Well, I should say I live somewhere very flat. I'm certainly not talking about Tour de France style mountain stages. I'm not used to that at all. Also, for 5 hours most people will need to be in a good group/peloton. Doing it solo, like a time trial, is difficult. But I do think most people could get around 6 hours (16.7mph average) within a year of training in sportive conditions (ie. with some drafting, not strict time trial conditions). When I trained my solo average over 50 miles was 18.6mph and I'm not particularly special.
replyWith the additional detail and the numbers you provided, that seems reasonable. Steepness of hills is definitely relevant, haha.
reply