Road Cycling · Public discussion

What's your average speed ????

Started by Chris Hughes · · Last activity · 39 posts · 4,658 views

Thread navigation

Jump through the discussion

Go to the original post, the replies on this page, or the latest preserved contribution.

Thread details

What we know about this thread

Original section
Road Cycling
Published
1 July 2003
Last activity
10 July 2003
Original author
Chris Hughes
Posts
39
Discussion status
Public discussion
Total views
4,658
Views / 30 days
0

The navigation and discussion metadata provide context. Posts remain in their original chronological order.

Showing posts 21–39 of 39
Posts remain in their original chronological order.

Text size
  1. [email hidden] (Tom Keats) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

    Quoted message said:

    I'm really getting tired of computers and numbers.

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked me
    up -- what's that in base 10?

    Warm Regards,

    Claire Petersky ([email hidden]) Home of the meditative cyclist:
    home.earthlink.netWelcome.htm Singing with you at: tiferet.nettiferet.net Books
    just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at: bookcrossing.comCpetersky

  2. Claire Petersky said:

    [email hidden] (Tom Keats) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

    Quoted message said:
    Quoted message said:

    I'm really getting tired of computers and numbers.

    Quoted message said:

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked
    me up -- what's that in base 10?

    5.5 miles, assuming no clipping of the display and it uses the most common binary representation of
    floating point numbers.

    No, don't mind me, I'll just grab my coat. It's the one with all the nifty digital watches on it. 🙂

    --
    Dane Jackson - z u v e m b i @ u n i x b i g o t s . o r g mathematician, n.: Some one who believes
    imaginary things appear right before your i's.

  3. Quoted message said:
    Claire Petersky said:

    [email hidden] (Tom Keats) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

    Quoted message said:
    Quoted message said:

    I'm really getting tired of computers and numbers.

    Quoted message said:

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked
    me up -- what's that in base 10?

    5.5 miles, assuming no clipping of the display and it uses the most common binary representation
    of floating point numbers.

    No, don't mind me, I'll just grab my coat. It's the one with all the nifty digital watches
    on it. 🙂

    Wouldn't it be 6.5? (Isn't "110" 6?)

    --
    Bob M in CT Remove 'x.' to reply

  4. Bob M from SBC url='http://yahoo.sbc.com/'http://yahoo.sbc.com/url said:
    Quoted message said:
    Claire Petersky said:

    [email hidden] (Tom Keats) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

    Quoted message said:

    > I'm really getting tired of computers and numbers.

    Quoted message said:

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked
    me up -- what's that in base 10?

    5.5 miles, assuming no clipping of the display and it uses the most common binary representation
    of floating point numbers.

    No, don't mind me, I'll just grab my coat. It's the one with all the nifty digital watches
    on it. 🙂

    Wouldn't it be 6.5? (Isn't "110" 6?)

    Never mind that, what do you call the "decimal" point?

    --
    home.sport.rr.comcuthulu human rights = peace I once decorated my apartment entirely in ten
    foot salad forks!!
    3:18:54 PM 2 July 2003

  5. Bob M said:

    On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 17:08:27 GMT, <[email hidden]> wrote:

    Quoted message said:
    Quoted message said:
    Claire Petersky said:

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked
    me up -- what's that in base 10?

    5.5 miles, assuming no clipping of the display and it uses the most common binary representation
    of floating point numbers.

    No, don't mind me, I'll just grab my coat. It's the one with all the nifty digital watches
    on it. 🙂

    Quoted message said:

    Wouldn't it be 6.5? (Isn't "110" 6?)

    Doh! You are correct sir.

    --
    Dane Jackson - z u v e m b i @ u n i x b i g o t s . o r g "A University without students is like an
    ointment without a fly." -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin

  6. In article <[email hidden]>, "Fabrizio Mazzoleni"

    Quoted message said:


    "Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

    Quoted message said:


    I'm really getting tired of computers and numbers.

    That's nice to hear Tom, but here's a little eye opener for you recreational rider types.

    Actually, my riding is more /practical/ than recreational.

    Anyhow, I forgot Bourne Shell arithmetic is restricted to integers, and my average speeds are
    mixed/rational. That's why 'expr' didn't like my syntax.

    I grep'd them out of my journal with something like: $ egrep "A: " | cut -d " " -f 2 >> speeds.txt
    to make a data file.

    Then I added them up using bc: $ a=0 $ for i in `cat speeds.txt`

    Quoted message said:

    do a=`echo "$a + $i" | bc` done

    Finally, I divided the result by the number of lines in the data file, obtained from: wc -l
    speeds.txt

    So my "average average" speed, derived from 1 1/2 years of journalizing, is 16 km/h. That ranges
    across a lot of short hops to the store, as well as some longer trips to North Delta and suchlike.

    The actual numbers were 9701.0 / 591

    for a 10 to 20 km out-&-back, I generally average about 18 - 20 km/h.

    This morning, I averaged 16.3 coming home from Pauline's (a 5 km trip). But I was hauling a load of
    glass cookware I'd left there over the months.

    cheers, Tom

    --
    -- Powered by FreeBSD Above address is just a spam midden. I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn
    [point] bc [point] ca

  7. Speed at the moment slow (not riding) as I'm injured, see recovering from radial head fracture. However, when I'm riding usually something between 30 and 50 km imperially 20 - 30 mph, at the time of the big off I was travelling at about 25 mph.

    Ian 😎

  8. In article <[email hidden]>,

    (Claire Petersky) said:

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked
    me up -- what's that in base 10?

    110.10 :-)

    Actually, as a binary number, that is denary 6.5 as has been pointed-out.

    The binary repesentation of denary 110 is 01101110 In hex it's 6E octal: 156

    There's a way of converting the denary rational component to another base by either multiplying or
    dividing (I forget which) by the desired radix, and listing either the whole or the rational
    components (I forget which) of the results.

    Please, oh please, don't make me relearn it. <g> 'cause that would just lead me to having to review
    about arbitrary-precision arithmetic.

    I like math, but arithmetic is boring. (That's why we have computers.)

    cheers, Tom

    --
    -- Powered by FreeBSD Above address is just a spam midden. I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn
    [point] bc [point] ca

  9. In article <[email hidden]>, Kevan Smith

    /\/\ said:

    Never mind that, what do you call the "decimal" point?

    The dot.

    cheers, Tom

    --
    -- Powered by FreeBSD Above address is just a spam midden. I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn
    [point] bc [point] ca

  10. In article ux3Ma.30158$ZE.17775@lakeread05 said:

    I been wondering what other riders are averging on thier daily rides. I'm a 50 year old rider who
    usually does about 25 miles when I ride. I don't race now, so you could not say I'm training but I
    do try to maitain a fairly good average speed for the ride. This of course depends on lights, stop
    signs and traffic. I also ride alone. For the 25 miles I usually do about 17.6 mph. Of course when
    it's windy that drops off and my best for the distance was 19.1. What are you people doing.

    Through the streets of Chicago I am averaging low 15s on my best days. This is weird to me because I
    usually stay above 17 mph on my 25 miles round-trip commute, but I don't argue with the computer.
    I'm on a hybrid Fisher with brand new tires, moderately inflated. I'd LOVE to see what I can do on a
    road bike.

  11. Tom Keats said:

    In article <[email hidden]>,
    [email hidden] (Claire Petersky) writes:

    Quoted message said:
    Quoted message said:

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked
    me up -- what's that in base 10?

    Quoted message said:

    110.10 :-)

    Quoted message said:

    Actually, as a binary number, that is denary 6.5 as has been pointed-out.

    Quoted message said:

    The binary repesentation of denary 110 is 01101110 In hex it's 6E octal: 156

    Quoted message said:

    There's a way of converting the denary rational component to another base by either multiplying or
    dividing (I forget which) by the desired radix, and listing either the whole or the rational
    components (I forget which) of the results.

    Quoted message said:

    Please, oh please, don't make me relearn it. <g> 'cause that would just lead me to having to
    review about arbitrary-precision arithmetic.

    I started to write a long explanatory post to Kevan about it, but then realized I would have to pull
    out my digital logic text. I said "hmmmm", canceled my post and picked up the Honor Harrington novel
    I'm reading. [1]

    [1] Field of Dishonor. [2]
    [2] A cracking good read. [3]
    [3] Damn scary devil monastery monks, that's another set of books they made me buy. [4]
    [4] I'd say I'm running out of bookshelf space, except I passed that point a while ago.

    --
    Dane Jackson - z u v e m b i @ u n i x b i g o t s . o r g The reason that every major university
    maintains a department of mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those people.

  12. "Donny Harder Jr." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
    "]news:[email hidden]...

    Quoted message said:

    In article <ux3Ma.30158$ZE.17775@lakeread05>,

    Quoted message said:

    but I don't argue with the computer.

    Good, Don, good. When did you acheive this breakthrough?

    ;-)

    --
    Robin Hubert <[email hidden]

  13. Quoted message said:

    said "hmmmm", canceled my post and picked up the Honor Harrington novel I'm reading. [1]

    [1] Field of Dishonor. [2]
    [3] Damn scary devil monastery monks, that's another set of books they made me buy. [4]

    Never seen any monks trying to push HH enough to qualify as "made you". Besides, the latest HH book
    comes with a CDROM including electronic versions of all the previous ones, unless I'm
    misremembering, so virtually no shelf space.

    Jasper

  14. In article <[email hidden]>, "Robin Hubert"

    Quoted message said:
    Quoted message said:

    but I don't argue with the computer.

    Good, Don, good. When did you acheive this breakthrough?

    It's too small and doesn't break easily. I've tried to drown it in the washing machine three times
    and it still keeps on ticking. If it's that resolute in its existence, how can I argue? 🙂

  15. Fabrizio Mazzoleni said:


    "Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

    Quoted message said:


    I'm really getting tired of computers and numbers.

    That's nice to hear Tom, but here's a little eye opener for you recreational rider types.

    On July 21 guys like me will be doing stage 15 Bagneres-De- Bigorre to Luz-Ardiden with an average
    speed of between 31 - 35 kph. Now this is a short stage of only 159km but we climb the Col d'
    Aspin, Tourmalet, and Luz Ardiden, that's 43km of climbing that day.

    Now take a flat stage like stage 18 Bordeaux to St. Maixent-L'Ecole. On this day we are expected
    to ride this out at a pace of between 39 - 43 kph!

    Just to show you the vast difference between the ablities of someone like you guys and pros
    like me.

    YAWN, zzzzzzz...

    Tom Sherman - Quad Cities USA (Illinois side)

  16. "Tom Sherman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message ...

    Quoted message said:


    Quoted message said:

    YAWN, zzzzzzz...



    Tom if you don't have anything to say, then shutup or go play on your bent.

  17. "Fabrizio Mazzoleni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
    news:<[email hidden]>...

    Quoted message said:

    "Tom Sherman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message ...

    Quoted message said:


    Quoted message said:

    YAWN, zzzzzzz...



    Tom if you don't have anything to say, then shutup or go play on your bent.

    Jeez, Fab I'm _really_ in awe of your "abilities". Were you perhaps dropped on your head when you
    were a baby? I'm sure glad I have more career options than you do. Get a life.

  18. In article <[email hidden]>,

    (Claire Petersky) said:

    I got a very digital read-out yesterday on my way to work: 110.10 miles on the odometer. Cracked
    me up -- what's that in base 10?

    Hey Claire, If you are amused by readouts on the odometer, you may be interested in this thing I
    wrote several years ago....(The last bit gives a clue when it was written)

    Quoted message said:


    First of all, on my computer, there is a single digit after the decimal point for the trip meter.
    (its a Veta). This is small, and I ignore it while reading the numbers. (eg I read 121.5 as 1215).
    I don't play any games until it reaches 1000 ( a hundred km). Then I start looking for numerical
    patterns, such as 1234, 1357, 2468, 1111, etc. I also look for palindromes 1221, 1331, as dyslexic
    palindromes such as 1212.

    Of course, finding powers of 2 are fun, because I then try to imagine the internal binary
    representation of all zero or all ones. (OK, so they might work in decimal... Please don't destroy
    my fantasy)

    I also like finding perfect squares.

    As numbers get higher, I imagine them to be years, and look for years of great signifigance (such
    as the year of my birth). Had I paid more attention in History, I could be starting this much
    sooner than I do.

    Let me tell you my favorite game by far. Still imagining them to be years, I like watching the
    numbers reach 1998, 1999, then as it hits 2000, I scream, "Yeah, my cycle comuter is Y2K
    complient!"

    --
    --
    LITTLE KNOWN FACT: Did you know that 90% of North Americans cannot taste the difference between
    fried dog and fried cat?

  19. Chris Hughes said:

    I been wondering what other riders are averging on thier daily rides. I'm a 50 year old rider who
    usually does about 25 miles when I ride. I don't race now, so you could not say I'm training but I
    do try to maitain a fairly good average speed for the ride. This of course depends on lights, stop
    signs and traffic. I also ride alone. For the 25 miles I usually do about 17.6 mph. Of course when
    it's windy that drops off and my best for the distance was 19.1. What are you people doing.

    This is an interesting question. Some people get downright obsessive about their average
    speed readouts.

    Many factors come into play. If you're riding in a paceline, your average will be a couple of mph
    faster for the same effort than if you're riding alone. If you walk your bike any distance (e.g., at
    a lunch stop) your average will drop.

    And there are tricks for increasing your average without actually getting stronger. You can go full
    speed up to a red light and then brake hard, rather than coasting up. You can "cheat" at stop signs.
    You can push the envelope on descents, curves, and dicey road conditions. You can even remove the
    computer when walking the bike. In my opinion, people sometimes take unnecessary risks just to
    increase their average speed by a fraction of a mph.

    Bike computers can be helpful in measuring long-term progress. But try not to become a slave to the
    darn things, and take the numbers with a grain of salt!

    Art Harris

Active in the last 60 minutes

Active in this thread

0 users · 0 guests ·0 bots ·0 total

No signed-in users are active right now.

No known search crawlers active right now.