Speed, Distance and Time Calculator for Cycling

Speed is distance divided by time: a 42 km ride in 1 hour 36 minutes works out to 26.25 km/h (16.3 mph). Pick the value you want to solve for and enter the other two. Distance takes miles, km, meters, yards or feet; speed takes mph, km/h, m/s or ft/s; time goes in hours, minutes and seconds. The calculator gives time as h:mm:ss, shows speed in both mph and km/h, and adds pace per km and per mile when you solve for speed or distance.

Know your distance and ride time and want splits? The pace calculator below gives average speed, pace per mile and split times for 5, 10, 20 and 50 miles. Its distance field takes miles.

Speed, distance and time formulas with cycling examples

You need two of the three values. Put them in the same units before you divide or multiply: miles with mph, kilometers with km/h, and time in hours.

To switch units, use 1 mile = 1.609344 km, the exact value NIST lists. Multiply mph by 1.609344 to get km/h, or divide km/h by 1.609344 to get mph. For meters per second, divide km/h by 3.6.

Enter time the right way: 1.5 hours is 1:30, not 1:50

Watch the decimal point when you work by hand. To turn minutes into hours, divide by 60: 1 h 50 min is 1.83 hours, and 1 h 15 min is 1.25 hours. Say you rode 25 km in 1 hour 50 minutes. The right answer is 25 ÷ 1.83 = 13.6 km/h. Type the time as “1.50” and you get 16.7 km/h, 22% too fast.

Going the other way, multiply the decimal part by 60. A result of 4.17 hours is 4 hours plus 0.17 × 60 = 10 minutes. Skip this if you use the calculator: its hours, minutes and seconds fields do the conversion for you, and minutes above 59 still count (2 h 75 min is read as 3 h 15 min).

Moving time or elapsed time?

Strava defines elapsed time as the clock from start to finish, stops included, and moving time as the time you were in motion. Its help page says it prioritizes moving time for speed and pace. The gap can be large: a 50 km ride with 2:00 of moving time and 2:25 elapsed averages 25.0 km/h moving but 20.7 km/h door to door.

Use moving time to compare fitness from ride to ride. Use elapsed time, or a slower planning speed, to predict when you will arrive. If your own math does not match your GPS app’s average, check which of the two times you divided by.

Speed to pace conversion chart

Pace is time per unit of distance: minutes per km = 60 ÷ km/h. Runners and triathletes think in pace, and route planners that quote “minutes per mile” use it too.

What average speed should you plan with?

For a ride you have not done yet, the speed you type in decides the answer. Start from your own recent moving average on similar roads. Without one, use the measured and modeled figures below.

The measured city figures include traffic lights, junctions and slow riders, so they sit far below the open-road model speeds. Copenhagen times the green waves on several main streets for riders holding 20 km/h. For a city commute, plan at 15-16 km/h (about 10 mph) door to door unless your own rides say otherwise. An 8 km commute then takes about 30 minutes.

The model rows show how speed scales with effort on an open, flat road. Enter your own power and weight in the cycling power calculator to get a number for you. The average bike speed guide covers beginner, commuter, road and trail riders.

How wind, hills and winter change your speed

The table holds the rider and effort constant at 150 watts and changes one condition at a time. A 15 km/h headwind costs about 30% of your speed. A 6% climb costs two thirds of it. On snow, rolling resistance does most of the damage.

How we built it: these are Icebike estimates from the road cycling power model that Martin and colleagues validated in 1998, solved for speed. Summer inputs are an 85 kg rider and bike, a drag area (CdA) of 0.40 m² for riding on the hoods, a rolling resistance coefficient (Crr) of 0.005 and a 97.6% efficient drivetrain. Winter rows add 8 kg of bike and clothing, raise CdA to 0.45 for bulky layers, use -10°C air, and take Crr values of 0.008 and 0.027 from the Norwegian measurements described below, plus 0.05, where that study’s “very high” band starts. The model leaves out stops, cornering, wheel-bearing friction and the extra drag of studded tires. Trust the percentages more than the exact speeds, since your weight, position and tires shift every row.

Two patterns hold whatever your fitness:

• Wind never pays you back. Ride 10 km out into a 15 km/h wind and 10 km home with it at your back, and your average drops from 28.1 to 26.0 km/h. The round trip takes 46 minutes instead of 43, because you spend more time in the headwind than in the tailwind.
• Climbs dominate hilly routes. A route average hides the climbs. Use the cycling climb time calculator for each long hill, then add the flat sections at your normal speed. To see what a given gear and cadence produce, try the bicycle gear speed calculator.

Winter riding: plan on about 60% of your summer speed on snow

If your winter routes are plowed to bare pavement, plan on 85-90% of your summer speed and skip the rest of this section.

Cold alone costs little. Air at -10°C is about 11% denser than at 20°C (ideal gas law at sea-level pressure), which trims about 3% off your speed at 150 watts. Bulky clothing costs about another 3.5%, and 8 kg of extra bike and gear costs under 1% on flat ground. Snow costs far more because it raises rolling resistance.

Researchers at NTNU in Trondheim measured rolling resistance on winter cycleways with an instrumented bicycle. On their bike, wet bare asphalt measured a Crr of about 0.008, and a cycleway with under 2 cm of loose snow on compacted snow measured about 0.027, more than three times higher. Their survey of 1,318 people found that willingness to ride fell from 90% to 50% across that same change. Riders on studded tires were less put off by higher rolling resistance than riders without them.

Planning rules from the model:

• Cleared, bare pavement: plan on 85-90% of your summer moving speed.
• Packed snow with a thin loose layer: plan on about 60%. A commute that takes 20 minutes in summer takes about 33.
• Soft, deep or rutted snow: plan on 40% or less, and expect to walk some sections.

Pick tires before you pick a speed: the studded tire selector matches tires to ice, packed snow and mixed roads. Your riding speed adds to the wind on your face, so a 25 km/h descent into a light breeze can feel far colder than the forecast. Check it with the winter cycling wind chill calculator.

Sources

• Martin JC, Milliken DL, Cobb JE, McFadden KL, Coggan AR. Validation of a mathematical model for road cycling power. J Appl Biomech. 1998;14(3):276-291. Basis for the modeled speeds.
• Fenre MD, Klein-Paste A. The effect of rolling resistance on people’s willingness to cycle during wintertime. J Infrastruct Preserv Resil. 2021;2:12. Crr of about 0.008 on wet asphalt and 0.027 with under 2 cm of loose snow on compacted snow; willingness to cycle by Crr.
• Langford BC, Chen J, Cherry CR. Risky riding: Naturalistic methods comparing safety behavior from conventional bicycle riders and electric bike riders. Accid Anal Prev. 2015;82:220-226. GPS speeds of bikeshare riders in Knoxville, Tennessee.
• City of Copenhagen. Bicycle Account 2008. Average cycling speed of 16.2 km/h; green waves set for 20 km/h.
• Strava Support. Moving Time, Speed and Pace Calculations. Definitions of moving and elapsed time.
• NIST. Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: Factors for Units Listed Alphabetically. 1 mile = 1.609344 km exactly.