Originally Posted by chasm54

One other thought. The exaggeration has a very negative impact on some people who really ought to be enjoying their cycling. In the Clydesdales/Athenas forum recently there was a thread in which people were bemoaning how slow they were, and asking why they couldn't get their average speed up towards 20mph. Some of them were quite discouraged. They read absurd claims about average speeds and felt, as relatively new cyclists some of whom weigh 300lbs, that if they couldn't ride at >18mph they must be doing something wrong.