46
votes
Accepted
How difficult would it be to maintain 17.5 Mph for an hour?
The short answer is: not that difficult. The long answer requires some explanation.
The equations of motion for a rider on a bicycle are well-understood if not always well-known. The power needed to ...
- 13.6k
42
votes
Why is a road bike faster than a city bike with the same effort? How much faster it can be?
Having made the change myself, I can confirm that shock absorbers are actually detrimental to city riding. You lose a lot of power, especially when trying to stand on the pedals for acceleration.
...
- 521
37
votes
Accepted
Is cycling behind a truck a bad practice?
It is really dangerous to follow a large vehicle closely. It is possible behind a directeur sportif in a passenger car which is smaller: you can see through it, and the driver is a cyclist who knows ...
- 11.7k
30
votes
Fixie vs Road Bike - the right fixie bike for bunch rides
Disclaimer: I am a fixie hater. I'll try to answer this as if I was impartial.
Proper road bikes (Including the Moulton) are the machines for speed, and always have been (unless you're on a velodrome)...
- 5,600
30
votes
What aspects contribute most to me being slow on this bike?
For riding on the flat on a sealed road, bike weight isn't that important. It just takes you longer to get to your steady-state speed.
Tyre air pressure - for a MTB on the road I'd aim for 40-50 PSI ...
- 99.2k
28
votes
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What aspects contribute most to me being slow on this bike?
Since no-one else posted this as an answer (Vladimir touched on it in comments) i'm going to add it. Please don't take this the wrong way, its not designed to be insulting.
Simply put, you are slow ...
- 14.6k
27
votes
Accepted
How much easier is it to go fast on a road bike and why?
Aerodynamics are very important in cycling, and the faster you go, the bigger a factor aerodynamic drag becomes, because it increases with the square cube of your speed, but other sources of drag (...
- 24.1k
26
votes
Accepted
Legs are very weak
Always "riding your hardest" is called "junk miles" because it is not possible to always ride your hardest. The biggest performance gains come from more targeted and disciplined riding (as ...
- 29.8k
22
votes
How much easier is it to go fast on a road bike and why?
Try a quick poke of your values into http://bikecalculator.com/
Assuming you're doing 165W, weigh 80 kg, riding a 15 kg bike with knobbly MTB tyres, and using a "bar-tops" position returns ...
- 99.2k
20
votes
How do I make a mountain bike go faster (commuting)
I started commuting the same way about 8 months ago on a 29'er mountain bike, 2 things made the trip faster and more enjoyable.
Firstly tyres, I changed from knobblies to slicks and it made a BIG ...
- 1,460
19
votes
How do I make a mountain bike go faster (commuting)
I've been a cycle commuter for 12 years.
Here are the things that had the biggest impact on my speed:
Smooth high pressure tires (80+ psi for road) Greatly decreases rolling resistance
Clipless ...
- 471
19
votes
Accepted
Can you ride a bicycle at 90 km/h on a flat road?
In my younger foolish years I actually did this exact scenario, except at a slightly lower speed 85 kph (speed limit was 80 km/hr), but for a distance of nearly 10 km (between two suburbs). In my ...
- 29.8k
17
votes
Fixie vs Road Bike - the right fixie bike for bunch rides
Who rides fixes? Roadies who have got bored with always being out the front? Maybe its someone wanting to make a statement to the "Freds" (look it up) in the group
I once did a 160km ride where some ...
- 40k
17
votes
For fitness's sake, is it better to ride with low cadence in high gear or higher cadence in medium gear?
In terms of losing weight immediately, the obvious answer is to use whatever gear combo allows you to produce the greatest energy output. For most people this will likely be a hair lower than the "...
- 52.4k
17
votes
What aspects contribute most to me being slow on this bike?
You are a cyclist if you’re riding a bike and enjoying yourself.
Who is averaging 30km/hr ? You can’t hope to compete with road bikes on that bike. 15km/hour is not a bad average for a 26” bike with ...
- 3,026
16
votes
Relationship between speed and cadence?
Speed is determined only by gearing, of which crank, cassette, wheel, and tire are components
Any 2 bikes using, say, 42t cranks with a rear 32t cog and 25c tires on 700c wheels at 90rpm will be ...
- 161
16
votes
Why is a road bike faster than a city bike with the same effort? How much faster it can be?
Some representative values from http://bikecalculator.com/veloUS.html. It's a road-bike calculator, so it's not quite accurate. I simulated a hybrid/city bike by having the rider on a 30-lb road ...
- 8,783
15
votes
Accepted
Why exactly did Boardman manage a further distance than Wiggins?
Boardman used what is known as the "Superman" position, as shown in this image.
This position has been deemed to be against the rules by the UCI. Compare it to the position that Wiggins had on the ...
- 21.4k
15
votes
Accepted
How much faster will I be if I lose 10kg (from 100kg, all else equal)
According to BikeCalculator, assuming you drop 10 kg while everything else remains the same (power output, etc.), you would travel 0.3 km/hr faster over a 50 km ride, on the average. In other words, ...
- 2,603
14
votes
How do I make a mountain bike go faster (commuting)
Not necessarily thinner tyres, but ones with less tread will make a difference. If you are commuting by road only, then putting on some 'slick' tyres will cut a lot of the wind resistance, and rid ...
- 214
14
votes
Accepted
How does weight influence your speed when descending?
The heavier person will present more area to the wind, but this is mitigated by two factors: The bicycle presents a fixed area to the wind and the area presented by the heavier person is not ...
- 2,515
14
votes
Why is a road bike faster than a city bike with the same effort? How much faster it can be?
Let's assume you are talking about speed on a non-inclined surface for a given level of effort. (When we talk about how 'fast' a bicycle is we can also mean how well it accelerates from a standstill ...
- 74.3k
13
votes
Accepted
How does weight and strength of a person effects the riding of bicycle at higher speeds?
TLDR - Weight training is the wrong activity for improving both your sustained speed (26-30kph) and your 1-minute speed (40kph). Read below to understand why.
Background
There are three main ...
- 29.8k
13
votes
Accepted
At what speed does Aerodynamics of a bike come into play?
As long as you are moving through the air, aerodynamic drag will account for some portion of total drag. Here is a plot that shows the relative contribution of aerodynamic drag vs. rolling drag on ...
- 13.6k
13
votes
Accepted
Fastest way to get faster up hill
Unfortunately, there is a fairly straight forward reason why you actually need to ride hills in order to get faster at them: crank inertial load.
We have two main types of skeletal muscles. (Skeletal ...
- 29.8k
13
votes
Can you ride a bicycle at 90 km/h on a flat road?
It's all in the air resistance. Flat out is not much more than 50km/h for me on a deserted road. Even 10 metres behind a bus it's much easier (but you still have time to react to braking). I actually ...
- 46.2k
13
votes
Biking Target Speeds
I agree with Criggie's answer, but there's another way to look at it. Speed is mostly a function of power output. And you can quantify a cyclist's fitness in terms of their power-to-weight ratio, that ...
- 24.1k
12
votes
Accepted
Will increased weight make me go downhill faster?
The main thing you have to consider at speed is drag:
The force F on you+bike (mass m) is:
F = ma = mg sin Q - F_d - F_rr
where a is your acceleration, g is the acceleration due to gravity and Q is ...
- 46.2k
12
votes
Accepted
What are typical max speeds for pro downhill races?
The differences are quite significant from race to race - each track is different. Also events such as Rampage are not too much about speed. The top speed may vary between 55-65km/h on tracks such as ...
- 1,334
12
votes
Legs are very weak
I get the impression when you hit the road its full out 110% effort for the length of the ride. I would suggest from the "lungs burning" description that you are over training and exercising above ...
- 40k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible