Ok so I am not one of those extremely careful cyclists... I am not always using a helmet, since they are not required by law here anyway and they do feel a bit annoying, or hi-viz, or mirrors, or a shotgun for stray dogs etc...
Yesterday whilst I was cycling in my corrupted sub-tropical paradise on the way back of a 40km ride I had the most fantastic tail wind. I could easily keep a speed of 50km/h for the whole way back.
But.. not only I was in a high speed road with lots and lots of cars (the only road to go to this place I wanted), for some reason there are alot of Strava segments on that road too, but there were particles of cars thrown all over the road. Broken pieces of glass, loose gravel from parts to parts, and too many pot holes. So I was going slower then I could.
What speed do you think is "fast enough" for road cycling? I was once doing about 50+km/h on a good road and didn't feel scary at all, but yesterday even at 30km/h I got past a few parts where I thought afterwards that "if that was a bigger pot hole I could maybe lose my balance", since many of the potholes I was discovering at the last second prior to going past them.
Not only the potholes but another thing that annoys me lately. High speed trucks. Trucks are not exactly very aerodynamic and they produce a whole "black hole vortex" around them when they go past you. Some buses too. I get the feeling some times that trucks that go by kinda "suck" the bike towards their mass and then "push" it away. This yesterday almost made me to deliberately go out of the road at an emergency brake since I could not keep a straight line on the bike. If going faster I could also crash. Also on another occasion, a truck went past me, I tried to get away from it slightly moving to the right, but then I got marginally into the bus lane. If there was a bus there at that time things could get very scary...
Do you think that its worth it to cycle longer distances in such conditions? I cant go fast, its dangerous and its not fun at all to be honest. Its practically scary! Do you think it be better to switch to a trainer for fitness or something and just use... oh well... public transportation to go a place I like instead of the bike?
Thanks. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif
Yesterday whilst I was cycling in my corrupted sub-tropical paradise on the way back of a 40km ride I had the most fantastic tail wind. I could easily keep a speed of 50km/h for the whole way back.
But.. not only I was in a high speed road with lots and lots of cars (the only road to go to this place I wanted), for some reason there are alot of Strava segments on that road too, but there were particles of cars thrown all over the road. Broken pieces of glass, loose gravel from parts to parts, and too many pot holes. So I was going slower then I could.
What speed do you think is "fast enough" for road cycling? I was once doing about 50+km/h on a good road and didn't feel scary at all, but yesterday even at 30km/h I got past a few parts where I thought afterwards that "if that was a bigger pot hole I could maybe lose my balance", since many of the potholes I was discovering at the last second prior to going past them.
Not only the potholes but another thing that annoys me lately. High speed trucks. Trucks are not exactly very aerodynamic and they produce a whole "black hole vortex" around them when they go past you. Some buses too. I get the feeling some times that trucks that go by kinda "suck" the bike towards their mass and then "push" it away. This yesterday almost made me to deliberately go out of the road at an emergency brake since I could not keep a straight line on the bike. If going faster I could also crash. Also on another occasion, a truck went past me, I tried to get away from it slightly moving to the right, but then I got marginally into the bus lane. If there was a bus there at that time things could get very scary...
Do you think that its worth it to cycle longer distances in such conditions? I cant go fast, its dangerous and its not fun at all to be honest. Its practically scary! Do you think it be better to switch to a trainer for fitness or something and just use... oh well... public transportation to go a place I like instead of the bike?
Thanks. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif