Cooper Teare is an impressive cyclist 🤯

25 MPH in an hour would be good. That's like a sub-16 5K.

You didn't average 20mph on a mountain bike, stop lying.

I am an old lady (ie well over 40) and was never a particularly fast runner and cycle comfortably on flats at 15-16 mph and can with effort go a good bit faster. My recent 5K time was 24:xx. It seems very reasonable to me that an elite runner who can literally run twice as fast as me would be able to cycle at around 20 mph without that much effort.

For an elite athlete not impressive at all unless he was in zone 2 or 3 the entire time.

I'm a 51 year old 200lb, 26% body fat office dweller (last competitive race 22 years ago) who was asked by co-workers to do a 40km bike leg as part of a corporate triathlon team. Trained 2 months, on a Peloton, and on a borrowed bike averaged 21mph (1:10) for the "race". Was not completely flat.

If my fat ass can do it, it's not an impressive feat.

Hey I have the same bike computer except mine doesn’t have poop smeared on it like Pooper Teare’s.

I love that this blatantly TROLL of a thread has nothing but serious responses lol

Here's what I'll say. For solid runners, 20mph isn't insane at all without any prior bike experience. It doesn't mean that he isn't moving at a good clip. He's a 20-something sub-13 5k runner. Cycling, like running, has a wide range of people who do it. 20mph isn't crazy when you think about what truly elite cyclists can do but there are weekend warrior types who would be pumped with a ride like this. It is good, but it's somewhat expected. I transitioned from running to triathlon & my first rides went exactly like this. I'm nowhere near as fast as Cooper. And now that I'm 4 years in I know how far away something like this is from pushing real watts in a 70.3. & I know how far away that it from what top cyclists can do. It's all relative.

Reality is that this was a pancake (100 ft. is nothing in cycling) flat ride for someone in great shape. He's light but I would guess he would have trouble with a bunch of rollers thrown in. FTP doesn't interest me. He's a runner. He would struggle to get his biking HR up to his running HR. If he's having fun & cycles some to stay healthy then good on him. Hopefully it's good for the sport, or he'll have to stop.

Cutoff for an A minus level cyclist is 20:00 for ten miles. Check any set of British TT association results and guys are regularly in the 19:00's with 21:00 plus out of it.

That's 30 mph.

20 mph is absolutely pedestrian.

No, depends on how you test and apply allometrics.

For Teare, 20mph replaces jogging.

Why do so many people in this thread insist on comparing TT bike race times to a casual road bike ride?

That's like saying a pro runner is slow because he does his easy run at a slower pace than hobby joggers racing in alpha flys.

Look at the total elevation you regard

Back in my senior year of high school, when I was just a 4:55 miler and rode my bike on the weekends occasionally, I averaged right about that pace on my ten speed going south down the California coast to Jenner for two hours, and that is a hilly ride. So, I don't think this shows much for a 12:54 5000m runner.

I'd say it's more like 7:00 pace. And I think that's a good way to think about the ride. If someone tells you they ran 7:00 pace for an hour, what do you think? It's certainly a good run. If it's an elite male endurance athlete running in a race, it's not particularly impressive, perhaps even bad. If it's a steady run from a relatively-new runner, it might suggest quite a lot of talent! And even many elite runners run 7:00 pace or slower on their recovery runs.

The other relevant aspect is conditions/pacing. Depending on exactly where Teare lives, it could easily be 10-15 minutes of stop-and-go to get to where he can really ride, then 30-40 minutes averaging 25 mph, and then 10-15 minutes home, which would really show quite a bit of talent, especially since he's probably not very aerodynamic. Or perhaps the route was very hilly. Given that his max speed was only 27.8, my guess is that neither was the case, but it's possible.

He weighs approximately 7 pounds, so yeah I would expect this

I would like to see power curves by speed. I agree 15-16 mph is a walk in the park pace. But I feel like each mile per hour faster one goes on a bike gets distinctly more difficult.

As Teare was cross-training, I do not suspect he was going all out but just getting in some aerobic fitness that would not deter from his run development. So I think 20 mph is impressive. Like the gentleman, Reedsie, said above- some people can hammer it in a race and put down 20 miles in an hour but I don't think that is how Teare approached this effort.

Teare looks built to cycle. I would love to see if he could do a Taylor Knibb and find success in cycling. Cycling, I understand, is far more lucrative than running.

Why would a 25 year old world class runner decide to switch to cycling when, even if he has all the tools, he would be possibly past his athletic prime by the time he got really good?

See below. I believe it's in between a quadratic and cubic curve. The challenge is that frontal drag and coefficient of air resistance have big effects (albeit linear). The pros can only ride 30-35 mph in a time trial because they are very, very aerodynamic. Not to mention that the pros corner much better than the average person. If you have professional-level power but the "weekend warrior's" bike fit and handling, you'll lose several mph.

His elevation gain was 115ft - essentially pancake flat. 20mph + for him on a pancake course should be cruising. Not a half bad runner back in the day, I am 68, rode 44 miles @ 17.1 with 2,500 ft of gain yesterday and I'm not what I consider a good cyclist.

the majority of pros will never sniff 6w/kg for even 20 minutes

the man with more Tour de France stage wins than any other in history had an FTP of ~5w/kg when he was on really good form