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Comment by bjourne

4 years ago

22 mph = 35 kmh. The average speed of Tour de France is 40 kmh: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/tour-de-france/2016/gc/...

6 comments

bjourne

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cycomanic  4 years ago

The average speed over the TdF is completely irrelevant, they cross the alpes. Generally on a race bike riding at 40kph if you have a slight tailwind is very doable over extended periods. If you are riding in a group of riders riding along at 40 is very straight forward, you can easily go over 50 (the fastest TdF stages are around 50 average over more than 180km distance. I can easily ride 30km/h on a regular commuting bike over extended periods (and I'm currently quite unfit).

  • tapland  4 years ago

    30 is pretty easy to do, 35 is significantly harder and 40 is insanely much harder.

    People saying regular bicyclists do 40-45 kph seldom have much experience on bikes. And someone going that in city traffic, like a lot of ebikes do, is just not a thing =/ too much stopping/starting and with dedicated lanes you still have to slow to traffic. O ly ebikes get up to those speeds in that encironment

nybble41  4 years ago

I wasn't talking about a long-distance race like the Tour de France. This is average speeds over a one-hour period. If an ordinary cyclist can reach those speeds, even for just a few minutes at a time, then cars need to be equipped to deal with it. The fact that an e-bike can sustain such speeds over a longer interval doesn't fundamentally change anything.

  • CRConrad  4 years ago

    > If an ordinary cyclist can reach those speeds, even for just a few minutes at a time, then cars need to be equipped to deal with it.

    Cars per se have the technical equipment to deal with that; it's the drivers' brains -- experience / expectations, basically -- that need to catch up.