mac

I climb up the foothills here in L.A. to get to work which is hard, but have fun flying down the mountain to get home. Today I got up to 41.0 mph on my loaded commuter at night in the dark on an unlight canyon road. I was riding faster than my HID lights. So what's your max speed on your commute? Day or night?

peregrine

32 mph. I've got hills steep enough to go more than that but I'm scared to

unkchunk

I don't know. I don't have a cyclocomputer. Mornings it's all flat or up hill, and on the way home the damn lights never syncronise to allow me fast unobstructed down hill runs. Never, ever and it just pisses the crap out of me. Otherwise, I average about 12 mph and it seems like I can't do anything to increase it.

ceridwen

I don't have a computer (yet, one on the way to me), but going by distance/time I think I'm averaging 15-18mph now. Not sure what my max speed is. It's flat here (Florida), and I'm on a MTB with knobbie tires still, so I doubt it's all that high, probably in the 20s.

cgchambers

32, could probably top that without to much trouble but I have to stop for the d@mn stop lights

vtjim

30-35, but no hills. Not all the time, either. That's just my maximum on my commute. There is one incline upon which I could probably break 40 if I pushed harder. The bike is old though. Makes me nervous.

(Peugeot with rack, bag with clothes, lights, etc... Heavy!)

NoRacer

On one ride, my computer showed 50 MPH on my home-bound commute (net downhill by ~500 feet), but I determined that that was an error from not having the wheel magnet close enough to the sensor.

Usually, if I'm feeling strong that day, I can get between 35-40 MPH on my homeward commute (wearing a 15 pound backpack).

MacG

I'm hitting 33 to 35 on good downhills these days. I'm riding a Peugeot fixed-gear conversion at 82 gear inches. Climbing requires a strong approach followed by lots of standing and honking, but I can really fly on the downhills before my cadence gets too fast for comfort. By my math, I'm spinning 140rpm at 35mph.

igloomaster

You guys are sick. Please tell me you are able to achieve 30mph+ on a GEARED BIKE! Please!!! I'm riding a singlespeed Redline, 16 miles to work. I just bought it last week, and I haven't ridden a bicycle to work since September. So I've had 5 months off. I was feeling pretty badly about myself this morning, looking at my new cyclocomputer, and seeing how much it was hanging on 15mph, and that it required more work to maintain 19-20mph, and how many long gradual climbs where I was at around 12mph. Now I feel really badly about myself! Other points to note though, as my brain races to make excuses for my out-of-shape self: I've never commuted to work in the winter before, loaded down with all these layers and with a backpack on. Oh yeah - I made (I think) a stupid decision to do this on an empty stomach. 5 months off, and I jump onto a 16 mile commute with hills with nothing in my belly. No wonder I got dizzy a few times. I've also never seriously commuted on a singlespeed bike before. Somebody, anybody, tell me I'm a hero or something. Send me a box of twinkies and let's call it a day.

DataJunkie

I have no clue what my max speed is. No computer.
I rode 4 miles in 7 minutes one day on my hybrid. That's something like 34 mph (i think).
I took me 15 minutes to catch my breath. That same distance takes me the same time on a bike and in car on average due to traffic. That day it took me 1/2 the time on a bike that it would have taken in a car. Downhill, tailwind, and hauling arse.

Old Dirt Hill

I average somewhere around 13mph on my Trek hybrid. I topped out at 32mph several weeks ago on a pretty large downhill, pedaling like mad. I'll add that my ride is nowhere near light weight and I'm a pretty big guy at 200lbs. I also carry 8lbs of batteries and haven't yet ridden outside of the winter months. I hope to be noticibly faster once I shed the lights and layers of clothes once spring arrives.

Today I bungied a 15lb (and farily large in volume) package to the side of my rear rack and rode to work with the extra weight penalty. To my surprise, it didn't slow me down at all, and to be honest, didn't feel like too much extra work. It was encouraging, although discomforting because I fear that I might not be much faster come spring after losing the extra bulk.

MyPC8MyBrain

I have a nice curvy downhill that I can easily coast to 35 everyday. One day with a fat tailwind I was up over 40... 42 I think. The speed limit is 35. I could go faster, but the Cannondale T-700 has mountain triple chanrings and I top out long before 30mph.

At that speed the cars waiting to pull out from the side streets become very very scary.

jeff-o

On the one downhill, I managed to hit 36mph before I had to start slowing down for the rapidly-approaching stoplight.

mihlbach

Before you start to feel bad about your own personal slow speed, when reading posts about commute time or max speed, you should first consider the exageration factor that is commonly added to many (but not all) of the posted numbers.

My commute is all hilly, but nothing extremely steep. Today I got up to 28 mph (=33.7 mph with exageration factor) on the biggest hill with my fixed gear with 70.2 gear inches. I can go a little faster if I try real hard, but my cadence abilities top out around 30. I have no idea what cadence that is, but it feels pretty intense, especially after having just climbed the other side. On my geared road bike I can get up to 32–35 (= 41.2mph with exageration factor) going down that same hill. I try to make it a point of hiting 30mph at least once a day.
There is a tremendous hill (not on my commute) along the Hudson river just North of NYC that I used to ride down full blast on a geared bike, blowing by other cyclists who were not a stupid as me..total daredevil stuff. I want to try it again now that I have a computer just to see how fast that really was, but I don't think I have the nerve to blast down it again.

aadhils

I've reached 30 on my (23 odd lb.) Road bike (now in hibernation), and 28-29 on my LHT. There is this steep dip that goes under a rail road bridge, and most of the time when I reach the other side im still going 27mph.

p.s. hey you asked for Max did'nt you? My normal speed is anywhere from 13-20mph...

Plosive

Max speed on this mornings commute 27.5

joejack951

Normal max speed is around 32mph on the long downhill leaving work. All time max speed was 35mph on a flat section of road drafting a line of cars with a tailwind. Not bad for spinning a 42/11 on my MTB. I lasted less than half a mile at that speed. If you count going to my parents'/sister's houses as commuting, then my max is 47mph down an 18% grade with a Camelbak on for extra aero effect (no exagerration factor added)

jnorcross

30 to 35 with the right wind and a little downhill. I've hit 39.5 mph going down the largest bridge in town, but I usually don't take that route.

jimmuter

Yes, mine is a geared bike and I hit 32 going downhill if the wind is right. Under normal conditions on a flat run, I may approach 20, but it's usually more like 15 or 16. My bike is a hybrid.

cerewa

When I started riding a few miles to high school, my normal flat-ground speed was about 12 mph.

Now my normal flat-ground speed is somewhere around 16 mph (no cyclocomputer, I'm guessing based on time and distance) but I think on downhills I occasionally go up to 28 or so. No long steep hills here, but I pedal hard on downhills sometimes.

mac

I'd like to hear the stories from the two guys who checked off 45 - 50 mph: HoustonB and ghettocruiser. That must be fun as hell going that fast on a bicycle.

CastIron

Low 30's under gravity power, mid 20's with just me on a sprint.

igloomaster

OK, i hit 25mph going down a hill on the way home tonight, pedaling like mad, winter layers, backpack, etc. I found out that my singlespeed Redline 925 is a 42/16 gear thing. When I was going ape-$hit down that hill, I totally reached the point where if I had gears I could have upshifted and gone even faster. Oh well, that's the trade-off for simplicity.

mac

Hey igloo, do you have a flywheel or are your legs pumping up and down really fast like pistons?

zoridog

I don't have a speedometer on the commuter but I have some serious, long decents.