Today I went back out to try another 20 miler on my XC mountain bike after using the tips y’all gave me. I was around 2.3 km short of a 20 miler, so a little more than a mile, but that doesn’t matter too much.
Tips I tried:
- Aired up my tires by 10-15 PSI (Now at 50 in the front, 55 in the back.
- Fixed my handlebar sweep (I had installed them backwards before…what can I say, it was my first time building a bicycle 😅)
- Focused more on cadence than easier peddling - I.E instead of going to a low gear up a large hill and tiring my legs out by spinning, I kept it in a higher gear, pushing my cadence down a bit, but both getting me up the hill faster, and keeping my HR down.
- rode on the road more as opposed to the sidewalks to avoid potholes and obstacles.
Things to consider:
- I paused my smartwatch on stop lights, water breaks, pedestrian stop lights, and while I ate a snack.
- There were three rather large hills on this route I took and one pretty steady climb upwards. The last two of these hills would have been impossible for me to climb, as they were almost a kilometer long and just too steep, so I put my smart watch on pause for these hills as well.
Things I’m planning to do in the near future:
- going to buy myself some semi-slick tires: specifically, the Kenda K908. They seem to be a decent budget option, but if y’all have any other suggestions, I’d be open to hearing them!
Anyway, now for my results.
I don’t know if these stats are more in line with what everyone else is getting, considering I paused on stop lights and 2 hills, but I would say I’m perfectly happy with a result like this.
Thank you so much to everyone who gave advice and help!
You might be using the wrong type of bike.
A mountain bike is for offroading, while you seem to only be going on paved roads.
Your main issues are tires and suspensions. Offroad tires are terrible on paved surfaces, both when it comes to rolling resistance and grip. If you are only going on paved roads, get slicks. If you sometimes go on light offroad, get semi-slicks. Only use offroad tires when you really need them.
It might be worth investing in a second set of wheels with quick-release so you can swap between both use cases depending on your journey.
The other issue is the suspension. Suspensions eat up a lot of the force you are putting into the bike. If you are using the bike at all on paved roads and you have suspensions, you should have gotten lockable suspensions and you should lock the suspensions when you are on pavement.
If you never really go offroad, suspensions are just a waste of weight.
If you can borrow a road bike from someone, give that a spin. That’s a difference of easily 10km/h without any additional training.
I can hop on my road bike without having been on it for a year and do 25-30km/h average on the mostly flat roads we have in my city.