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Meh, 184 mph on a cycle

She looked like it was a nice comfortable pace. Pretty impressive stuff for any human! Woo Hoo!
 
Amazing how much wind resistance impacts speed.

All pacing does is remove the wind resistance.

Back when I was young and in shape, I road raced (cycling) and did a lot of training. I could hold 25-30 mph on the flat for quite a while and maybe hit 40 in a sprint for a very short distance. But.... I caught a semi truck on 287 once as it was starting up and paced it to well over 60 for several miles. We'd catch them on training rides from time to time when I was out at Tech as well. They accelerate slow so you can latch on. It was pretty easy to follow them at 55 or so for miles at a time if you wanted to. (stupid dangerous of course.....but I was 19 and invincible)

Anyway.... really amazing to me how fast a human powered machine can go if you remove wind resistance.
 
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She looked like it was a nice comfortable pace. Pretty impressive stuff for any human! Woo Hoo!

Yep...notice she used a tether until she was probably over 100 because of the tall gearing the bike had to be using. That's why she was able to go 180+ without her legs spinning at 200 RPM and set a nice cadence. I'm sure they calculated the gear ratio needed to get to that speed and still run at a reasonable cadence but that would have been way too tall of a gear to get started on.

When we'd pace behind a car or truck on a regular bike back in the day, we'd be running a 53 tooth in the front and a 12 in the rear as our highest gear. That's plenty fast for road racing but you could spin out when you did pacing.

At somewhere around 55 or 60, you simply can't turn the crank fast enough to go faster. You have plenty of strength....you just can't turn the pedals that fast.

Anyway.....not to get too in to the details....I still totally agree with you. It's a pretty amazing feat for a human.
 
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I think she ran a 62/12 TWICE with what I believe I read something like 129 feet per revolution!

Hmmm.... 90rpm at 129' would be 11,600ft/minute or "only" 132mph. She'd have to spin 120rpm to get to 176. So she was spinning 125rpm to do the 183. My legs are burning just thinking about that.....
 
When I toured the Rocky Mountains/Northwest with full touring gear, we came off a mountain in Montana with what I would guess was around a 45 mph tailwind. It was a very meandering, smooth road coming off the mountain. This was in 1980, so all I had was the little cyclometer on the front axle, but we were doing mile every 65 seconds for about 8 miles. Fastest I've ever been on a bicycle.
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Amazing how much wind resistance impacts speed.

All pacing does is remove the wind resistance.

Back when I was young and in shape, I road raced (cycling) and did a lot of training. I could hold 25-30 mph on the flat for quite a while and maybe hit 40 in a sprint for a very short distance. But.... I caught a semi truck on 287 once as it was starting up and paced it to well over 60 for several miles. We'd catch them on training rides from time to time when I was out at Tech as well. They accelerate slow so you can latch on. It was pretty easy to follow them at 55 or so for miles at a time if you wanted to. (stupid dangerous of course.....but I was 19 and invincible)

Anyway.... really amazing to me how fast a human powered machine can go if you remove wind resistance.

I was never in your league, but I used to ride bicycles a lot for exercise -- about 3,000 to 5,000 miles per year. I used to enjoy drafting cars, pickups, trucks, and buses until one Sunday morning in downtown Houston -- I was drafting one bus through downtown at about 25 mph when it went through a light rather late. There was a crossing bus coming that went through his green light a bit early and nearly creamed me.

My best day ever drafting someone was in Galveston. I was riding on the street next to the sea wall. As I approached a light with cars backed up, I went between the cars and it turned green when I was almost there. In the right-hand lane was a motor home with an old couple in it so I just pulled behind them and drafted them for a little ways. Then a Chevy Blazer passed us and so I popped over behind the Chevy Blazer and passed the motor home. Then, I decided to go for broke and pulled back in the right hand lane and passed the Blazer. By the time I got to the next light I was wore out. It's not drafting trucks at 60, but then I was nearly forty at the time and felt it to be a pretty good achievement.
 
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