xlDooM

Fastest I've gone is 38-40km/h in the 2.91 gear. I don't think I need to commute faster than 40km/h, do you? I also don't have an opportunity to shower at work, so I keep my heart rate nice and low. I average 23km/h without sweating, which is not fast but gets me there in reasonable time. I do other things for my cardiovascular system, like playing badminton 10 hours a week. My commute is not about doing sports. It's about saving gas and pocketing compensation from my employer.

Nice attitude though, did it come with the bike?

Everyday I see a dozen guys on mountain bikes on paved roads. None of them have mud on their face. Perhaps they're missing the point, just like I am. Or maybe they like to ride a mountain bike, like I do. Maybe they like the feel of the bike; the compromise between comfortable posture, good visibility and reasonable speed. Maybe like me they've concluded that they don't use the drop bars on their road bike often, and got tired of being beat up by the rock hard tires. Then maybe they discovered that on their slick-shod mountain bike they're no slower than on their road bike, and it feels better.

I've looked at city bikes. None of them are really nice, probably because they assume you'll use them twice a week to do 2 miles each time. I've looked at trekking bikes. They're ludicrously heavy, maybe because they assume you'll put on 100lbs of panniers and the frame needs to be made of girders. There is no better bike for my ride than the one I have. Which is a mountain bike. So I posted some on the face of it totally inoffensive, objective information about gear overlap in the mountain bike forum, thinking it is probably frequented by more than a hard core of boulder jumping, mud tearing, forest climbing athletes. Sadly some of those very guys seem to hate me for the mere fact that I ride a mountain bike on something other than a mountain.

If you don't like the way I use my mountain bike, tough luck. Because I do.