I went for a ride this morning, and began to wonder. Is there a certain speed that you guys try and maintain during your training rides? And what would be an average race speed for a beginer? Any answers would help out a ton. Thanks in advance.
it is not so much speed itself, but cadence, gearing and heart-rate wich is a function of your ultimate cycling speed. this is a big topic, here are some great articles on the subject:
i'm still a beginner...especially the bike! (still ride that mtb with big treads). for my olympic, i just trained by minutes. i pushed the biggest gear (lowest cadence) just fast enough to keep a good 'stress' on my quadriceps. occasionally i went to higher cadences. pushing big gears is really not appropriate or efficient if your going to do it right...it got me by fine though.
I would focus on cadence and heart rate just as Ron said. Ocassionally you might want to push a big gear for a few minutes to build leg strength, but be very careful not to hurt your knees. If you focus on time in the saddle, cadence and heart rate everything else will fall into place.