Flat Vs. Hilly Rides

Tim, no matter what I do, all of my training rides seem to end up in the 15-17 average mph range.  It's not the ups and downs, it's the red lights and cars

This will be proven at Harriman on May 19th:

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I keep thinking that doesn't look SOOOO bad...until I remind myself I have to do that 4x! 

I've tried to test it out, but there were too many variables to make my test results worthwhile.

Sorry.

Flatter rides. A true hilly ride definitely slows my average mph.

This can sometimes be true on rolling terrain, but has a limit when the terrain moves from nice rollers to serious climbs.

It's easiest to see at the extreme. Take the Mt. Washington climb. Last year's winner, Tyler Hamilton, took just over 52 minutes to ascend the 7.6 miles. Now, if he could hypothetically go back down at say, light speed, he'd still only average about 17.5mph for the total 15.2 mile trip. Of course, he isn't allowed to go down anyway, light speed or not, but the point is - there is no making up the speed past a certain point.

Flat definitely wins...fair amount of rolling to hilly rides here in Alpharetta, GA and surrounding areas and I typically average 16-18 MPH over 32-53 mile route; did a 65 mile ride on Jan 1, 2006 with the Gainesville, FL cycling club and we were just under 20 for the first 50 and +22 for most of the last 15...yes, flat is definitely faster overall.

I would think the steeper the hills the slower your average time.

If you had a flat road of 30 kms and you averaged 30 kph it would take you one hour.

If you had a 30 km ride and the first half was a hill that you could only climb at 15kph it would take you one hour to climb to the top so even at the speed of light you would have a higher average.

The over the same distance if you climbed at 25 kph you would have to complete the rest of the ride at a speed greater than 37.5 which would be possible.

I see the same in training, flat ride around 30 - 28.5 kph on a good day. Same course with a couple of small hills about the same speed.

A nasty, hilly course that I ride where the downhill are longer than the up hills average 23.5 - 24.7 

Hills make me slower...but there is this one tri that is hills first half of the loop and gently downhill for probably 55-60% of the loop and I do great there as the uphills are steeper but shorter, but the downhills give back for a long time....so you can sort of accelerate with the varying degree of downhill.

The other part of the question is how you stack up against others say in a hilly tri vs. a flat tri. I tend to place better on rolling type course..around here not to many flat course.

I did a metric century that was very steep hills...flew on the descents hit 45 mph+ but no way made up for the 3-4 mph I did going up the hills in parts.

I think clearly on your strengths and weaknesses some people do better on certain courses than others.  This one women I competed against in my two Int'l races last year..she beat me on the bike by about 8 minutes first race (very hilly) and in the second race I beat her by about 8 minutes...pretty big swing in times only 2.5 months apart.

The guy that won IMLP in '05 thinks that course is easier (very hilly) than IMFL course (much flatter). Is it a surprise that he is maybe 5'6" or 5'7" and slight built...so hills aren't as hard as bigger guy. His comment was at IMFL you get no break as there are no hills.