Originally Posted by mrteeth

Yeah, but that's exactly it: "on a good day". Unlike nonutilitarian riders your true average speed includes the bad days, not just the good ones...and you probably use a circuitous route (ie how far is your commute as the crow flies and what is your average speed to traverse that distance?) compared to a nonutilitarian rider whose average speed can be taken at face value because he's not going from point A to point B.

Also, like you said your commute is undulating. Roadies go on and on about how this or that bike performs "on the flats", but are flats even worth considering for utility riding? Commuters in hilly areas talk about using a wiggle route to avoid the hills and then there's the potholes and the traffic, etc, etc. At what point does all this warrant a different kind of bike (ie a faster bike for slower routes)? Or is a fast road bike always the fastest on the road no matter how poor the road surface, no matter how much traffic, etc, etc?

A lot of people say that having a bike 5 pounds lighter doesn't make a big difference and that may be true on the open road to nowhere, but in my experience a 5 pound lighter bike is at least twice as fast in stop and go urban riding. That's one example, but what other "horses for courses" scenarios are there for utility riding? For example, does anyone think a better climber is more important for utility riding since it can enable you to shorten some of those wiggles?