Average Biking Speed - How Do You Compare With A Tour de France Pro?

Average Biking Speed ? How Do You Compare With A Tour de France Pro?

Have you ever wondered how would you compare with a Tour de France pro? You can tell by analysing your average biking speed, comparing it against that of a pro. 

But while calculating your own average biking speed is easy with a bike computer, finding out what is the average biking speed of a pro might be trickier.

So, if you?re curious how you compare with the bests of the best, check out the various average biking speeds below.

Average Biking Speed On Flat Terrain

Most of us start cycling on flat terrains and some of us keep cycling on flat terrains most of the times. Although you might consider it easier than riding uphill, achieving a good average speed takes guts and lots of hard work.

When riding on a plane surface, the only thing that?s propelling the bike forward is your brute force. That?s why the key to being fast on such a surface is training. Training gets you stronger and more powerful, helping you outweigh the large area in front of you.

There are other factors that affect the average biking speed on flat terrains, and one of those factors is your body constitution. Tall and robust riders have a clear advantage in front of short people with petite body frame, because they have more power to push the bike through the air.

In broad terms, the average biking speed on flat terrain is 18mph for the average rider (aka you), and about 26mph for the Tour de France pro. The world record is held by Rohan Dennis who reached 34.5mph in 2015?s tour.

Average Biking Speed Uphill

Road riding uphill is tough. Now it?s not only brute force pushing the bike forward, it?s also gravitational force pulling it down. And that?s where shorter riders with petite body frames and lower weights take the advantage over the larger riders.

In fact, smaller riders have an unfair advantage because the less you weight, the less power you have to generate to ride uphill in a set amount of time. This is the power to weight ratio which implies that if a rider weighing 150lbs and pushing at a power of 200watts has a speed of 10mph on a 5% slope, a rider weighing 200lbs would need to push at a power of 255watts to achieve the same 10mph speed.

In other words, a 200lbs rider pushing at a power of 200watts would have a speed of 8mph on a 5% slope. So, if you want to improve your uphill average speed you should either lose weight or improve your strength through intense workout.

That said, the average biking speed on a 5% slope is 9.5mph for average riders and about 15mph for Tour de France level riders. On an 8% slope, the average biking speed drops to 7mph for average riders and 12mph for the pros.

Average Biking Speed Downhill

average biking speed

Do you think riding downhill is a piece of cake? Think again! Improving your average downhill speed is easy. You might just not live long enough to enjoy the new record. One of the main risks when riding downhill is the loss of control.

On a trail, this might end up with you smashing against a tree. On a road, it might cause a traffic accident. Either way, you?ll end up injured or worse. That?s why it is important to ride on a good bike with excellent brakes.

That said, the average downhill biking speeds are certainly higher than flat terrain or uphill speeds; after all gravity is doing its job. An average cyclist can reach up to 57mph while a Tour de France pro can easily reach 81mph.

What we advise is to learn how to properly ride and get used to your bike?s capabilities before testing which top speed you can reach.

Average Sustainable Biking Speed

The average sustainable biking speed is the speed a cyclist can maintain for an hour. Since calculating the speed is rather hard, specialists reached the conclusion that this translates into average sustainable power per hour.

But why is the sustainable biking speed hard to calculate? Well, because cyclist are so diverse that it?s hard to evaluate what average speed they can sustain in an hour. It depends on their level of expertise, body type, terrain, and many other variables that are hard to predict.

The average sustainable power, on the other hand, shows what average force a cyclist uses to keep riding for an hour.

Here, Tour de France pros have a clear advantage given by hours of training and hard work. But what are the values? Well, a Tour de France pro has an average sustainable power of 415watts per hour. And you? The average cyclist has a mere 200watts per hour average sustainable power. Pretty lame, don?t you think?

Average Tour De France Biking Speed

So, you wanted to know how you compare with a Tour de France pro. As you should know by now, Tour de France is a competition that develops on all kinds of terrains. There are ups and downs, and flat stretches of road. So, the average Tour de France biking speed is calculated based on all these aspects.

Wondering what?s the average speed you need to win Tour de France? Surprise! It?s a mere 25mph. Do you think you can beat that right now? Yes? Don?t be a fool! Now get yourself on the saddle and start training!

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