The use of a bike log and looking at data.

I have read and seen in lots of articles and videos the importance of keeping a bike log. For those who don't know what that is this is a record of rides, distances, speed, conditions and terrain.

The idea is that you can map your rides and training and if you have a bad time in the saddle remind yourself of how much better you can ride and conversely if you have a ride that is an absolute worldy then you can quickly see how much you have progressed.

I have never really used one much to be honest apart from occasionally using Strava's training log to casually glimpse at how much I have or haven't improved or gone faster/slower etc.

Having one of those days where I am sat at a screen for a while I thought I would make a little .xl spreadsheet to see how my performance has improved in the past year of cycling on the road (I am ignoring mountain biking as there are too many variations with speed and distance besides mountain biking is about more than going longer and faster - IMO).

I kind of wish I hadn't done this though as the results are a little depressing.

As you can see two things stand out. Firstly that my average distance has not really changed much (sportives and one off rides aside) Which means that I am pretty much limiting myself to the same distance of ride every time. 

Secondly my pace just has not improved really. It has hovered around the 22-24 km/h zone.

In fact the average distance of my rides in the last calendar year is 55 km. If I remove the one off and sportive rides that drops down to 50.6 km as an average ride length. Pace wise the sportive in a group does not make a difference to my average speed. With the sportive included it is 22.7 km/h with that removed it stands at 22.5 km/h.

If we are being hypercritical then you can see that my early speeds are slightly slower than my current speeds. The average speed of my first 4 rides was 21.7 km/h against the average speed of my last 4 rides being 23.4 km/h,

There is a slight bias here too in that these rides are only the ones over 25 km. This means that any rides in that time frame that are below this (commuting) are not included. Commuting rides in my opinion while good time on the bike are not worth comparing with unladen weekend rides.

So what does this mean in 'real terms'. Well firstly we now have a benchmark to compare my current training against. Secondly I need a bike computer so I can keep an eye on my pace on the bike. Thirdly I need to ride longer and harder.

Finally I need to use this as a tool for improvement and not as a way to beat myself up. 

Oh and one last thing, the new bike ride marks the switch from my trusty Raleigh Scorpio (20+ years old steel frame) to a Boardman Road Team Carbon (full carbon fibre and brand new). Interesting how there is a slight increase in pace but not as much as I would have expected to see...

Maybe it isn't all about the bike (#4) after all?