Originally Posted by
BirdsBikeBinocs
Title poses a question I've been thinking about lately. Last Fall I rode my Schwinn hybrid down a fairly steep hill on a well maintained road. At 29mph I started to give the bike a little brake. In otherwords, I didn't feel safe going over 29mph on that bike.
I have a new road bike and I've topped it off at like 24mph once. I wanted more but the grade didn't allow it.
24 MPH should be easy enough to hit on the level. No hills needed.
I can pretty easily punch it up to 25 MPH, and have averaged > 25 MPH on the level for about a mile or so. I am a bit of a slow rider, but I'm working on getting faster.
I can also hit 30 MPH (or slightly higher) on the level, but that takes more work, and I can't keep it up as long.
Despite all the mantra that it is the rider, not the bike, that is only half true. Hit that range 25 to 30 MPH, and the bike makes a big difference. If I can hit 30 on the road bike, I'm stuck at about 25 on the cross bike, if that fast.
My downhill goal is to hit 55 or 56 MPH.
So far my max is 54.1 MPH pushing pretty hard on a descent. And, that is right on the edge of an urban area. I need to hunt for a better descent challenge spot.