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. The new bike feels extremely confident in my hands and I am craving a long hill to see how fast I'll go before braking. It's pretty flat in these parts, western NY. Once the temperature warms I'll be riding more country roads outside of the metro population to see how I handle 30+mph.

So anyways, how fast do you go before you begin to get nervous.?? How fast before you start squeezing the brake lever softly.?? The world wants to know.... Ha.!!

This makes me think of Gilbert going over the wall in the Tour De France last year. Geeeeezum....

ridingfool

will go as fast as my legs will permit. But I need to go down a hill at least once before attempting to go at full speed fastest I ever got a bike up to is 47 mph .as for 30 or even 35 if you ride ur road bike enough you will be able to reach those speeds on the flats no hills needed for those speeds just a stronger engine

HTupolev

I slow down if I feel like there's a reason to slow down, like high winds or an approaching corner.

Two days ago I did 51mph while drafting a recumbent downhill. The fastest I've ever recorded was about 57mph.

frogman

I can get up to about 35 and I could go faster but I chicken out and squeeze the brakes. I am afraid that the bike will start vibrating or something and go out of control.

daoswald

I've hit just over 50 a few times. It's pretty easy to hit coming down Little Cottonwood Canyon in Sandy, UT. On a straight and clean road it's not too frightening. On a winding road it takes nerves of steel. And it would be foolish on an uneven surface.

Witterings

My fastest was 35 which I'd done quite a few times but hit 45 mph on a charity ride twice last year for quite long stretches .... the speed didn't bother me and the bike felt stable but despite half decent hydraulic brakes they started to fade which was a little concerning especially as you started approaching some bends.

jeffpoulin

My fastest is 75.5 kmph (47 mph) down a hill. Limited by wind resistance and spinning out of my top gear.

wolfchild

Speed is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything, just because going fast or passing somebody else doesn't mean that you are a fitter and stronger rider...I don't care about speed. I stopped using bike computer many years ago and I don't keep track of speed or distance.

Jno

I have a short-ish but steep and straight section near home that I can top out at 75 km/hr (under 50 mph) so I became pretty confident at that speed. Then, riding in the mountains for the first time, I wasn’t as nervous as I should have been: I was going just above 80 km/hr when the guy with me got into a speed wobble and went down hard. Since then, I’ve decided not to let things go above 70 km/hr, and it turns out that it’s just as fun. I know it’d still suck to fall but if I do, at least I’ll be able to tell myself I wasn’t being a completely reckless idiot.

Koyote

When I lived in Colorado, I would regularly hit 60+ mph on a particular canyon descent. Once, during a race, my computer indicated 75 mph on a nearby descent.

Thinking back, that was probably foolhardy.

Witterings

Mt Cateye Padrone's told me I've done 63 mph on a ride you#re lucky to get over 20 mph on but I'll still claim the 63

Lemond1985

I think people who ride in the mountains should occasionally max out their bikes under controlled conditions, just to confirm everything is safe at high speeds. Because you could find yourself on an unfamiliar road needing to keep up with a group or keep up with traffic, and you don't want to find out about a speed wobble in that situation. Plus, many times it's safer to go fast, so you should have confidence that both the rider and the equipment are capable, should you unexpectedly find yourself in such a situation. It's a blast to hit 50+ occasionally, but I don't do it often.

For myself, above 45 mph is where things start getting sketchy. I don't know whether that's an inherent limitation of the diamond frame design, or whether it's because roads allowing these kind of speeds (8-10% grades and steeper) are not very common so I don't get a lot of practice. Maybe both.

L134 

Unless one finds it to be fun

CAT7RDR

After a few concussions I have no desire to tempt fate. I keep my max speed to under 40 mph and mostly 35 mph.

mcours2006

OP was asking at what speed do you start to get nervous, so yeah, it is relevant to the question he's asking.

The fast I've ever gone was going down a long gradual hill at 66 kph. Plenty scary.

daoswald

The implication is you are better than everyone else who does look at speed: more disciplined, possibly stronger, not caught UP in pointless pursuits. We should all stop being so silly and aspire to your enlightenment.

The fact is that your post misses the point that this thread was questioning the relative comfort people have with the risks inherent to higher speeds, where MPH is one quite useful metric for facilitating the discussion.

Since you've opted out of the ability to be aware of that data point we should not use it as a convenient point of reference in this discussion?

ironnerd

I agree. Deceleration, however, is a whole different issue.

It's not really an absolute MPH figure for me. It's based on the conditions. I would rather not pass a cop (again), but 50 mph on a downhill with some reasonable curves is actually a lot of fun - also a little frightening (those two together are what we call Exhilarating, right?).

Reading over this thread, it seems like the pucker factor kicks in at about the 50's (Except @Koyote who is some kind of speed freak. ), and I would agree. Once I hit the 50's I found myself wondering what the bike's designed Vmax was.

Nachoman

45 mph years ago.
Now I tap my brakes or sit up and catch some wind, and hover around 37 mph.

PickleRick

Yeah 40-45mph on roads I know well is my max. Even when I was young and reckless (stupid) that was still about my limit. ....and for whatever reason, I seem to be a wasp, hornet & bee magnet and they always hit me while I'm descending. I haven't been stung yet, but trying to flick a yellowjacket off your jersey at 40mph is, well, more adrenaline than I care for.

cyccommute 

75 mph is probably a computer error. Early computers were well known to occasional throw an error. I’ve been on mountain bike rides where my computer said that I had hit the mid 50s. There wasn’t any way that I had hit that speed on the terrain I was riding.

I have hit 52 on a single bike, 55 on a tandem, 40 to 45 on smooth roads on mountain bikes and 30 mph on rough ones. Before my work rejiggered the road at work, I could regularly hit 45 coming out of my work (it’s on a big hill). They put a stop sign on the best bit now and I can’t get much higher than 35.

I also did 45 on a rain soaked downhill off of New Found Gap in North Carolina on a loaded touring bike. The GPS on my phone says I hit 55 but I question that.

88Tempo

As a teen I hit 55+ holding onto the doorhandle of my friends car while riding a Letour. I did a lot of dumb stuff back then.

We used to chase and pass going cars down either side of one particular hill on or BMX bikes. It was a steep twisty 2 lane mountain road. I center punched a high school teacher in his Honda Civic one day. Concussion, memory loss and a broken wrist that required surgery.

The fastest I've gone since starting to ride again is 34+.

RGMN

I got pulled over for doing 55 in a 45 mph zone on a charity ride. The LEO said most of the riders hit 35-40 mph on that section and he was really surprised how fast I came down the hill. He let me go with a warning. My computer showed a peak speed of 53 mph, however.

Koyote

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyccommute

75 mph is probably a computer error.

It may have been an error, but I don’t think it was. That particular computer did glitch once in a while, when it would record a max speed of 99.9 on a ride...But it never (to my knowledge) gave an inaccurate reading other than 99.9. And the 75.7 mph reading came on a very steep descent on which I had pedaled hard (until I was spun out) over the top and then tucked low for max speed. (I was trying to catch a group that was about 30 meters ahead of me.)

At any rate, nowadays I would probably not be comfortable at any speed above 50 mph or so, and even then only on a bike which I know to be in good working order, with fresh tires and etc.

jeffpoulin

The fastest I've seen professional riders go in the Tour de France is 110 kmph (68 mph) down a long 12% grade in the Alps. They were riding on their top tubes to get more aero and, of course, were on aero bikes. 75.7 mph is 122 kmph. I find it hard to believe that you were going 10% faster than any professional rider can go. I'm going to have to go with Cyccommute on the computer error.

DrIsotope

I have no speed limit. I will go as fast as the hill and/or conditions will allow me. One of the hills near my house will get me north of 50mph if I hammer at it.

Local ountain descents are good for the upper-40s with no effort at all. Just holding on for the ride. On a ride with any hill longer than a few thousand feet long, 35-36mph on a daily basis.