661

I take it conventional brakes are not very effective in a death wobble. Seems like disc brakes would allow one to recover. Yes?

nitropowered

51. its a blast. My bike just sticks to the road.

ravenmore

I get in the 40's a lot. Before I had a computer though I had a different cassette that was geared more for flats (my new one's geared for climbing - which I need here in Austin. Less top end speed though). I've always felt like my old cassette probably gave me another 10mph at least over the current one.

CdCf

I haven't been able to get above 50 km/h (30 mph).
Really tame hills around here...

biker7

Colorado got it...not meters per second, but meters per second squared, which is acceleration due to gravity in a free fall and not speed.
George

Jakey

51. Down what some riders call the hill of death. Not sure the grade, but its probably about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile long with a elevation gain of 600 ft. This year I'm hoping to beat that on either of the two big organized rides with alot of climbing.. Summit to Surf which there is a SWEET decent from the top of Mt. Hood, and the Torture 10k. (10,000ft of climbing in 100 miles... I figure there has to be some downhill! )


My buddy hit 67 on a tandem!!!

rogue9607

I'm impressed! You fell nearly 100 ft straight down on a bike (with no air resistance) and are still riding!

my58vw

That is why I rode about 5 yards from the rest of the riders. It is an experience seeing someone zip by you at 50+ MPH. No traffic so it was fine...

TheKillerPenguin

If you're going about the same speed as them, aren't they zipping past you at at most 5mph

off to class...

kedar

My top speed was 38 mph. No wobble. 9% grade long hill.
The top of my left knee was on my TT to dampen low freq beats and rest of me tucked in ready to feather the brake. I was scared, yet elated.

Doc : 9.8 m/sec-sq is a great post. Fun to go airborne.
FYI, terminal velocity, for a *very* long fall, is closer to 120 mph, but you have to free-fall for at least 1/4 a mile to get anything near it. Your cycle clothing has low wind resistance, so you might actually hit that - but you will not return to post anything anywhere afterwards

recursive

40mph for me, but I'm going to have to try that Blue Mounds descent.

Chops83

there's a steep hill on my route in kentucky where I have hit 60mph before, no wobble, just scary fast.

Fat Boy Biker

And this would be called what, INSANITY?

Steve
-I know my limits

meme

The fastest I've gone downhill was ~55mph (going down the Marin Headlands). I was still accelerating, but it was getting scarry, so had to brake. My fastest on that same (MTB) is 34mph on the flats (zero relative wind). That was many years ago when I was in shape. I wasn't even able to reach that speed on my current road bike until recently. Actually I finally beat that 34mph on the flats just a few weeks ago-->I reached 37mph (only a couple of blocks distance). Even with zero relative wind, it was a crazy amount of air resistance at that speed. My fastest going down hill with the road bike is ~45mph (I'm still breaking-in the bearings on my new wheels). I'm now wondering if I can sprint up to 40mph on the flats when they're broken in. I wonder how some racers can still sprint up to these speeds after a 100+ mile race...

Avalanche325

My fastest was 52.5 downhill. I regularly hit 42 - 43 on the hills around here. 46mph on my MTB.

Now for the scarey one. My Saturday group ride (120+ riders), and Tue / Thur Rose Bowl rides regularly hit 38mph. That is with the whole group packed up. I actually intentionally dropped last Tue. because it got too wild and there were a couple close calls. We had a full on group panic stop from 36 mph! It is a weird sensation. Since you are going so fast and everyone is slowing down together. Relative speed to other riders is not changing. So it feels like you are not stopping!

JungleCat

I've hit 41 mph on a bike but on a snowboard, which has the cushion of falling on snow, I don't think I'm anywhere near comfortable with that speed yet.

ckleps

isn't that acceleration and not velocity?


edit: ah well looks like several people beat me to it

ckleps

hopefully he was in the rear so he had that nice cushiony object in front of him.

mrballistic

isn't that 9.8 m/s squared?

edit - looks like i'm a bit too slow on the trigger

jakemoffatt

That's only 21.9219756 miles per hour. I can beat that on the flats!

If you were referring to the acceleration due to gravity - thats 9.8m/s^2.

Another interesting point - parachutists in freefall can accelerate to 180mph straight down where they reach terminal velocity. A biker would have a much lower terminal velocity because of the bad aerodynamics of a bike and rider falling straight down.

The fastest "somewhat bicyclish" landspeed was set in a recumbent bicycle with a monocoque shell at a speed of 80mph +/- 2mph.

The fastest I've ever gone is 31.8mph on the flats. I have small (TEENY TINY) hills nearby but I've never gone faster than 31.8 on them.

ProParadox

I sprinted to 44 mph on a flat on sunday. Ah.... the 35mph+ winds of illinois.


Headwind was a ***** on the way out though.

socalrider

I have hit over 50+ - Towne Pass - Death Valley..

Funny thing about speed, is that at 30 your brain says this is fun, at 40 - Man I'm going fast - at 50 your brain sends you those horrible messages like " if a rabbit runs in front of you, you're going to the hospital"

LordOpie

Ah, but you had to climb to get the downhill. How was the climb?

jeff800

On the tandem we grunt going uphill but going down we are fast hit 62mph once, it's fun until you start to think about crashing at that speed.

mrballistic

no - trust. quite a bit of trust