Speed!

[IOLO]

on my roady trip over the alps and back, italy to france and back.

i got 46mph down one side of the alps !

and i got 37mph pedaling from still ont he flat !

and i was using a 3 speed sturmey hub,!! o love them !

and at 46mph down a hill i had AGES to get more speed, but it just wouldnt !

i was out of gears, and i was tucked like hell off the back, i tried lying into the top tube too,

but NOTHING worked,

the top speed doesnt feel that fast, but on a set of 8 really steep hairpins,, i was prob goin about 40mph,

and i managed to over take 3 lorrys and a motorbike all on the inside. that felt way faster !

iolo.

[Greetings]

My best riding down hill on a xc bike was just below 70km/h, on a flat road with the wind blowing in my back - about 52km/h.

I don't think I'd get over 40km/h on my mod bike riding down hill though, it just gets too unstable.

[Alun Goch]

Three cheers for road bikes! I miss mine too, really helped keep me fit aswell. All the fastest speeds seem fairly similar on road bikes. I was crying one time though, I got to the bottom of the hill and my eyes where massive and full of tears from the wind! No doubt there where some flies there too!

Keep 'em coming.

Alun

[Joe_Kearney]

Three cheers for road bikes! I miss mine too, really helped keep me fit aswell. All the fastest speeds seem fairly similar on road bikes. I was crying one time though, I got to the bottom of the hill and my eyes where massive and full of tears from the wind! No doubt there where some flies there too!

Keep 'em coming.

Alun

I concur but summer's coming round. I'm hopefully going to be fishing out my lycra from it's hiding place in the not too distant future

[the judge]

How many people do actually do a bit of XC? to keep fit for trials? or is it just something you do the odd occaision????

Waynio.............................

I do quite a bit of xc and road, I usually go on a ride at least once a week and the least I ever normally go is about 25/30 miles, tis good fun and keeps me fit

[duane]

Hi,

I used to have no trouble hitting 52mph on my road bike down long steep welsh hillsides. If there were two of us taking turns to slipstream with one of us in front already doing 52, you could sprint out of the slipstream and get up towards 62 for a short while.

Most road racing bikes have a high gear that is rated over 120 inches, that means the equivalent of a fixed wheel 10ft high. With each pedal turn you cover 31.4 feet or around 10 meters so to hit 100kmh which is more or less 62 mph you need to be pedal 10,000 times an hour which is a very manageable 166 times a minute. I say its manageable, you need to be very strong to push all that air out of the way and you won't manage it for much more than a minute, but track sprinters would get well above 166RPM with a smaller geared fixed wheel bike to hit around 48 mph on the flat, watch it sometime, its where track standing came from, stationary to 48mph on a fixed wheel bike, the guys that do it are built like tanks.

The track standing comes from trying to get the other guy to move first so that you can sit in his slipstream before sprinting out from behind and taking the race at the line.

Now that I have a trials bike I dream of someday hitting 16 miles and hour,

Duane.

[Clarky]

I have been around 50mph down a hill coming out of beacon fell on my custom build xc bike the hill was very steep gradient and i was pedalling max in top gear the wind against me was a bit misleading it made the bike very twitchy.

Clarky

Edited May 19, 2006 by JASON CLARK

[duane]

Its a long time since I have been that fast on a bike, but your right the bike does start to get very light, don't know if its to do with the limited suspension and contact patch of a bicycle tyres or if its areodynamic lift. Whichever it is its never going to be a problem for me and my base.

[Gavyn.]

That seems a bit hard to belive. It's hard vertually impossible to get to those speeds down a steep hill never mind on the flat.

that would be easy, the guy who did the worlds fastest wheely cyclyed at 90mph behind a minibus with the boot open i've done 60 down a hill slipstreaming behind a bus on my dads hellfrauds bike :$

[PaulSection7]

> you could sprint out of the slipstream and get up towards 62 for a short while.

Um. I've just done some napkin maths to work out how fast you'd have to pedal a 53x12 gear to do 62mph on some 700c roadie wheels. It comes out at nigh on 180rpm. Which is 3 complete crank revolutions a second. I'm not sure that's possible even on rollers...

Oh, and to put some of the above figures into perspective, the world record for 500m from a flying start on a velodrome is held by Michael Hubner, who had legs that must have been at least 60" in circumference and looked like a powerlifter. His average speed was just over 41mph. For 200m the world record is about 44mph.

So anyone who claims he can do 50 odd mph on the flat ought to consider becoming a professional road racer... or maybe sorting out the calibration on their cycling computer.

[PaRtZ]

I've done 29.6mph on flat (for about a mile lol nearly killed me) when i was 15 ish

I got 37mph down a hill near me too. I had to brake though because my eyes were watering that much I couldn't see anything

Those speeds were done on a crappy £40 "argos" bike which I had removed some bits and bobs and accidently used with very loose cones. I think that's how I got so fast to be honest

[duane]

Hi,

"Which is 3 complete crank revolutions a second. I'm not sure that's possible even on rollers..."

You can't ever have raced as a 3rd category senior in a criterion involving juniors and resticted gearing ( I was c**p at them, hence my long ago expired 3rd category license.

180 RPM is very possible, try it next time you are in a gym with a 'lifecycle' machine that shows your RPM.

With regards to the speeds possible on the flat, I have read of record attempts slipstreaming race cars with aerodynamic devices designed to create a great big hole in the air for the rider to sit in, there was an attempt on the M1 motorway when it was first built, from memory they didnt get the record for two reasons, firstly the car couldnt go fast enough with all the aerodynamic devices and secondly even the very shallow curves of a motorway were a bit alarming on a bicycle at close to 90 MPH, to get that speed on the bike the gearing is so high that the bike has to be towed upto speed at the start.

Heres a link that might shed some credibility on those of us claiming a mere 62 MPH, http://www.canosoarus.com/08LSRbicycle/LSR%20Bike01.htm

Interesting to see that someone managed 60 on the flat at the turn of the century too.

Enjoy, Duane.

[PaulSection7]

180rpm... I'm just remembering the roller racing competitions from when I was a 'serious' roadie. I'm not sure we were pedalling that fast with two burley blokes basically holding the bike upright. Not sure I'd want to pedal at 180rpm when I was actually moving along the road at 60mph.

Sure 60+mph on the flat is well possible if you've got someone driving a massive wind breaker in front of you and you've got a 100+t chainring... but that's not what's being talked about here is it? With no aerodynamic aids, you'd be doing very well to get 40mph for about a second - ie you ain't gonna beat the UCI world records.

(I never got the 3rd cat licence - I gave it all up for trials when I was still a junior).

[trialsalot]

60 mph is soo possible.when i worked at halfords we set up some rollers an a speedo and just went for it.i managed 70mph.....to flat because the rolling road fell over !

however indoors on a roller there is no wind at all which is a massive underlying factor.at those sort of speeds your legs are spinning out of control at ridiculous speeds!

[duane]

Hi Paul,

I have never ridden on rollers, but they always looked unstable to me, so I wouldn't be first in the queue to try and prove my point by riding rollers. I have however had a good look around the internet for credible evidence of someone exceeding 180 RPM, I found this 'I know that Outchakov clocked 114 Km/h = 71 Mph in a Giro de Italia downhill' here - http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-52177.html, assuming that the guy was using normal road gearing this would be welll over 180 I have also found some posts on other forums by guys claiming 200 RPM but offering no other evidence.

The lack of evidence is probably because Max output is reconed to be at about 90 - 110 RPM so a track sprinter or any other rider would gear the bike to hit max speed around that RPM. Some of us freaks may be able to pedal almost twice this fast, but power output will be way down, its only possible with a very big hill to back you up as demonstrated by my empty trophy shelves.

Anyone who has been riding trials for a long time may stuggle to spin really high RPMs because the muscles have been repeatedly trained to hold a position and then punch through a fraction of the pedal stroke, just about as far as you could get from a fast and fluid pdealling style. You also need clipless pedals or toe straps to keep your feet on the pedals.

Looks like for now we will just have to agree to disagree,

Duane.

[the judge]

You also need clipless pedals or toe straps to keep your feet on the pedals.

For extra power as well, even if their feet didn't come off the pedals I doubt they could attain those kind of speeds with flat pedals.

Edited May 19, 2006 by the judge

[oakley]

got 84 mph last night down 'big' hill!

[Waynio]

LMAO!!!!

oakley you cvouldnt even get to 30mph!!! never mind 80odd hahahahahaha

RIGHT!!!the task is set, im going to have Bucky, TOW me along the bypass in my Golf @ 80MPH!!!! TOWING no rpm shizwak. and il see if im still alive after

OR il get Lovatt to tow me in his 106 1litre (it will be safer ) and get me to about 60/70 haha

Waynio..........................

i just need the right bike to do it now............

[PaRtZ]

LMAO!!!!

oakley you cvouldnt even get to 30mph!!! never mind 80odd hahahahahaha

RIGHT!!!the task is set, im going to have Bucky, TOW me along the bypass in my Golf @ 80MPH!!!!

Dude thats cheating

If you get towed on a trials bike at that speed (and provide video evidence ) we'll let you off

[ScotchDave]

I've definitely hit 30 on my bmx, because I was overtaking cars, that was down a nice hill though. Was really quite scary cos I only have a back brake on my bmx.

[Waynio]

what speed do i have to do on a trials bike?

whats it worth????

Waynio........................

to make it less "dangerous" i will try it up @ SHipley glen tomorrow night and get towed "up" the hill, then when i see it FIT for road testing i will do it on the "Keighley-Bingley" bypass

Edited May 19, 2006 by Waynio

[PaRtZ]

what speed do i have to do on a trials bike?

whats it worth????

Waynio........................

60+ and a blowjob off me if I ever see you

[Waynio]

RIGHT!

this is it. BY sunday i will have footage or evidence (if tomorrow goes well) of me doing 60+ MPH. il do it a couple of times on a XC (Whyte 46) then il do ti on the trials bike

Waynio.......................

iv just got to work out where/how i will sit while we go @ 60+ mph lol

[Biff...]

RIGHT!

this is it. BY sunday i will have footage or evidence (if tomorrow goes well) of me doing 60+ MPH. il do it a couple of times on a XC (Whyte 46) then il do ti on the trials bike

Waynio.......................

iv just got to work out where/how i will sit while we go @ 60+ mph lol

Cant wait to see this bucky will probs take you flying and not slaow down lol.

[duane]

Hi,

If my maths is right, anyone that can hit 16 mph in trials gear (assuming 22/18) is pedalling at around 180 RPM, probably best to try on a bike with a high seat and toe straps. Any volunteers ?

Duane.