46
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 propel a bicycle on firm flat ground (as on a velodrome) varies approximately with the cube of speed. Thus, to double your speed, you would need to increase ...
41
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.
Road bikes are also typically much lighter, which in my experience not only helps you go uphill faster, but also makes it a lot easier to carry the bike when ...
37
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 you and knows about you.
You cannot see what is coming in front of the truck. If they choose to brake hard, watching the brake lights will be of no use; you have ...
30
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).
Looking at it through a speed lens, a fixie has a slight weight, aero, and drivetrain efficiency advantage over a road bike, but this usually doesn't come ...
27
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 (mechanical resistance, rolling resistance) increase linearly. So putting your body in a more aerodynamic position is important, and not something you can really ...
26
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 suggested by mattnz).
To climb your steep hills (I assume these are relatively short, steep climbs, not a mountain pass) you need to work on developing high power over ...
22
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 24.4 km/h
Changing the tyre choice dropdown from "MTB" to "clinchers"[*] gives you 27.87 km/h, a 10% improvement for no other change.
Moving ...
20
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 difference both in feel and actual speed.
Secondly I got a lot stronger from biking every day.
I eventually got a lighter cheap touring bike which is faster, and ...
19
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 case I drafted a double trailer gravel truck which was very slow to accelerate making it easy to keep pace. This was only possible due to the massive low pressure ...
18
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 Pedals & Shoes - When you're clipped in you put energy into pedaling all the way around rather than just on the downstrokes
Remove any suspension - suspension ...
17
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 guy on a MTB (with nobbiles, back in the mid 1990's steel, 26" etc) arrived home 00:04:35 behind the leading pack (About 4:10 hours). Some argued the only ...
17
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 "preferred" range of about 70-90 RPM -- maybe 50-60, and pedaling as hard as you can.
However, if you want to KEEP losing weight by getting on the bike again ...
16
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 going the same speed. Bike type and size, rider/bike weight, and even front wheel/tire size and crank length don’t matter. These other factors only effect how much ...
16
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 bike with MTB tires, and riding that "road bike" in the least aerodynamic position possible. Note that the difference between a road bike and an actual ...
15
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 bike, shown here.
His arms are not as outstretched, and therefore it is not as aerodynamic.
The superman position was first used in the hour record attempt by ...
15
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, at 100 kg, assuming an average power output of 150 Watts, you'd average 27.54 km/hr over a 50km ride if you weighed 100 kg; doing the same ride at the same 150 ...
14
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 you of that whirring noise as the tread nobbles whiz through the air. I've had my rigid mountain bike up to 76 Km/h on slicks (but that was down hill).
About the ...
14
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 proportional because of the 2/3 power law. If you just scale up a rider by a factor in mass, the volume increases in proportion, but the frontal area scales up as the 2/...
14
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 or low speed, or how well it handles around turns or on a bumpy surface.)
Constant speed is achieved when power applied to the pedals is equal to the power lost ...
13
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 types of skeletal muscles: slow twitch (type 1), fast oxidative (type 2 a) and fast glycolytic (type 2 b). Your make up of the three types determined primarily by ...
13
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 total drag for a rider at constant speed on a flat surface with the given CdA (drag area) and Crr (coefficient of rolling resistance). There is no magic threshold ...
13
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 muscles are responsible for our locomotion and movements, cardiac and smooth muscles make up the other muscle types in our the body). The two main skeletal ...
13
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 found this out when I changed lanes into the slipstream of a bus while riding quite fast and found myself seriously gaining on it.
Entering the zone is quite ...
13
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 is, W/kg.
This article shows what cyclists of different levels can produce in terms of W/kg, how long they can maintain different levels of output, etc. There'...
12
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 the hill angle to the horizontal. F_d is the drag force which doesn't scale with mass. Try dropping a balloon and a (soccer) football of the same size and you'...
12
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 Mount Sainte Anne up to around 80km/h in Pietermaritzburg which is known for high speeds achieved. Of course all assuming good weather.
Also these speeds are ...
12
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 your anaerobic threshold. You don;t say how often or how far you ride.
First up - your cadence is way too low and you risk damaging you knees. Go for a series ...
11
This is to do with the different pull ratios employed by the different systems.
In your case 10 vs 11 speed Shimano.
http://blog.artscyclery.com/science-behind-the-magic/science-behind-the-magic-drivetrain-compatibility/
If you look at the table in the link - it says the 10 speed levers pull less than the 11 speed levers but the rear derailleur ratios are ...
11
If you're going to change anything before the big event, change it now and allow time for any problems to arise, then be sorted out before the event.
Generally, a 28mm tyre is said to give lower rolling resistance over a 25mm and has been tested, though using a 28mm at the same pressure as the 25mm could spoil some of the comfort advantages. The numbers ...
11
The mechanical factors which translate pedaling rate to overall speed are:
Gear ratio
Size of wheels
The weight of the rider is not relevant for this question.
The weight of the rider would be relevant if you were asking about the power needed to keep the bike going, especially up any kind of hill.
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible