The daily "I cycled to work" thread

[cirian75]

checked my ride home from last night, I was speeding.

me and lass where chatting at the lights at the bottom of the Portland street.

Yes, she was cute, 25ish, blonde, Dutch with Americanised English.

Me on the Cube 29er, her on a Planet-X London Road

Young lad, 17/18, on one of those Smart E-Bikes pulls up with his rear tyre locked up, showing off.

I go to the lass "shall we burn him off"

And so we did, I hit 35mph she must have been close to that, E-Bike vanquished.

[v15ben]

Sounds like a fun race to me.
I ended up doing some of my ride today tagging along with a group cycling together; one MTB, one hybrid and a road bike, plus me on the 29er MTB.
The lass on the road bike kept accelerating off and everyone else was flying along trying to keep up. Good fun on the way to work!

[cirian75]

Mild competition is good, makes you push harder but not too hard.

[Black can man]

cirian75 said:

checked my ride home from last night, I was speeding.

I hit 35mph she must have been close to that

35 mph ! On the flat ?

[yellowjack]

Black can man said:

cirian75 said:

checked my ride home from last night, I was speeding.

I hit 35mph she must have been close to that

35 mph ! On the flat ?

I'm going to add my incredulity to that. My peak speed yesterday on the run down into Farnham past the castle was 39.1 mph turning a 50 x 11 gear on a down gradient averaging -6%. And I had a long downhill 'run up' into that, in the drops, tucked in out of the wind.

35mph on a 29er from a standing start? Are you quite sure...?

Edit: A fairly typical 29er 'top' gear of 36 x 11 on 2.00" tyres would require a cadence of 106 to hit 34mph according to an online gear calculator I just used. Far from impossible. The same 34mph speed is yours for only 96rpm at the pedals on a 50t (compact) road chainset. Even with 53 x 11 you'd still need an output of 90rpm to hold 34mph. This assumes 23mm tyres on 700c rims for the road bikes. Maybe it's not so ridiculous a claim as I first assumed?

Edited by yellowjack on Wednesday 25th May 11:10

[TwistingMyMelon]

Black can man said:

cirian75 said:

checked my ride home from last night, I was speeding.

I hit 35mph she must have been close to that

35 mph ! On the flat ?

Doable, I was racing my colie the other day on a gravel track and nudged 30 mph (on gps_ before we hit a corner and I nearly crashed, the bugger was pulling away from me with a grin on his face ! That was on a steel road bike, hit 35-40 on long tarmac flat bits sprinting flat out on my carbon Wilier, finally got the better of my dog, but needed full lycra, clipped in and best bike and 500 metres of closed road, anything else I cant beat him!

[Huntsman]

New bike much more comfortable and less effort, but handle bars came loose this morning!

[Black can man]

cirian75 said:

checked my ride home from last night, I was speeding.

me and lass where chatting at the lights at the bottom of the Portland street.

Yes, she was cute, 25ish, blonde, Dutch with Americanised English.

Me on the Cube 29er, her on a Planet-X London Road

Young lad, 17/18, on one of those Smart E-Bikes pulls up with his rear tyre locked up, showing off.

I go to the lass "shall we burn him off"

And so we did, I hit 35mph she must have been close to that, E-Bike vanquished.

C'mon Wiggo show us the stats.

[cirian75]

[idiotgap]

Bit of a shocker today. I was on my friend's Bianchi that's been in storage in my garage since last October when we did the wiggle circuit breaker. I agreed to commute into the city on it to hand it back so he can train to do some jaunt to Paris.

About 20 miles in the chain snapped, so I got a nasty shin whack from his half bear-trap / half spd pedals. I didn't have my usual kit on his bike just his tissues and suncream in the saddle bag, so no chain tool!

So... a 30 min hike to a bike shop, 20 min wait for them to open. Then get them to put a new chain on and back on the bike for the remaining 10 mile pootle into town.

I can recommend the Deen's Garage bike shop in Beckenham.

I had a chain snap last week on my bike and I fitted the chains on both.This, it turns out, is not a co-incidence! I have been overzealous in my use of the chain tool and been killing the lip on the ends of the pins which means the chains are more likely to break. In future I promise I will cut the chain once at the right length and then join with quicklinks.

[cirian75]

I'll admit there was some mild down but assistance but not major

The presence of a cute Dutch girl did make me push harder than I would normally.

Edited by cirian75 on Wednesday 25th May 11:35

[idiotgap]

cirian75 said:

I hit 35mph she must have been close to that

cirian75 said:

You know those kilometres are a teensy bit shorter than the miles?

Edited by idiotgap on Wednesday 25th May 11:35

[cirian75]

idiotgap said:

cirian75 said:

I hit 35mph she must have been close to that

cirian75 said:

You know those kilometres are a teensy bit shorter than the miles?

Edited by idiotgap on Wednesday 25th May 11:35

34.65mph

[yellowjack]

idiotgap said:

cirian75 said:

I hit 35mph she must have been close to that

cirian75 said:

You know those kilometres are a teensy bit shorter than the miles?

Edited by idiotgap on Wednesday 25th May 11:35

He's rounded it up a smidgin, but the boy's maths seem to work out close enough...

[idiotgap]

yellowjack said:

He's rounded it up a smidgin, but the boy's maths seem to work out close enough...

I see now, I didn't notice the max speed readout. I just saw the 35kmh approx max height of the line and made a rash assumption (made an ass out of me didn't it!). Still blown away though... on the flat!

[cirian75]

there is a mild downhill there but not much

straight across at these lights

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4763844,-2.24203...

[yellowjack]

idiotgap said:

I see now, I didn't notice the max speed readout. I just saw the 35kmh approx max height of the line and made a rash assumption (made an ass out of me didn't it!). Still blown away though... on the flat!

I wouldn't worry about it - I made the same rash assumption further up, and when I checked an on-line gear calculator it confirmed my suspicions. Then I went back and tweaked my input to take account of it being a 29er and assumed 2.00" tyres, and it took 25rpm off the cadence needed to generate that 34mph speed.

You'd have to work hard for it, no doubt, but it's not such a ridiculous claim as it first appeared. That ought to teach me to check first and pour scorn only if deserved...

...apologies due to cirian75 for being such a Negative Nelly. Sorry!

[Black can man]

cirian75 said:

Shouldn't one of those blue tips be an inch or so higher ?

I'm no Marcel Kittel but i can only get near that speed on a steady , very long ultra smooth descent whilst cacking my pants.

Sir Bradley Wiggins smashed Hour Record with an average speed 54.526km which works out to be less than 35 MPH.


Fair play if you really did get this speed, but i think you're cycling, app/computer has misread something on the ride.

[Black can man]

yellowjack said:

idiotgap said:

I see now, I didn't notice the max speed readout. I just saw the 35kmh approx max height of the line and made a rash assumption (made an ass out of me didn't it!). Still blown away though... on the flat!

I wouldn't worry about it - I made the same rash assumption further up, and when I checked an on-line gear calculator it confirmed my suspicions. Then I went back and tweaked my input to take account of it being a 29er and assumed 2.00" tyres, and it took 25rpm off the cadence needed to generate that 34mph speed.

You'd have to work hard for it, no doubt, but it's not such a ridiculous claim as it first appeared. That ought to teach me to check first and pour scorn only if deserved...

...apologies due to cirian75 for being such a Negative Nelly. Sorry!

Looks like i'm digging out Clarin75 , but i really do not mean to not believe him, i just think there's been a mistake along the line somewhere.


No offence Clarin75

[cirian75]

possibly, it was only a peak power burst, there nothing sustained about it all.

there is no cycle comp, this is a GPS speed reported by strava on my Sony Z5 compact, which was in the very top of a my backpack.