Tips for getting faster on bike?

Spinervals. Pick out the 45 minute ones and do those 4 times a week for about 3-4 months.

Then pick out the 1 hour ones and do those 4 times a week.

Then mix it up with short/long sessions.

You will get faster.

Ride more.  Ride harder.

Search the forums for Jorge's winter bike plan.  That's  a good (IME) pan of intervals to help increase your power on the bike.  Doing it opened my eyes a bit about how hard one can/ought to go on the bike in training.

Agreed with the comment about Jorge's plan.  That being said, 30 MPW is fairly low so you may want to look at increasing your average, I see that you have just started in March, but depending what type of events you want to do, you will want to start riding more to start seeing some gains.

I asked a similar question at a recent tri... common answer from athletes was to focus on cadence and maintaining through inclines.  I'm slow on the bike too... but can hammer out the miles any day of the week.

High intensity intervals work great! But I also think you need some more volume. 30 miles a week just isn't enough to make abig difference.

This will play a big part as well.  I ride in hills as well and will average around 18.5 mph but I recently rode a pancake flat route for the same distance (50 miles) and averaged 19.8 mph.

As your bike handling skills improve also think about riding with a group every so often.  The drafting aspect is nice but there will be times when you're going balls out in the pace line. I've found riding at this quicker pace and the sudden accelerations has helped me increase my speed when I ride alone considerably.

Intervals, 20/20's are popular (20 all out, 20 rest).  Also ride lots. 

- Time in the Saddle

For a beginner, this will help a ton.  30 MPW isn't going to provide gains very quickly.  If I were in your shoes I'd try to triple that, starting now.

I guess I was expecting the ride more answer. It seems like this is the best way to get faster.  I guess it makes sense....build more muscle= get faster.  I have slowly increase to 40 miles per week for July.  I plan on slowing increasing it to 60+ miles per week for August.  

would you give the same advice to me?
I average just under 15mph and ride about 80-100miles week. 
Even when drafting off the guys I just can't muster the power to keep up...


(I need to find girls to ride with in NYC!)

I would. Intervals. Trainer/roller miles are a way to control 100% of your environment and do a regulated workout without having to deal with wind, hills, humidity and temp.

What helped me is biking a lot and mixing it up.

Long road rides, mountain biking, spin classes, trainer sessions, group rides, EZ rides, hard rides, hills, flats... 

Keep trying. Think to yourself that you are not getting dropped today. Of course you still will get dropped, but maybe the next time you have held on for an extra minute or two. Maybe you made it an extra block before the drop. Then the next thing you know you are doing the entire ride.

Ride alot is always good advice.  You are doing very well if you have been just riding since March so don't get discouraged. 

The thing that has helped me the most is that I ride with a fast group on Saturdays and Sundays for my long rides and I refuse to get dropped!

Most people who ride make the mistake of riding at one tempo all the time and expect to get better. For beginners, that might work for a while as they develop muscles and lose weight. However, they all eventually plateau. Varying your efforts between hard/intense sessions and easy/recovery sessions helps you maximize your gains and get some recovery in there to stave off overuse injuries. Two credos I live by:

1. Hard/intense efforts should be very hard/very intense (but don't hurt yourself);
2. Easy/recovery efforts should be very easy.

It often helps to find people of varying skill to ride with. On my unstructured intense days, I do goup rides with groups that are faster than me. Trying to hang on works me out pretty hard. On easy/recovery days, I ride with friends who are considerably slower than me because it forces me not to push myself.

Jorge's plan is awesome and can be found here. I used it last winter and saw a gain of 1 MPH after the first time through.

Ride more. Lots more. I'm averaging between 75 and 100 miles per week in the same terrain...It will take time, but if you build your base - it will get better.