A friend in HS was super athletic and quite talented. He decided that he wanted to start training for the Ironman. He already was a very avid runner and swimmer, so took on cycling with renewed interest.
One day, bicycling down the VERY flat 14 Mile Rd in Clawson, MI, he was pulled over by a police car with their siren going.
The police just wanted to mention that he was exceeding the posted 35 mph speed limit by 7mph. And yes, they gave him a warning.
This happened last weekend. I have an old beater mountain bike, and was on single track AFTER it rained. It was a long straight ridge line stretch. I neglected to keep all this in mind when deciding to go 54 mph…that is, until I hit the previously unknown switchbacks.
That is why I’m tying this with only one hand. And I’m left handed, too, damnit (broke, of course, left arm, 3 freaking times).
I’m a bit of a chicken on steep hills, but did something around 40 - 45 down Red Mountain Pass from Ouray to Silverton CO. Don’t know the real speed because the rain the day before caused the computer to die. It took us around 2.5 hours to make the 12.5 mile climb, and around 20 minutes for the 12.5 mile descent. Offroad I’ve done just over 30 on gravel. On a flat smooth road I was able to get the road bike up to around 35 before my lungs leapt out of my chest and got tangled in the spokes.
I know the feeling. When I used to bike to work there was a stretch of beautiful flat road about 2 miles long (that’s about as long a stretch of flat road you will find around here) that I would alway sprint on. I’m not much of a sprinter, but I managed to hit 32 mph on the flat once and I thought I was gonna cough up my internal organs.
Back in the good old days I lived on my racing bike. I used to ride a minimum of 40 miles a day, usually at one time. It took me a little over an hour to get my ride in.
My velometer told me my average speed over 5000 miles was 25 mph… not bad I thought.
I used to race cars down the main drag and holding 35 mph over two miles wasn’t too hard. It got harder the second and third time…
Top speed on flat ground was 42 mph.
Highest speed on a hill was 62 mph.
When you ride on one inch tires small rocks are not your friends, I hit one once while blasting down a stretch of new pavement… I went over the bars and without even thinking I tucked and did a complete flip so that I landed on my feet with nary a scratch. The people who saw this said it was amazing to see. My bike was not as fortunate. The front tire and rim were totalled.
God I miss that bike. It was stolen from my garage a few weeks later. There has to be a special place in hell for bike thieves…
Re-Agent and I ride a tandem. Our fastest recorded speed (downhill, tailwind, etc.) was 54 mph. It seems a lot scarier now than it did at the time…maybe we’re just gettin’ old!?
Let me echo redtail23’s comment…
“TANDEM COMING THROUGH!!” means move the hell over because we’re going really fast
It is nice to see that there are quite a few cyclists among the millions…but then what should one expect from the brightest, most well-informed group of people on the planet?
Back in the days I used to ride a lot. Averaged 160 to 200 km each week of the summer. I used to spin regularly at about 35 to 37 km/hr on flat long runs of 20 or 30 kms. I’d meet up with a bunch or enthusiasts and we’d make a great ride out of it with each of us taking a turn in the lead pulling the rest along for a time.
One day, riding along at my usual pace I came up on a girl about my age riding a really nice Cannondale. Being a big road bike fan at the time, I immediately noticed the unique fat aluminum frame of her Cannondale since they had only been out for a year or two. She could not have been more than 5’4". Small bike frame too. Great set of bike legs. I cruised up behind her and started drafting for a while. She let me pass and pull her along for a time. We got to talking about this and that (bike related) and then she said that she’d had a nice rest and recommended I lower my seat because it looked a little high. She said goodbye and kicked it. She must have been doing damn near 40km/hr because I could only manage to keep up for a couple of kilometers before I had to slow down so my lungs and heart wouldn’t burst inside my chest. That girl new how to ride. The great legs and butt should have given it away.
Anyway, on a downhill I’ve done near 90 km/hr. It’s a bit unnerving when only about an inch of rubber is touching the road surface. Now I mainly ride off-road and I’ve probably done a little over half that speed but on loose gravel and dirt, it feels much faster.
Just a quick FYI. I was watching a documetary on the Discovery Channel (I think) on setting the world land speed record on a bike. Now, this wasn’t your everyday bike. No, its main gear was about as big as a car tire. It was towed up to speed just so the rider could actually move the pedals, then it drafted behind a car with a special wind break on it. They achieved a top speed of 167 MPH (I think that is right)!! I was amazed. I figured the world record would be in the 60s or 70s, tops. The guy who set it crashed on his last attempt (like a year or so before his WR setting ride) doing over 150. Broke a leg, but his worst injuries came from the road burns.
I saw that post where someone got their computor reading to 54mph and that was as far as they record, with a familiar smile, Avocet computors used to do that.
I managed the smae thing going over Fleet Moss in North Yorkshire.
There were two of us grovelling up the ‘easy’ side when a car full of touring heads came past all grins and smirks.They must have stopped for a look at the view before continuing.
We started on the descent which is a one in four(25%) for the first 1/2 mile with a screaming tailwind and hurtled past them, the look of starlement and surprise as we did this was something to see.
The speedo reading was already at its limit and we’d only been going a few seconds.
About a mile and a half later the raod sweeps round past some farm buildings where the surface is a concrete apron and none too smooth, the bike was doing a sideways shimmy as we whipped past and I only just made the bend to hit proper tarmac and get proper grip.
When we reached the bottom it was all big grins and ‘how fast did you go’, the car took a furhter eight minutes to reach us.
downhill 50 km/h - my dad made 70 km/h but I was too scared so I slowed down…
normally I go around 40 km/h - but I dont cycle much since I have a moped… god bless modern life! (God damn that I wont be able to afford anything but a bike when I move grrrr)
dodgy
I hit a little over 50 mph coming down the grade in Olympia south on I-5. I was out on a ride that day when I saw a huge pack of people riding. They were doing the STP (Seattle to Portland), so I decided to follow them for a while. Changed my mind when we got to the first up grade coming out of Olympia.
There’s a hill I go down on one of my regular rides that I always hit about 35 mph on. This road winds down a little pass through the foothills here. There’s one spot on the road where water comes across, with a little algae growing along the trickle of water. Someday that trickle is going to be the death of me, I swear.
Last year I broke my land speed record of 45 mph by reaching 46 mph going down South Mountain in south-central PA. There are roads that go down to Conococheague creek and back up the other side where in a short period of time you can achieve similar speeds. The caveat there is that there are mostly one lane bridges over this creek on back roads (as well as Antietam Creek). Getting back up the other side is a BITCH.
