Originally Posted by
dynaryder
I'm ok with slowing bikes down through a school zone,but they do need to have one of those signs that say how fast you're going. Bikes don't come standard with computers,and aren't legally required to have them. How can a cyclist tell the difference between 20 and 25mph?
That's an excellent question that I can answer for you. If you know your gears and your tire size you can calculate how fast you will be going in each gear by pedal cadence RPMs, a technique I personally and regularly use on most of my commuting bikes where I don't want to strap yet another piece of electronics with batteries and wires to my bike and skip the spedo and just concentrate on lights.
For example on my "bus bike" (for when I take the bus with the bike in the rack between towns and then ride around town on the bike doing my errands) it has a single 48t front chain wheel with a 13t,14t,15t,16t,18t,21t,26t,34t custom ratio 8-speed free-hub cassette in the rear when I'm pedaling at a cadence of 90-RPM which is right in the perfect strong power zone for me personally and I can easily "feel" that pedaling speed where the pedal cranks go around one and half times ever second if I'm in second gear (gear I start out in when pulling away from a dead stop) and "spooled up" on my pedaling to that 90-RPM zone that is my best zone I'm going about 13-mph, then its about 16-mph for third gear, about 18.5-mph for fourth gear, about 21-mph for fifth gear, about 22.5-mph for sixth gear, about 24-mph in seventh gear, and finally almost 26-mph in eighth, high gear. Thus I can know my speed by what gear I am in based off of my pedaling speed when I'm "in the zone".
This can be done with any bike and you don't even have to run the math if you happen to have one of those speed display signs they set-up along the road. Just make multiple runs past each time doing your own personal "fast but strong" optimum pedal power zone in a different gear. Pretty soon you can tell how fast your going just by which gear you are in and how fast you can feel that you are pedaling. Heck you can get some feel for judging speed by your gearing even without a handy sign put up by the local boys in blue if you ride long enough and get a feel for the bike and are conscious of what gear you are in.
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As to the actual topic of the main discussion raised by the OP:
Well, I have no objections to cops giving tickets to cyclists when they break the rules too, especially when it is a situation that could actually be a hazard, I would agree that "scorchers" (look up that term in direct reference to cyclists, its over a hundred years old) in an elementary school zone would definitely qualify as a potential real hazard and it isn't just law enforcement for the sake of enforcement.
That said, I do not deny that I am far less careful about not speeding on a cycle especially a pedal-only cycle then with any other vehicle and I know that I could have been issued such a ticket myself on more then one occasion. If I do ever get one then I'll probably deserve it and it might even cure me of the bad habit. So far I haven't gotten a ticket for speeding on a bicycle but I did get one many years ago for having studded snow tires on my bike in the Spring after the date when studded tires are no longer legal. I was able to talk the price tag down with the judge based on the logic that I certainly wasn't creating as much road damage with studded snows on after the legal date then a car would with studded snows but I still paid the ticket, just not full price, because I knew I was legitimately busted.