I'm not sure why
smd4 is giving
beng1 such a hard time here except for the fact that the latter obviously has some unusual tastes - which is totally fine by me - but there's certainly no reason not to believe that he can "blow by" riders on nice modern road bicycles simply because he rides around on a heavy old thing. I ride this Creme Uno out for 20-40 miles at a time with a high gear ratio on the Shimano Nexus 3-speed of 1.36 over the 44/23 cogs, which is a pretty high gear in any case... I ride a lot on my other road bicycles and regularly exceed 20mph average for such rides, but I can still maintain 15mph on this heavy, upright thing with such a high gear for miles on end. I have never been passed by anyone on a proper road bicycle during such times though I've passed several.
Not everyone is hauling or even capable of doing so just because they own a new road bike with proper gearing. Most of the guys I pass probably can't run 8-10 miles at a sub-8 minute pace either, but I can. Comes way more down to fitness level than the bicycle.
-Gregory
