What is a good average cycling speed?

The question is nearly unanswerable as asked, because an average speed describes a route at least as much as a rider. The useful way to frame it is in watts, which this calculator will give you. In the default setup on flat ground, 100 watts produces 25.36 km/h, 150 watts produces 29.88, 200 watts produces 33.42 and 300 watts produces 38.94. A rider averaging 25 km/h into a headwind over rolling terrain is working considerably harder than one averaging 30 on a sheltered flat road, and comparing the two averages tells you almost nothing.

Why does going faster get so much harder?

Because the dominant resistance is aerodynamic, and its power cost grows with the cube of speed rather than in proportion to it. Rolling resistance and gradient are flat forces, so their power cost merely doubles when you double your speed. Air resistance is a force that already grows with the square of speed, and power is force times speed, which puts the total on a cubic. In the default setup, doubling from 20 to 40 km/h does not need twice the power or even four times it, but 5.57 times.

Does a lighter bike actually make you faster?

On the flat, far less than people hope. Removing 5 kilograms at 152 watts moves the default rider from 30.00 to 30.16 km/h, which is 26 seconds across a 40 kilometre ride. Weight only resists you through rolling resistance on level ground, and rolling resistance is the small term. On a climb the picture reverses completely, because now you are lifting that mass: the same 5 kilograms on a 5 kilometre climb at 8% is worth 137 seconds. Weight is a climbing variable that people buy for flat riding.

What are CdA and Crr, and what should I use?

CdA is your frontal area multiplied by your drag coefficient, measured in square metres, and it is the single largest determinant of speed on flat ground. Crr is the dimensionless rolling resistance coefficient of your tyre on that surface. The presets here span roughly 0.42 for an upright position down to 0.21 for a full time-trial setup, and 0.003 on a track surface up to 0.015 for a knobby tyre. Treat all of them as starting points: CdA in particular scales with how large you are, so a preset calibrated for an average-sized rider will misestimate a very tall or very small one.

How much does wind change my speed?

More than any other single condition, which is why comparing rides on windy days is close to meaningless. At 152 watts on the flat, a 10 km/h headwind drops the default rider from 30.00 to 24.29 km/h, and the same wind behind pushes them to 36.36. That is a 12 km/h spread from one weather variable. What matters to the equations is the air speed over you, so a headwind adds to your ground speed before the squaring happens, which is exactly why it hurts disproportionately.

Am I faster at altitude or in the heat?

Yes to both, purely aerodynamically, because each thins the air. At the same 152 watts the default rider does 30.00 km/h at sea level and 15 degrees, 30.98 at 1000 metres, and 32.04 at 2000 metres. Heat does the same thing more mildly: 29.52 km/h at 0 degrees against 30.46 at 30 degrees. The catch at altitude is that your body is subject to the same thin air, and the aerobic power you lose above roughly 1500 metres usually outweighs the drag you save, which is why altitude helps sprinters and hour-record attempts far more than it helps climbers.

How many calories does a ride burn?

Take the mechanical work at the pedals and divide by your gross efficiency, which for cycling is around 24%. The default ride is 152 watts for 1:20:00, which is 727 kilojoules of work and about 724 kilocalories burned. The near-equality is a genuine coincidence rather than a rounding: a kilocalorie is 4.184 kilojoules, and one divided by 4.184 is 23.9%, almost exactly cycling's gross efficiency. It means you can read kilojoules on a power meter as kilocalories with under half a percent of error, which is far better than any heart-rate estimate.

Why does this disagree with my power meter?

Because a power meter measures and this calculator models. The two figures that drive the model, CdA and Crr, are estimates unless you have tested them, and an error of 0.02 in CdA moves the answer by several percent on its own. Beyond that, the model assumes a steady speed on a constant gradient in steady wind, whereas a real ride accelerates, corners, changes gradient and sits in other people's slipstreams. Treat the wattage here as what your average speed would have demanded under the stated conditions, and treat the levers table, which compares like with like, as the more reliable output.

Cycling Speed Calculator

Cycling speed is the one number here that needs no model at all: distance divided by time, and nothing else comes into it. Ride 40 kilometres in 1:20:00 and you averaged 30.00 km/h, or 18.64 mph, which is 2:00 per kilometre and 3:13 per mile. That part is arithmetic and this page gives it to you as ...

YOUR RIDE

DISTANCE (km)

TIME (h:mm:ss)

CONDITIONS

These do not change your speed — that comes from distance and time. They decide what that speed cost you.

RIDER (kg)

BIKE + KIT (kg)

GRADIENT (%)

HEADWIND (km/h)

ALTITUDE (m)

AIR TEMP (°C)

Negative gradient is a descent; negative headwind is a tailwind. Air density here is 1.2250 kg/m³.

POSITION — CdA 0.320 m²

SURFACE — Crr 0.0050

AVERAGE SPEED

30.00 km/h

18.64 mph · 8.333 m/s

PER KM

2:00

PER MILE

3:13

POWER

152 W

2.02 W/kg

WORK

727 kJ

at the pedals

ENERGY

724 kcal

burned by you

What it costs to hold each speed, for your rider and conditions. The bands stack in order — rolling, air, gradient, drivetrain — so the top of the stack is what your legs put in. The full-height dashed line with the dot marks your 30.00 km/h. The short tick on the axis is 16.5 km/h, where air overtakes rolling resistance. Both axes are linear.

FULL BREAKDOWN

What is resisting you	Force	Power	Share of the total
Rolling resistance	4.12 N	34.3 W	22.7%
Air resistance	13.61 N	113 W	74.8%
Gradient	0.00 N	0.00 W	0.0%
Drivetrain loss	—	3.79 W	2.5%
At the pedals	17.73 N	152 W	100.0%

Force times speed is power, so each row is simply its force multiplied by 8.333 m/s. Drivetrain loss has no force of its own — it is the 2.5% of your input the chain and bearings absorb before it reaches the road. A negative row is helping rather than resisting.

WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY MAKE YOU FASTER

Each row changes exactly one thing and re-solves for the speed the same 152 W would give you, on your 0.0% gradient. The ranking is not fixed — it moves with the gradient, which is the whole point.

Change one thing	New speed	Difference
Nothing — as you rode it	30.00 km/h	—
Ride 10% harder	31.14 km/h	+1.14
Tuck lower (CdA −0.03)	30.91 km/h	+0.91
Faster tyres (Crr −0.001)	30.55 km/h	+0.55
Lose 5 kg of rider	30.16 km/h	+0.16
10 km/h headwind	24.29 km/h	-5.71
10 km/h tailwind	36.36 km/h	+6.36

WHAT EACH SPEED COSTS

The same rider and conditions across a range of speeds. Watch the last column: air resistance takes over early and then takes almost everything.

Speed	Pedal power	Air’s share of your power
15 km/h	32.1 W	44.1%
20 km/h	57.9 W	58.0%
25 km/h	96.7 W	67.9%
30 km/h	152 W	74.8%
35 km/h	226 W	79.8%
40 km/h	323 W	83.3%
45 km/h	445 W	85.9%
50 km/h	597 W	87.9%

HOW TO USE

1Enter the distance you rode and the time it took. Time takes h:mm:ss, so 1:20:00 works, and 80:00 gives the same answer if you prefer minutes and seconds. Your average speed appears immediately in km/h, mph and m/s, with pace per kilometre and per mile beside it.
2Fill in the conditions: rider and bike weight, the gradient, and any headwind. None of these changes the speed you rode, which is already fixed by distance and time. They determine what that speed demanded of you in watts, and how that power was split between the road, the air and the hill.
3Set your position and surface. The buttons load representative values for CdA and Crr, but both fields are editable and should be edited if you know your own. Altitude and air temperature set the air density shown underneath, which is what the aerodynamic term actually depends on.
4Read the levers table. Each row changes one thing and re-solves for the speed your same wattage would produce. Change the gradient and watch the ranking reorder itself, which is the single most useful thing on this page.

WORKED EXAMPLE

Forty kilometres in 1 hour 20 minutes, a 75 kg rider on a 9 kg bike, flat road at sea level and 15 degrees, hands on the hoods (CdA 0.32) on ordinary asphalt (Crr 0.005). Speed first, which needs no physics: 40,000 m divided by 4,800 s is 8.333 m/s, or 30.00 km/h and 18.64 mph. That is 2:00 per kilometre. Now what it cost. Total mass is 84 kg and air density at sea level and 15 degrees is 1.2250 kg/m3. Rolling: 0.005 x 84 x 9.80665 = 4.12 N, which at 8.333 m/s is 34.3 W. Air: 0.5 x 1.2250 x 0.32 x 8.333 squared = 13.61 N, which is 113 W. Gradient: zero, the road is flat. That is 147.7 W at the wheel. Dividing by 97.5% drivetrain efficiency gives 152 W at the pedals, of which 3.79 W is lost in the chain. Air is taking 74.8% of the total, and it passed rolling resistance as the larger cost back at 16.5 km/h. Over 4,800 seconds, 152 W is 727 kJ of work, and at 24% gross efficiency that is roughly 724 kcal burned.

THE PHYSICS

Speed itself is the easy part: distance divided by time, and nothing else enters into it. What takes explaining is why a particular speed is hard, and that comes down to three forces the bike has to overcome, plus a small tax on the way through the chain.

speed = distance ÷ time
rolling = Crr · m · g · cos θ
air     = ½ · ρ · CdA · (v + wind)²
gradient = m · g · sin θ
power = (rolling + air + gradient) · v ÷ 0.975

The important detail is the exponent. Rolling resistance and gradient are both flat forces, so their power cost rises in step with speed — go twice as fast and you pay twice as much. Air resistance is a force that already grows with the square of speed, and power is force times speed, so its cost grows with the cube. That single difference is why cycling rewards aerodynamics so much more than it rewards strength, and why the gap widens the faster you go.

For your numbers, air resistance overtakes rolling resistance at roughly 16.5 km/h. Below that the road is your main opponent; above it, the air is — and it only gets more so. Note that θ is the angle of the slope, not the percentage: a 10% gradient is atan(0.10) = 5.71°, and using 0.10 directly for sin θ would overstate the climbing force by about half a percent.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Divide distance by time. Forty kilometres in 1:20:00 is 40 divided by 1.3333 hours, which is 30.00 km/h, or 18.64 mph. Working in pace instead, that is 2:00 per kilometre and 3:13 per mile. No physics enters into this step and no assumption about your bike or the wind can change it, which is worth remembering when a ride-tracking app and a bike computer disagree: they are disagreeing about the distance they measured, not about the arithmetic.

▪speed = distance divided by time.
▪40 km in 1:20:00 is 30.00 km/h.
▪That is 18.64 mph, or 2:00 per kilometre.
▪Disagreements between devices are distance disagreements.

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Last updated: July 29, 2026 · Formula verified · Speed is exact; power is a physical model, and CdA and Crr are the two figures worth measuring rather than guessing · Eagle-eyed accuracy for every calculation.