dcrowell

Sure, top speed is usually related to the hills nearby. If I had stayed in Michigan 10 years ago, my top speed would have probably stayed in the 30s.

Thanks for bringing some sense, and killing all the fun.

Jeff Wills

I've seen 55+ on my recumbent, but that's kind of irrelevant since it's been 10 years since I had a cyclometer on a bike. I back off once my cheeks start going whuppa-whuppa-whuppa.

The downhill guys are kind of cool, but Sam Whittingham is a legend in my mind. 82.8 mph on the flat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Whittingham
The year previous he was 1/2 mph slower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMUNOLwW0io

fishymamba

Actually according to my old $8 computer I have hit 256mph.

Brian T.

about 46 mph or so....

https://youtu.be/feBypRP06UA

sorry about the poor quality, small camera on aero bars

contango 

That's me trumped then. According to my GPS I hit 243mph although in fairness that was for a split second after I emerged from a long tunnel.

sathor

Part way down I thought that looked slightly familiar and then I realized where you're from. I lived in WC for a while, and my wife is from Deer Park. That looks like a fun hill to try. Going down, not up.

dahut

33-35.
Wind in your hair, hunker down aero position, hope the wheels stay on, FUN!!

Ranger Dan

My fastest so far this year was 46.8 mph on my road bike. My fastest ever was years ago on a loaded touring bike in the Rockies, when I passed a couple of cars on a long downhill where the speed limit was 55. I didn't have a speedometer back then, but I'd guess I was doing around 60 mph. I would never do that again, but at the time I was a lot younger and had just retired from ski racing. I had done 80 mph on skis, so 60 on a bike didn't seem all that fast to me at the time (shakes head, rolls eyes).

donhaller 

53 MPH down one of the long descents during "America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride" around Lake Tahoe. Could have gone faster if I had the nads! At those speeds, just a little sand can make for a really bad day.

dynodonn 

I will deliberately keep my maximum speed to 30 mph.

freighttraininguphill

On a folding bike: 38.4 mph down a long straight part of the Geiger Grade descent in Reno, NV last Sunday.

https://connect.garmin.com/activity/98313244

On a road bike: 50 mph down Beatty Drive in El Dorado Hills, CA. 3/4 mile long hill, max grade of 16%.

https://connect.garmin.com/activity/69379436

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNQ6Jk6aNic

c3hamby

freighttraining-Great video! The t intersection was a fun dramatic effect at the end. Made me wish I had cycling brakes at my desk.

43 mph is my top speed. On a 20 year old Centurion Sport DLX, Continental Ultras, stock wheels and spokes, otherwise in very good shape. No wheel vibration. I would not do that again on that bike until I get newer wheels. It keeps breaking spokes. I could have gone faster, estimated 50 mph, I had a lot of downhill left to go. The crankset has now has a 52 big ring. The old crankset was a 48 biopace.

38 seems to be as fast as I can get on my LHT with TServs. But I haven't yet gone down that same hill with the LHT.

C_Heath

47.1

Tony Marley

58.7 mph - twice, on different bikes. Both times in the Colorado Rockies on smoothly paved roads. Once on a Santana Tandem near Ridgeway with my daughter, Leah. And once on my Ti-Rush recumbent coming down Slugmullion Pass. Hoping to hit 60 mph, but not enough gravity....

DX-MAN

1974, church youth group bike tour. The bike: loaner Schwinn 10-speed with mechanical speedometer.

Day 2: leaving Brown County State Park in the morning, I was off the front of the group; the roads in the park were smooth, undulating through the woods. I rolled in blessedly cool temps, and observed wonderingly at, in the woods to my right, a deer bounding along, pacing me for a few seconds. I looked down at the speedo, it said 30mph. When I looked back up, the deer veered off into deeper woods.

Moments later, I came to the park entrance/exit, a long downhill chute that emptied onto a state highway. Since I was already at or near 30, I wanted to see what the bike would do. In the drops, as near an aero-tuck as my amateur self could manage, and eye-blurring wind in my face as the speed increased. I blinked it away near the bottom, just enough to make out the needle on the speedo hovering just above the mark that equaled 55 on the 60-max face.

That was the day I declared in my mind that I was, in fact, a BIKE RIDER (nobody said 'cyclist' around me in the 70's...)!!

The two years that followed that great day were among the best of my life, but those are other tales...........

CNY James

I hit about 42 last weekend on my Felt... The computer indicated 41.6 or something like that. fastest I've gone on that bike, and maybe on any bike.

The only scary part about it was how smooth & stable the bike felt. My last bike scared the dog**** out of me at 31... I felt like I could have made use of a steeper hill & gone much faster. (my goal was to hit top speed on that descent but I didn't seek out a hill to test speeds on, it just happened to be along my ride)

dcrowell

You almost hit 40 on the Dahon?

I like my Dahon, but it's not a stable bike. I don't like going 28mph on it. You are one brave woman.

freighttraininguphill

Yup. The trick is to lower the bars as far as they will go. Helps climbing too.

ChristopherMast

Road bike. 44mph on the big hill (Papa Bear) on Bear Creek Road by the Briones Reservoir in California (we call the ride "Three Bears"). I was right on my wife's rear wheel... scary and thrilling at the same time, mainly due to my drafting behind her. I've done it nearly that fast solo and it's not as scary 'cause the road is super-wide and really smooth with banked curves and little traffic.

Scariest was a descent on Redwood Road in Oakland from Skyline Blvd. 40mph on less wide road with cross streets and traffic, once again right on wife's rear wheel. She's too gutsy for her own good

Chris L

84km/h on a 22% descent with a 30km/h right turn bend at the bottom of it. Suffice to say, I don't plan on repeating it any time soon. I actually prefer riding *up* that hill.

caloso

54 mph on the Brockway Grade on the North Shore of Tahoe. Really wanted the speed limit but couldn't get there.

FTU: I've hit 50 on Beatty too. If it was a half mile longer, I bet you could get 60.

zmensing

I didn't have a computer or anything, but I can totally believe the 44 mph on the downhill of Papa Bear. A friend and I did that the weekend before last and that downhill is a blast!

freighttraininguphill

Thank you. You just reminded me of another mountain I need to climb. I drove down Brockway last year after my sufferfest of a climb up the 13.7 mile side of Mt. Rose, and there was a hellacious downpour and thunderstorm that a few climbing cyclists got caught in. I was thankful to be in a rental car with the bike inside, because if I had driven my truck up there with the bike in the bed I know I would have forgotten to take my Garmin off the handlebars before leaving. The rain would have probably ruined it.

60! Now that would be a video! The Beatty descent video is already one of my most popular ones with its measly 50.

The Chemist

58km/h, coming off a bridge over the Huangpu River here in Shanghai. Bridges are built really high over the river here to allow the passage of ships under them, and given Shanghai's almost entirely flat terrain, it's very difficult to find any other place to go fast rather than off of bridges.

Not only that, but most bikes are not allowed on most bridges in Shanghai, and anywhere there is a hill where bikes are allowed, the traffic is too heavy to safely go fast. The bridge I was coming off is pretty much the only river bridge in the city that bikes are allowed on, and as it's extremely far out in the suburbs traffic is very light - so it's the perfect place to pick up a bit of speed.

NixNuxSr

About 40 on a road bike on a long downhill. it was fun so long as I didn't think about the possible consequences. and it turned out ok.