3 ms·
40 km/h is not impossible by any means but as a sustained average speed it takes a special bike and a person with pretty mighty athletic background. Definitely
by exDM69 9y ago
40 km/h is not impossible by any means but as a sustained average speed it takes a special bike and a person with pretty mighty athletic background. Definitely not something for the average commuter. Even 20 km/h sustained for an hour is more than most people can do.
I could probably do 40 km/h for 15-30 minutes if I went all-in and had a racing bike. But my commute includes dirt roads and pathways through the forest so a racing bike is out of question and I don't want to take a shower every day arriving to work.
I don't really have to share the road with cars at any point on my commute so driving too slow isn't an issue. A part of the way is shared with pedestrians (and slower bicyclists) so going too fast is more of a problem.
- emj 9y ago1999 was the first year Tour de France cyclists managed to get 40km/h on average for the whole 3200 km and three weeks long race. According to http://bikecalculator.com/ http://bikecalculator.com/ 40 km/h requires between 260W and 450W from the rider, doing 40 km/h on avarage will be even more extreme. I've used a good recumbent bicycle and I could actually hold 35 km/h easily in that one, in the same place I usually average 23 km/h upright with an ordinary ~$700 city bike.