Max speed

[TimC]

For anyone wondering, the max speed you can reach down a hill is
unrelated to what cassette you have on.

I inadvertantly replaced a 12-26 with a 13-26 (I could have sworn the
original had 13T written on it, but it's not like I had a choice given
I was mail ordering and the supplier didn't do anything else, 8-speed
wise). But it turns out you can do 87.45km/h on an Giant '05 OCR3
(2km/h faster than previously on that hill, and 5km/h faster than any
time I have actually bothered to record it in my logfile). I refuse
to confirm or deny whether I had a slightly hairy moment at the
bottom, wondering whether I could completely negotiate the slight
curve with the added nervousness of a truck coming up the other way.
No speed wobbles though -- for a cheap aluminium frame, I guess that's
something.

Considering I only ever got to 86km/h once, drafting Gags down the
warrandyte descent, I guess I can look favourably upon today's slight
wind.

Still missed my PB average by about 20 seconds. And today was with
the bus on my tail for a km or so through some twisty passages --
added some incentive to crack an average of 60km/h through that
section.

I also refuse to confirm nor deny whether I got to my front lawn,
struggled off the bike, poured the tap over me, and sat down on the
gutter for 5 minutes. Seems kinda pointless to save a few minutes on
the commute, then blow it all away by sitting on the gutter, but it
was fun

--
TimC
I am very new to programming drivers so if I sound un-knowledgeable then it's
because I am. -- first4internet's Ceri Coburn on writing Sony's DRM rootkit

 

[ray]

TimC wrote:
> For anyone wondering, the max speed you can reach down a hill is
> unrelated to wha <snip for space reasons>
I would have thought max speed would have been an equation of rolling
resistance, wind resistance, gradient and friction. Perhaps a few other
things as well.
Assuming my computers were correct, I've reached 85 k/mh on three
separate occasions, once on a single bike, west coast Tassie, and twice
on a tandem, different locations Vic.
I found all three downright scary. Almost blind from wind tears, one
rock, pothole or twitch at that speed and you're dead. It's definitely a
hoot, but not one I seek out.
Cheers,
Ray

 

[Dave Hughes]

TimC wrote:

> For anyone wondering, the max speed you can reach down a hill is
> unrelated to what cassette you have on.

Provided you're not spun out before you hit the hill (ie, running way
too large a cluster). Also depends on the hill. If you really want to go
fast, accidentally leave the brakes in the "remove wheel" position,
which on a roadie still kind of works when you test squeeze and you're
used to the feel of a disconnected MTB brake. That was a brown trousers
moment at 60+...

> I also refuse to confirm nor deny whether I got to my front lawn,
> struggled off the bike, poured the tap over me, and sat down on the
> gutter for 5 minutes. Seems kinda pointless to save a few minutes on
> the commute, then blow it all away by sitting on the gutter, but it
> was fun

So there was a point. I'm hoping for a Garmin 305 from Santa so I can do
that kind of thing more often, though on my old commute I knew all the
checkpoints. 30 minutes to the National Park was a good run...


--
Dave Hughes - [email protected]
And you don't think the government lets you buy _real_ tinfoil do you?
-- D.C. Ross, the Monastery.

 

[Gags]

"TimC" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> For anyone wondering, the max speed you can reach down a hill is
> unrelated to what cassette you have on.
>
> I inadvertantly replaced a 12-26 with a 13-26 (I could have sworn the
> original had 13T written on it, but it's not like I had a choice given
> I was mail ordering and the supplier didn't do anything else, 8-speed
> wise). But it turns out you can do 87.45km/h on an Giant '05 OCR3
> (2km/h faster than previously on that hill, and 5km/h faster than any
> time I have actually bothered to record it in my logfile). I refuse
> to confirm or deny whether I had a slightly hairy moment at the
> bottom, wondering whether I could completely negotiate the slight
> curve with the added nervousness of a truck coming up the other way.
> No speed wobbles though -- for a cheap aluminium frame, I guess that's
> something.
>
> Considering I only ever got to 86km/h once, drafting Gags down the
> warrandyte descent, I guess I can look favourably upon today's slight
> wind.
>

Yesterday on my solo BR effort I decided to coast down the Warrandyte hill
and see what speed I could hit. I put my hands in either side of the head
stem, tucked my elbows in to either side of my knees (which I put in against
the top tube), arched my back and basically went "head down, bum up". I was
only doing about 30km/h or so as I rounded the bend at the top and I glud
from there. Didn't look at the speedo until after I had slowed down to
about 55km/h or so on the flat at the bottom and I discovered that I had hit
87km/h - not bad considering there was stuff all wind around.

From memory, I think the fastest I ever hit down that hill was 94km/h and
that was coming off of Blah's wheel when he was drafting Flying
Dutch.........it's certainly pretty exciting to get within a foot or so of
someone else's wheel at that speed!!!!

Gags

 

[TimC]

On 2007-12-10, ray (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> TimC wrote:
>> For anyone wondering, the max speed you can reach down a hill is
>> unrelated to wha <snip for space reasons>
> I would have thought max speed would have been an equation of rolling
> resistance, wind resistance, gradient and friction. Perhaps a few other
> things as well.

Having a slight tailwind behind you...

Oh, and that precarious crouch hanging onto the bars right next to the
stem.

> Assuming my computers were correct, I've reached 85 k/mh on three
> separate occasions, once on a single bike, west coast Tassie, and twice
> on a tandem, different locations Vic.
> I found all three downright scary. Almost blind from wind tears, one
> rock, pothole or twitch at that speed and you're dead. It's definitely a
> hoot, but not one I seek out.

Or 'roos in my case. I had sunnies on today, which saved the eyes.
The top part of the descent is hideous with potholes, but I'm doing
more like 60km/h through them.

This is my commute home, so I'll probably come a cropper one day, just
from the statistics (let alone my irresponsibility when on 2 wheels .
But I'll enjoy it up til then. Mind you, I have only ridden 7 hours
in the past almost 3 months according to my logs. That's the solution
to not hitting a roo - ride less. Damn it. Rarrgh, it's a pain
having cycling compete so much for limited time. At least I don't
drive to work

--
TimC
Using top down development, you never have any working code. Using bottom
up development, you never solve the problem. -- John Kelly in debian-user

 

[blah]

On Dec 10, 12:24 pm, "Gags" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "TimC" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
>
>
> > For anyone wondering, the max speed you can reach down a hill is
> > unrelated to what cassette you have on.
>
> > I inadvertantly replaced a 12-26 with a 13-26 (I could have sworn the
> > original had 13T written on it, but it's not like I had a choice given
> > I was mail ordering and the supplier didn't do anything else, 8-speed
> > wise). But it turns out you can do 87.45km/h on an Giant '05 OCR3
> > (2km/h faster than previously on that hill, and 5km/h faster than any
> > time I have actually bothered to record it in my logfile). I refuse
> > to confirm or deny whether I had a slightly hairy moment at the
> > bottom, wondering whether I could completely negotiate the slight
> > curve with the added nervousness of a truck coming up the other way.
> > No speed wobbles though -- for a cheap aluminium frame, I guess that's
> > something.
>
> > Considering I only ever got to 86km/h once, drafting Gags down the
> > warrandyte descent, I guess I can look favourably upon today's slight
> > wind.
>
> Yesterday on my solo BR effort I decided to coast down the Warrandyte hill
> and see what speed I could hit. I put my hands in either side of the head
> stem, tucked my elbows in to either side of my knees (which I put in against
> the top tube), arched my back and basically went "head down, bum up". I was
> only doing about 30km/h or so as I rounded the bend at the top and I glud
> from there. Didn't look at the speedo until after I had slowed down to
> about 55km/h or so on the flat at the bottom and I discovered that I had hit
> 87km/h - not bad considering there was stuff all wind around.
>
> From memory, I think the fastest I ever hit down that hill was 94km/h and
> that was coming off of Blah's wheel when he was drafting Flying
> Dutch.........it's certainly pretty exciting to get within a foot or so of
> someone else's wheel at that speed!!!!
>
> Gags

I remember that one - good times...
I did 92.7 unassisted and 99 drafting a friendly tradie (they DO
exist) down that hill. You know, there are no hills here in Qatar. I
miss my bike...

 

[TimC]

On 2007-12-10, Gags (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> From memory, I think the fastest I ever hit down that hill was 94km/h and
> that was coming off of Blah's wheel when he was drafting Flying
> Dutch.........it's certainly pretty exciting to get within a foot or so of
> someone else's wheel at that speed!!!!

For brown knicks versions of "exciting"

--
TimC
The gedanken experiment failed. I couldn't reproduce the results -- TimC

 

[PeteSig]

"Gags" wrote:

> Yesterday on my solo BR effort I decided to coast down the Warrandyte hill

<snip>

> From memory, I think the fastest I ever hit down that hill was 94km/h and
> that was coming off of Blah's wheel when he was drafting Flying

Exactly which 'Warrandyte hill' is this :0

I know most of them, and this sounds something Xtr33m!!

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

 

[Gags]

"PeteSig" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Gags" wrote:
>
>> Yesterday on my solo BR effort I decided to coast down the Warrandyte
>> hill
>
> <snip>
>
>> From memory, I think the fastest I ever hit down that hill was 94km/h and
>> that was coming off of Blah's wheel when he was drafting Flying
>
> Exactly which 'Warrandyte hill' is this :0
>
> I know most of them, and this sounds something Xtr33m!!
>

I am pretty sure that it is Harris Gully Rd - as you come down the hill from
the Reynolds Rd end of it just after the fruit market and the left hand bend
in the road. The hill is fairly long and it gets steeper about two thirds
of the way down.

 

[TimC]

On 2007-12-10, Gags (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>
> "PeteSig" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> "Gags" wrote:
>>
>>> Yesterday on my solo BR effort I decided to coast down the Warrandyte
>>> hill
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> From memory, I think the fastest I ever hit down that hill was 94km/h and
>>> that was coming off of Blah's wheel when he was drafting Flying
>>
>> Exactly which 'Warrandyte hill' is this :0
>>
>> I know most of them, and this sounds something Xtr33m!!
>
> I am pretty sure that it is Harris Gully Rd - as you come down the hill from
> the Reynolds Rd end of it just after the fruit market and the left hand bend
> in the road. The hill is fairly long and it gets steeper about two thirds
> of the way down.

It's not as extreme as Pidgeon (? I remember it being spelled
"wrongly") Bank road. I only rode down it once, and so I was pretty
hard on the brakes. I don't think that's something that would change
subsequent times

--
TimC
Disinformation is not as good as datinformation. -- unknown

 

[tim]

On Dec 10, 7:51 pm, ray <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've reached 85 k/mh on three
> separate occasions, once on a single bike, west coast Tassie, and twice
> on a tandem, different locations Vic.
> I found all three downright scary. Almost blind from wind tears, one
> rock, pothole or twitch at that speed and you're dead. It's definitely a
> hoot, but not one I seek out.

In that case, you most definitely don't want to try riding down Mt St
Leonards, near Healesville.

It's been many years since I've shot for record speeds down there - a
gated firetrail losing about 500m in 8km - but we used to break the
80km/h barrier pretty easily. This is on hardtails, with what passed
for XC suspension forks in the late '90s.

Rocks and potholes aren't as much of an issue as you'd expect. 80kg or
so of rider has a lot of momentum, and 12kg or so of bike has
significantly less. If the bike gets knocked off line, you pull it
back under you and keep hanging on. The ridiculously fast sections
were short enough that a pinch-flatted tyre would still have a little
bit of air left in it by the roll-out at the end. Many tubes were
patched at that point.

Extraordinarily silly stuff, but we were younger and sillier. We
didn't die.

tim

 

[Nick Payne]

You could come to Canberra and ride the Fitz's Challenge. A few years back a
fairly large bloke in the bunch I was riding with had his speedo indicating
a max of 104kph after we descended Fitz's Hill. Mind you, I think someone
died after crashing on the same descent on last year's ride. When we come
down that hill on the tandem my stoker sits up to catch the wind when she
sees 95 on her speedo. Says the only three figures she wants to reach are in
her old age.

Nick

"TimC" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> For anyone wondering, the max speed you can reach down a hill is
> unrelated to what cassette you have on.
>
> I inadvertantly replaced a 12-26 with a 13-26 (I could have sworn the
> original had 13T written on it, but it's not like I had a choice given
> I was mail ordering and the supplier didn't do anything else, 8-speed
> wise). But it turns out you can do 87.45km/h on an Giant '05 OCR3
> (2km/h faster than previously on that hill, and 5km/h faster than any
> time I have actually bothered to record it in my logfile). I refuse
> to confirm or deny whether I had a slightly hairy moment at the
> bottom, wondering whether I could completely negotiate the slight
> curve with the added nervousness of a truck coming up the other way.
> No speed wobbles though -- for a cheap aluminium frame, I guess that's
> something.
>
> Considering I only ever got to 86km/h once, drafting Gags down the
> warrandyte descent, I guess I can look favourably upon today's slight
> wind.
>
> Still missed my PB average by about 20 seconds. And today was with
> the bus on my tail for a km or so through some twisty passages --
> added some incentive to crack an average of 60km/h through that
> section.
>
> I also refuse to confirm nor deny whether I got to my front lawn,
> struggled off the bike, poured the tap over me, and sat down on the
> gutter for 5 minutes. Seems kinda pointless to save a few minutes on
> the commute, then blow it all away by sitting on the gutter, but it
> was fun

 

[PeteSig]

"Gags" wrote:

> I am pretty sure that it is Harris Gully Rd - as you come down the hill
> from the Reynolds Rd end of it just after the fruit market and the left
> hand bend in the road. The hill is fairly long and it gets steeper about
> two thirds of the way down.

You rolled off the top at 30kmh and rolled to 87kmh!!! Man, you must be
carrying a bit of weight. I've never rolled past about 70!! (I am a whippet
though)


--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

 

[geoffs]

"Gags" wrote:


You rolled off the top at 30kmh and rolled to 87kmh!!! Man, you must be
carrying a bit of weight. I've never rolled past about 70!! (I am a whippet
though)

Mass is a wonderful thing on a downhill. We can easily hit over 90 on the tandem with a rolling weight of at least 170kgs. We only bother pedalling to about 70km/hr and just tuck in and coast after that.

Cheers

Geoff

 

[Bean Long]

PeteSig wrote:
> You rolled off the top at 30kmh and rolled to 87kmh!!! Man, you must be
> carrying a bit of weight. I've never rolled past about 70!! (I am a whippet
> though)

Same here. I weight just on 60 kg and rarely make it above ~74 kph. My
weight disadvantage is telling on a particular hill here in Canberra
during road races. When I'm in a bunch with big guys I lose them on the
downhill with them coasting and me spinning in top gear!

Remove "yourfinger" before replying

 

[[email protected]]

On Dec 12, 10:24 am, Bean Long <[email protected]> wrote:
> PeteSig wrote:
> > You rolled off the top at 30kmh and rolled to 87kmh!!! Man, you must be
> > carrying a bit of weight. I've never rolled past about 70!! (I am a whippet
> > though)
>
> Same here. I weight just on 60 kg and rarely make it above ~74 kph. My
> weight disadvantage is telling on a particular hill here in Canberra
> during road races. When I'm in a bunch with big guys I lose them on the
> downhill with them coasting and me spinning in top gear!
>
> Remove "yourfinger" before replying

You need a heavier bike!

 

[DaveB]

Bean Long wrote:
> PeteSig wrote:
>> You rolled off the top at 30kmh and rolled to 87kmh!!! Man, you must
>> be carrying a bit of weight. I've never rolled past about 70!! (I am a
>> whippet though)
>
> Same here. I weight just on 60 kg and rarely make it above ~74 kph. My
> weight disadvantage is telling on a particular hill here in Canberra
> during road races. When I'm in a bunch with big guys I lose them on the
> downhill with them coasting and me spinning in top gear!
>
> Remove "yourfinger" before replying

I suspect you won't get a lot of sympathy for being too light in a hilly
race.

DaveB "wishing he had that problem"

 

[Bean Long]

DaveB wrote:

> I suspect you won't get a lot of sympathy for being too light in a hilly
> race.
>
> DaveB "wishing he had that problem"

Yeah... unfortunately I'm a **** climber. You get no sympathy at the
back of the bunch!

--
Bean
Remove "yourfinger" before replying

 

[Gags]

"PeteSig" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Gags" wrote:
>
>> I am pretty sure that it is Harris Gully Rd - as you come down the hill
>> from the Reynolds Rd end of it just after the fruit market and the left
>> hand bend in the road. The hill is fairly long and it gets steeper about
>> two thirds of the way down.
>
> You rolled off the top at 30kmh and rolled to 87kmh!!! Man, you must be
> carrying a bit of weight. I've never rolled past about 70!! (I am a
> whippet though)
>

Well, I am 100kg riding a 63.5cm steel-framed Eddy Merckx - go the gravity
turbo!!!

I actually had to do a medical a couple of days ago and weighed in at 101kg
which, when combined with my height of 195cm gave me a BMI of about 26 or
so - this is about a third of the way into the "Overweight" band. What a
croc of **** - clearly the charts are made for people who don't exercise and
therefore have minimal muscle mass as I am a fair way away from what you
would call fat!!!

Gags

 

[Terryc]

Gags wrote:

> I actually had to do a medical a couple of days ago and weighed in at 101kg
> which, when combined with my height of 195cm gave me a BMI of about 26 or
> so - this is about a third of the way into the "Overweight" band. What a
> croc of **** - clearly the charts are made for people who don't exercise and
> therefore have minimal muscle mass as I am a fair way away from what you
> would call fat!!!

Yep, you got it in one. Brilliant system isn't it.

Imagine my expressions to the news that to tackle childhood obesity,
they are going to weigh and BMI all 4 years olds and school teachers are
going to do it.

When even the quacks stuff up, we are going to let a bunch of people who
can not adequately teach what they are supposed to (don't mention
science) apply a system without any scientific backing to a bunch of
kids that are still to go through a number of radical body changes.