Sy Reene

The faster I go, the sooner I get back to where I started.

kaos joe

Regarding the thrill of riding fast......

At one point on todays short 25 mile ride, I looked down and saw I was going 55!!!!! Holy Smokes!! But, nope. I realized that the cyclometer had somehow gone from mph to kph mode.

55kph.....still nope. I was just tooling along at 20mph, if that.

Interesting failure mode, but I felt like Superman for a few seconds.

HTupolev

55kph is ~34mph.

smarkinson

If a road has a posted speed limit of 100km/h why do almost all the motorists feel the need to drive at 105km/h? It's a maximum speed limit but humans just can't be satisified doing 100 or below. They have to be just over the limit. Why?

eja_ bottecchia

34.17542 to be precise.

DrIsotope

I personally don't view "speed" as a goal. If I wanted to do nothing but ride faster, I would go the Coker route, and ride a flat, unobstructed path devoid of motor vehicles every day, and whiz along at +20mph. But I want to get stronger. I want to not just make it up the one hill, but the hill after that hill, and the one after that, and the one after that... and speed just turns out to be a side-effect. If you get stronger, you get faster by default.

But for me, the real reason I chase power, and set goals, and maybe even focus on the speed every now and again, is that I'm really fond of things like steak and ice cream and cheesecake. As someone mentioned much earlier on, a bonus to speeds up past 20mph is the delightful inefficiency of the human body-- when out riding solo, that 2mph between 20 and 22 takes at least 20% more effort-- so it can quickly become 700-800kJ and hour instead of 300-400. I don't have 8 hours to ride every day, so it might take a little more speed on any given day to fit in that bowl of mocha almond fudge.

So contrary to the OP, I have the same question about the local group rides that start and finish at the coffee house, and take 2+ hours to travel 25 miles and burn 500kcal total. Why do they go so slow?

f4rrest

Alternatively, ride faster than those with whom you don't want to ride.

(Such as those slow chatty folks who grab your wheel.)

kaos joe

I know. I was actually going about half that. CatEye is kaput.

f4rrest

This is the actual introspective question.

Rowan

We want to ride faster because it shows progression.

A beginner rider will ride slowly. Perhaps because of uncertainty, perhaps because of a lack of skill, perhaps through a fear of falling off.

As experience grows, so does speed. For some, there is no need to go any faster than what they are comfortable with and that might be only a few mph above their learner speed. They are happy, they are contented, they feel safe.

For others, immediately they get on a bike, they want to go as hard as they can for as long as they can. For them, it exhilirating, liberating, exciting. It's part of those people's lives -- to be aroused by their experiences.

The reasons why a cyclist rides at their chosen speeds are as diverse as the psychological make-up of the world's individuals. Trying to analyse all those reasons can take a long time... or 8 or 9 pages of BF content.

By the way, Dan333SP, I liked your posts.

IamAlan

Can't speak for the ladies around here but men ride faster for the same reason we do anything.

Chicks.

Dig.

It.

BillyD

Closed for further review.