pushing down is not also lifting the other leg up. You can do that with good platform pedals. Many riders who don't use clip-in shoes or toe clips prefer BMX-style pedals, which have pins that grip the soles of your shoes.
posted by brianogilvie at 10:55 AM on June 4

Do you know what your cadence is? That's the number of times the pedals go around a minute. A key factor in improving, I've found, is not just to push, but also to keep the pedal speed up.

If your current computer doesn't tell you cadence, you need to upgrade to one that does. It's too easy to crank along at 60 rpm, when you should be closer to 90. Cadence trains you to select gear ratios too, if your cadence drops, you either need to push harder or to drop back a gear.

Going clipless and doing intervals both help a lot, but you'll get better faster if you do it keeping up your cadence as well as your speed.
posted by bonehead at 10:58 AM on June 4

Good points raised, you left out a lot of pertinent info. One more question you didn't answer: what about the route? If the route has a lot of traffic lights/stops, an alternate longer route without them might be better. I have somewhat of an upper limit on my bike commute because it's all on streets with traffic lights, and I have to cross two freeways which limits my routes. You, though, may have the opportunity to take a route that has less stops, or even no car traffic.

What is your time over that distance now? Is it 26km round trip or one way? If you're, say, pushing 40 km/hr or something there's probably little we could do to help, for example.

Basically, what's holding you back? Is it hilly? If so, consider a lighter bike. I suspect hills aren't your problem, though. Is it wind? Dress in tighter clothing if you aren't already. Do you run out of gearing? You can upgrade gearing without replacing the bicycle.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 11:01 AM on June 4

in fact I think I'm actually a little slower than last year

You say you have a speedometer so no more guessing: keep a log and note your time, distance, and average speed every day, and whatever other interesting data your speedo might give you. But without a log it's awfully difficult to remember if you really were five minutes faster or slower a year ago. This could be a notebook, a spreadsheet file, an online calender, or anything else.

Beyond that you won't get faster unless you ride faster. Yeah, that sounds dumb, but do something like interval training where you push yourself hard to go fast for a period of time, with breaks of slower riding between. If I were doing it I might start off with 1km of riding like this, both there and back, maybe split up into 500m sections. You don't want to kill yourself, so start at a level that works for you. I think if you keep this up, and up the frequency and/or duration of those intervals, you'll start to see your average speed go up, even when you aren't pushing yourself.
posted by 6550 at 11:30 AM on June 4

All the info provided about cadence, clipless, power and heart rate is useful so i won't restate it, but if you want to actually put it into practice, you need to start sweet spot training. this will increase your average speed and provide some engagement on your ride. it may seem like a lot of work, but it's only 1-2 hours of prep and calculations tonight, then just try to stay within a heart rate zone in intervals when you ride to work. this is what i do every day.

more info:
http://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspottraining.html

in other words:
0. get a cycling computer with (at minimum) cadence + HRM.
1. find your max heart rate
2. find your vo2 max
3. calculate your heart rate zones
4. set up a training schedule for your commute. for example, try 2 sets of 20 minutes in zone 3 with 5 minutes inbetween for resting and coasting in zone 1.

it's actually pretty engaging, kind of a low-tech game you can play on your commute because staying in that zone is hard. it's very easy to stomp harder than you want and break into zone 4. when i do that, my garmin yells at me.
posted by Señor Pantalones at 12:32 PM on June 4

just to contrast with what 6550 said above...there is a big difference. if you ride as hard as you can for 1 km in intervals without a real plan, you actually won't increase your average speed at all. you'll just tire the shit out of yourself. i still have a ways to go in my own training, but i learned this the hard way and have seen my av. speed and efficiency increase drastically over the past year.
posted by Señor Pantalones at 12:35 PM on June 4

Wow. Thank you, everyone. Some more information about myself: I live in Belgium, am 36, a man, overweight but active. The route to work is completely flat and mostly straight. I leave home and then for about 9 km there's almost no other traffic. Then I enter the city and for 2kms there's some traffic, forcing me to stop from time to time. The last 2 km are the center of the city, and there's busy traffic.

The trip is 13km one way, and takes me anything from 35 - 50 minutes, depending on how I'm feeling, what I'm wearing, and most of all: the direction of the wind.

I joined a swimming club a month ago and train 2 to 3 times a week. Much to my surprise I discovered there that I have relatively weak legs - I totally suck at doing flutter kicks using a swimming board, for example.

I'll look into a cycling computer with cadence. I think I have a cheap HRM/watch combination around here somewhere. Could I use that to get started? I'm not sure I like the idea of always having to wear that sensor belt, though.
posted by Siberian Mist at 3:09 PM on June 4

(70-90 revolutions per minute is good for touring and commuting)

For me, faster. 90 minimum, but nothing wrong with 100. And, when you want to put on some serious acceleration, ~120.
posted by Chuckles at 10:26 PM on June 5