Originally Posted by
hagen2456 
You guys don't get it. And yet, we've been through it before. The average speed on Dutch cycle paths seem to be around 16 km/h, and it's slightly higher in Copenhagen. The reason it's so low is that every part of the population cycles. Children aged 4, grannies like my 80 years old mother (my dad doesn't count there, as he rides rather fast), as well as messengers or people like me.
Originally Posted by
mr_pedro
Exactly what I was thinking when reading the irrelevant comparisons of average speed.
Also people use their bikes in every day clothes as part of everyday life. They don't always want to go at the maximum speed that they can.
I am sorry to read how it appears impossible for you people "to get" the importance the relationship between distance and speed and time. You praise commuting cyclists wearing business suits, and grocery-shopping grandmas propelling freight bikes, and how everybody at all ages cycles at low comfortable speeds. They can do so because these cyclists are making short trips over level ground. The short distances are because they are made in a society that matured as a walking city. The American commuting cyclist, often living in suburbia, has to make longer trips, often over hilly terrain, and, for much of the year, in much hotter weather. The greater length of the trips provides the reason for needing higher average speed, and the hills and weather are additional reasons for wearing cycling clothing.