3 ms·

Fix the 40km/h bike rides and the 85km/h downhill with a bird on your shoulder, and apart from that it’s a cool story.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Hey, there is nothing to fix(apart from some typos which I can't edit anymore). This is real and happened exactly as I wrote. At that point in time I've been that fast. I can be that fast today (the 40km/h I mean) even on a vintage bike with only 3 geared wheel hub, though it takes more effort, and not for more than a few minutes. On very good days I could hold 55 to 60km/h for maybe 30 minutes without headwind on flat grounds, and peaked 70+ for 1 to 2 minutes also. There was a sports club called RSC(Radsport Club) Sturmvogel(stormbird) at the time, which trained in the forest where I rode too. I've always been faster than anyone of them, and generally one of the fastest of maybe a hand full of unidentified bicycling objects at the time there. One tends to notice the faces, frames, routes and times when doing it as intensive as I did. Let's just say I've been mostly unimpressed with Tour de France when it ran on the TV at the times? Because I did it alone, without fanfare, much less expensive bicycles, no formal training, no car bringing a spare bike if mine had a problem, and...oh err yes....no doping at all! K? Regarding the bird on my shoulder, it was safe there as long as it could claw into my shirt. They (the swifts) don't like to stand on their thin legs, they prefer to hang from some wall more. So it either sat there, hanging back and down my back somewhat while I've been bend forward like you do on a racing bicycle, or in front of me somewhere around my neck, always looking around to all sides. I don't know how to put this exactly, but when you spend so much time with them while they grow up you know them, not completely, but you can tell when they feel good. And I'm telling you it had fun as in visibly enjoing it while I did that downhilling. Really. edit: OFC I had fun also, because speed is what I need!
phyzome 6y ago
You don't believe those speeds are possible? When I was commuting to work before the pandemic, I would regularly keep up with city traffic at 40 km/h on a level road for up to a few minutes at a time. (Now that they'll be lowering the speed limit from 25 to 20 mph, I'll be able to break the speed limit if I wish.) I've only once gotten up to 72 km/h on a downhill, keeping pace with traffic on a highway with a long downslope. I don't think I want to do it again, since the bike started to give a rather worrying 8 Hz shimmy, but I did it. I probably could have done 85 km/h if I'd kept it up continuously rather than sometimes coasting to keep my spacing. Both of these require me to give it pretty much all my power in my highest gear, but this is on a hybrid commuter bike with a full pannier and an 85 kg rider. I'm no star athlete. These speeds are well within normal bounds.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  The shimmies! I've forgotten about them :-) Had them at 65. They were very unexpected when they happened the first time. And were gone at 67/68 again. I think they result from imbalances in the rims, due to the valves. And it varies with different frames-
  - phyzome 6y ago
    It's actually part of how I know how fast I was going that one time. :-) I was on a 45mph speed limit road and I was keeping up with the cars, but I wasn't sure if they were following the limit. But I was later able to tap at the same frequency while looking at a watch and discovered it was about 8 Hz, and then took the outer circumference of my tire and calculated that it was about 45 mph as well assuming that an imbalance in the wheel or tire was the source. (My video camera had also caught some mile markers, but my speed varied in between, so those were only corroborative.)

Hey, there is nothing to fix(apart from some typos which I can't edit anymore). This is real and happened exactly as I wrote. At that point in time I've been that fast. I can be that fast today (the 40km/h I mean) even on a vintage bike with only 3 geared wheel hub, though it takes more effort, and not for more than a few minutes. On very good days I could hold 55 to 60km/h for maybe 30 minutes without headwind on flat grounds, and peaked 70+ for 1 to 2 minutes also. There was a sports club called RSC(Radsport Club) Sturmvogel(stormbird) at the time, which trained in the forest where I rode too. I've always been faster than anyone of them, and generally one of the fastest of maybe a hand full of unidentified bicycling objects at the time there. One tends to notice the faces, frames, routes and times when doing it as intensive as I did. Let's just say I've been mostly unimpressed with Tour de France when it ran on the TV at the times? Because I did it alone, without fanfare, much less expensive bicycles, no formal training, no car bringing a spare bike if mine had a problem, and...oh err yes....no doping at all! K? Regarding the bird on my shoulder, it was safe there as long as it could claw into my shirt. They (the swifts) don't like to stand on their thin legs, they prefer to hang from some wall more. So it either sat there, hanging back and down my back somewhat while I've been bend forward like you do on a racing bicycle, or in front of me somewhere around my neck, always looking around to all sides. I don't know how to put this exactly, but when you spend so much time with them while they grow up you know them, not completely, but you can tell when they feel good. And I'm telling you it had fun as in visibly enjoing it while I did that downhilling. Really. edit: OFC I had fun also, because speed is what I need!

phyzome 6y ago

You don't believe those speeds are possible? When I was commuting to work before the pandemic, I would regularly keep up with city traffic at 40 km/h on a level road for up to a few minutes at a time. (Now that they'll be lowering the speed limit from 25 to 20 mph, I'll be able to break the speed limit if I wish.) I've only once gotten up to 72 km/h on a downhill, keeping pace with traffic on a highway with a long downslope. I don't think I want to do it again, since the bike started to give a rather worrying 8 Hz shimmy, but I did it. I probably could have done 85 km/h if I'd kept it up continuously rather than sometimes coasting to keep my spacing. Both of these require me to give it pretty much all my power in my highest gear, but this is on a hybrid commuter bike with a full pannier and an 85 kg rider. I'm no star athlete. These speeds are well within normal bounds.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
The shimmies! I've forgotten about them :-) Had them at 65. They were very unexpected when they happened the first time. And were gone at 67/68 again. I think they result from imbalances in the rims, due to the valves. And it varies with different frames-
- phyzome 6y ago
  It's actually part of how I know how fast I was going that one time. :-) I was on a 45mph speed limit road and I was keeping up with the cars, but I wasn't sure if they were following the limit. But I was later able to tap at the same frequency while looking at a watch and discovered it was about 8 Hz, and then took the outer circumference of my tire and calculated that it was about 45 mph as well assuming that an imbalance in the wheel or tire was the source. (My video camera had also caught some mile markers, but my speed varied in between, so those were only corroborative.)