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What is your top speed on an MTB?
On and/or road.
about 32mph according to Endomondo
or 176mph according to a few things in the past... but i doubt they're correct.
40295mph.
Just getting in ahead of all the willy wavers 😉
According to Garmin Connect my top speed on my commute this morning was 5495.1 mph! May not be correct though 😉
42 mph on the road.
Could some clever person post the clip from Psychomania where they talk about how fast they have been.
"today we go for the ton"
"but that's suicide"
".....so what if it is"
High 40's down sutton bank (road) near me, but pretty much anyone could get that and probably higher with gears.
Generally off road highest speed would be 23-25mph.
53 kirkstone pass in the lakes, alot on here have been alot faster.....
34 or 36mph off road in the Alps.. On a descent that Stevo said "heed your speed" on a 100mm HT. 😯
Kirstone pass is ace overtaking cars down there 😀
I know there will be plenty of willy waving, but I was just curious as I have never really looked at my own top speed.
I managed 34.5mph this morning without really trying, so I just wanted to see what speeds other riders manage 🙂
On road - 45mph Giant Anthem, B3247, Cornwall
Off-road - 43.6mph Skyline airfield section, Airborne Lucky Strike
65.8km/h was the most reliable recorded figure I've observed, but a hairpin was rapidly approaching.
Got a few recorded around 78km/h, 110km/h recorded the other day, and via GPS, at least one exceeding mach 1 uphill on road.
58 on the road, Crowcombe Park on the quantocks.... Friend clocked 62!!!
Not sure off road to be fair.
Average 38 down Alpe D'Huez on the road bike, that was pretty scary!
mach 1 uphill on road
Quite apt given your username
77.5kmh on road, heading down the Lindis Pass (NZ) carrying 40kg of luggage in my panniers. Bricked myself when I thought about the consequences of coming off as i took "the racinb line" around a corner.
Managed the same speed on my road bike the other week heading into Rothbury as part of the 100mile Cyclone. Had to brake due to the mincers in front of me.
No idea about off-road. 60ish kmh I guess.
Also, I'd like to draw your attention to [url= http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/#24 ]Rule 24[/url]
62mph on road, sitting upright with howling tailwind.
recorded on cateye computer, so accuracy is open to debate.
i was slightly disappointed not to have reached 100kph tho.
off road, not certain, probably about 28-30mph, but that felt MUCH faster.
Just under 40mph on road off the Gillamour hill in N Yorks. Off road it's about 28 in the dinorwic quarries (exciting when I stopped to think about all that sharp slate).
martymac - Member62mph on road, sitting upright with howling tailwind.
62 on a mountain bike?? I'd go as far as to say you should throw that Cateye out... It's obviously completely f*****d. The only way a mountain bike would do 62mph is on the roof of a car.
As a fast descender on road bikes, I can honestly say that low- to mid- sixties are possible, but there are only 2 or 3 descents in the UK that I can think of where you'll hit those speeds.
The same descent on an MTB, you'd be lucky to break the 40 barrier.
You can top 50mph off road easily cycling down Devils Dyke just outside Brighton. It's steep and dead straight and on a windy day you can go faster still. 57mph is my best. I recommend anybody in the area try it out as it's great fun, even freewheeling you'll hit 50 if you leave the brakes alone
Last time I did it though my iphone gps said 66 mph but my Garmin said 53, the latter being much more like it so GPS is by no means infallible.
63mph down Crowcombe on a Mt Vision Pro with 700c wheels and tyres (speedo calibrated for the wheels an double checked with GPS).
58 mph on my CX bike on the same hill but only 55.5 mph on the road bike last week (for some reason I got scared and touched the brakes).
As far as I'm concerned going fast is easy, as long as you have confidence in you brakes.
49.9mph on a smoothish dirt track in France, aero-tucked on an Anthem X! I was determined to top 50mph, but ran out of straight track (didn't run out of nerve of course.....cough). TBH, although it felt silly fast, the bike felt surprisingly stable and calm at that speed. Unlike my previous PB, which was 44mph off-road on a Gary Fisher Sugar - deeply unpleasant experience, as the bike started to oscillate and pitch when it got over about 40mph.
90.6kph on the mtb with slicks on road.
According to Endomondo my best MTB time over 10 miles is 3 seconds therefore, it's something in the region of 12,000 mph! Back on planet earth, Garmin Connect reckons it's 36.7 mph.
On the road it's 76.6 kph.
42mph on the smooth grassy descent down drum mountain. The fact that it was all grass to land on in the event of a mishap, with no hard, pointy, sticky-outy bits, helped
According to my cateye it was 60kph downhill on a road in the Quantocks. That felt good.
48kph offroad, downhill on a gravel fire road is the fastest I can recall. I do wish they hadn't put the gate half way down the hill though!
@ shibboleth,
several points,
1, the accuracy of any computer is debatable, this includes gps.
2, when i say sitting upright, i mean i wasnt making any real effort to be aero.
3, just because you cant think of any roads where its possible, doesnt mean they dont exist, it was a 14% gradient, go find one and try it yourself.
for the record, it was the A689, heading east from alston, downhill towards the lead mining centre at nenthead, its steep, its almost completely straight, and its smooth.
any other time ive been able to go for it downhill, ive never managed to go much faster than c45mph.
As per Binners, but different ride, the grassy bit from Drum to Llanferfechan... this is Junkyards GPS, I was going just slightly faster so touching 50mph I would guess.
I shit myself when I touched the brakes.
[url= http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2532/3967306968_509a2d0132_o.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/dave-lowe/3967306968/ ]DSC02206[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/dave-lowe/ ]lowey.com[/url], on Flickr
Just had a thought about GPS speed indication, does it allow for the angle of descent as due to the triangulation effect, you travel a greater distance over land than is observable from directly above or is this calculated by the differing positions of the satellites?
i dont believe it does, so the steeper the hill, the greater the error.
but its probably no worse than a normal bike computer.
@ Martymac, I'm a confident descender on a road or mountain bike and I know what is possible.
I'm reasonably slim/fairly tall, so probably about the optimum build/weight for getting the most out of a bike downhill. And if you claim to have been anywhere close to 62mph on a mountain bike, I'm telling you, you're in cloud cuckoo land.
According to my cateye I've done 50.9mph. Was going down Buster Hill (nr Portsmouth) with a tailwind. I've done high 40's down there before, so Im inclined to believe it.
And if you claim to have been anywhere close to 62mph on a mountain bike, I'm telling you, you're in cloud cuckoo land.
You're quite welcome to come to the Quantocks and try for yourself, but you're probably too busy sat in front of your computer Trolling.
Fastest I have recorded is 51kmh off road on the big fireroad descent bit of the detour at Cannock.
slainte ➡ rob
Shibboleth - MemberAs a fast descender on road bikes, I can honestly say that low- to mid- sixties are possible, but there are only 2 or 3 descents in the UK that I can think of where you'll hit those speeds.
There are loads more than 2 or 3. I go over 50mph on plenty of hills around here (on a road bike), mostly while braking (and I don't weight very much). If I was brave/stupid enough to not bother with the brakes, I'm sure over 60 is possible on lots of them. I'm not going to do that though, as they are full of holes and corners.
Over 50 mph on a mountain bike is impressive though, from an aero point of view, although at least you have better brakes and don't have to worry about potholes.
so, shibboleth, what youre actually saying is you havent gone that fast on an mtb, therefore its impossible.
pmsl.
@glenh
it was the only time i managed to get anywhere near that speed, up until then my max was 48mph (totally flat, chin on bars)
ive been back to the same stretch many times, never managed to do any more than 51mph, im convinced the tail wind was the big factor, it was blowing at approx 30mph.
these are all recorded by computer, so subject to a degree of potential inaccuracy anyway.
I'm saying a mountain bike is 15-20mph less aerodynamic than a roadbike.
Thor Hushovd touched 68mph in last year's TDF, and he's one of the best descenders in the world. To suggest that you've got within a few mph of one of the world's best, on an aero bike, in lyrca racing kit on a Pyrenean descent, whilst you're a weekend warrior on knobbly tyres and probably with baggy shorts flapping in the breeze... Well quite frankly, you're talking utter twaddle!
I suspect this figure of 62mph has crept up slightly every time you told the story.
62 on a mountain bike?? I'd go as far as to say you should throw that Cateye out... It's obviously completely f*****d. The only way a mountain bike would do 62mph is on the roof of a car.As a fast descender on road bikes, I can honestly say that low- to mid- sixties are possible, but there are only 2 or 3 descents in the UK that I can think of where you'll hit those speeds.
I hope one of those is Sutton Bank (A170) 24% in places with long run out. If you put effort into it you'd hit 60mph I reckon, I certainly wouldn't want to... been near enough on a road bike.
Thor Hushovd touched 68mph in last year's TDF, and he's one of the best descenders in the world. To suggest that you've got within a few mph of one of the world's best, on an aero bike, in lyrca racing kit on a Pyrenean descent, whilst you're a weekend warrior on knobbly tyres and probably with baggy shorts flapping in the breeze... Well quite frankly, you're talking utter twaddle!I suspect this figure of 62mph has crept up slightly every time you told the story.
True, but possibly his combined weight (bike and rider) is more then Hushovd and his 15lbs of road bike. Also better brakes and tyres on a mtb so you can brake later and more confidently.
looks like another category for next years Singletrack Weekender,
Hushovd weighs 80kg - one of the heavier riders in the peleton. This is one of the reasons he's the best downhill.
And 15lb of roadbike will ALWAYS be faster than 30lbs of mountainbike.
Once you get north of 50mph, even with a 53/11 gear, you're unable to pedal so it's all about aerodynamics.
If martymac is heavier than 80kg, I would suggest he's got far more frontal area than Thor!
44.9 and my mate got 45 on the same decent and he never let's me forget 👿
People riding mountain bikes here, apparently hitting high 50s.
i weighed about 14 stone, bike was moderately loaded, small rucksack tightly strapped on rack, i was in full lycra. luggage probly about 10-15 lb. (had 2 dozen eggs in there!)
bike was a rigid marine eldridge, older bikes really are quite a bit lower at the front than modern mtbs.
Shibboleth - Member62 on a mountain bike?? I'd go as far as to say you should throw that Cateye out... It's obviously completely f*****d. The only way a mountain bike would do 62mph is on the roof of a car.
N0B!!
[url= http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_records#Speed_record_on_a_bicycle ]On 14 September 2007, Stöckl rode an Intense M6 mountainbike down the ski slope of La Parva, Chile, reaching the current record of 210 km/h (130 mph).[/url]
Years ago I managed an indicated 54 mph coming down the top section of 'Kloser's climb' in Vail while we were out there for the '94 world championships (marshalling, not competing). Measured on a Cateye computer.
Altitude was about 12,000 ft so much reduced wind resistance, a mile straight down fairly steeply on a wide fireroad and a tailwind obviously all contributed. Nearly killed myself by completely mis-judging how long it takes to lose speed afterwards though, the first corner was seriously sketchy.
Happy days.
Regularly get mid to late 40s (mph) coming down Butser Hill. That's without pedaling or adopting a particularly aerodynamic position so I'd imagine an extra 10 mph would be achievable if you wanted to put the effort in.
52mph coming down Hartside on a yr2001 marin east peak with xc pros while doing the C2C a few years back. I would hate to think of the speeds possible on a road bike coming down there!
On the long descent from the top of rosedale chimney bank I had the wind behind me and a spun out my very top gear which I have never done befor. No speed so I am not able to tell you the exact speed but I guess a bit faster than 52:12 can spin.
edit 42 mph
There appear to be 3 of us with faulty Strava apps, GPS's and bike computers on different days.
[url=app.strava.com/rides/9703401#172722773]app.strava.com/rides/9703401#172722773[/url]
Managed 29mph down the lockerbrook descent down to ladybower last Sunday and 28mph down the big descent into cwm rhader recently.
Doubt it's accurate but Sunday I had 40mph. Not quite sure where or how.
@shibboleth, yeah i had more frontal area for sure, and no i wasnt pedalling, 46/12 gave me a max pedalled speed of about 45mph, and i wouldnt be providing much power at that speed i dont think.
thor hushovd did 68 mph on a shallower slope, with less weight pushing him along, without the benefit of a massive tailwind.(afaik)
if i regularly recorded that type of speed then yeah id be sceptical myself, but it was a one off event, ive been back on that road many times as it was a regular route to my grandparents house, i didnt acheive that type of speed again. also, i didnt experience that type of tailwind again either, i think that was the deciding factor.
you obviously dont believe its possible, fair enough, go try it for yourself.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1093&bih=500&wrapid=tljp1343824778236038&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=killhope+lead+mining+museum%2Bmap&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=killhope+lead+mining+museum&cid=0,0,4037845047115118006&sa=X&ei=lSMZUOb4IISr0QWc5IDwBg&sqi=2&ved=0CI4BEPwSMAA
heading east towards this place.
Come on Marty, every time you tell a lie, a fairy dies. Let's just admit that your Cateye was waaaay out and stop the killing!
Just checked FB and the two fairies I know are still alive.
it could have been out, i said that at the very start, no computer is truly accurate is it.
im on holiday in 2 weeks, and im seriously considering taking the cx bike and full susser down there, be interesting to see how much slower a fat git goes. (i mean me btw)
i dont have the same bike any more unfortunately, just a full susser and a cx bike, but could take them both for comparison.
Did 32mph last night in the gathering gloom down a rutted field - felt rather sketchy... Haven't been faster than 40mph on-road.
Here's a video someone shot of hitting 48mph on Devil's Dyke, where I mentioned earlier. Definitely worth checking out if you're on the South Downs near Brighton and feel the need for speed 🙂
Not sure about all time, but clocked 59.3kmh last week sometime (new to Strava so unsure how to see speed vs location) during a couple of loops of Innerleithens' Red route.
48.9 down Drum Mountain but overtaken by a fat bastard who had more gravity 😉
TBH not much difference in speed but he must have touched 50...fried the brakes when we tried to stop....it is bowling green smooth though
46mph on the geared bike and 41mph on the rigid singlespeed down the same hill. I'd say faster is possible but there are a few blind corners at the top of the hill followed by a steep straight section and a mini roundabout followed by a t junction at the bottom so only a hundred yards or so to get your speed up. I could go faster if I could slow down faster!
Shame on all those who think that weight has a bearing on descending speed: acceleration due to gravity is 9.81 m/s/s regardless of mass.
If you are fatter then you will have a greater force due to gravity, but a greater mass to accelerate.
Managed 52mph years ago, on a DH bike, riding steep fireroads in the Alps that wouldn't have looked out of place on the old Mammoth Mountain Kamikaze race of the 90's. Scared me a lot, I have no desire to do that again! For reference, 160mph on a motorbike (on pretty narrow back roads) felt safer!
Have only managed 48.6mph on the road bike strangely! Mind you, never ridden it anywhere especially steep by comparison.
Shame on all those who think that weight has a bearing on descending speed: acceleration due to gravity is 9.81 m/s/s regardless of mass.
If you are fatter then you will have a greater force due to gravity, but a greater mass to accelerate.
Dear god man this has been done MANY times before.
You're not taking into account wind resistance and drag, which is proportional to the contact patches of the tyres and the frontal area of the rider.
A fat man may weigh 50% more than a skinny man on the same bike, with the same pressure in the tyres, but his frontal area will probably only be 25% larger as will the tyre contact patches.
The fat man is therefore subject to proportionally more accelerative forces than the skinny man, thus his terminal velocity without pedalling will be higher!!!
PLEASE only enter into scientific arguments if you actually know what you're talking about...
EDIT: I have simplified this greatly, obviously there are many more variables in the equation, but the point is that gravity is not the only force acting on the rider, and as such, people with a greater weight to frontal area ratio (ie. fatties) go faster downhill.
So the fat man has a higher drag and more rolling resistance, and this will make him faster?
(Edit: drag, not CD)
42 mph recorded on a cateye computer on my old firemountain on a smooth and steep forest road binned it when I went for the brakes though. Bounced a long way in the nice soft gorse but was still a mess at the end of it, probably still over 20mph when I came off.
Got a road descent where I reckon 60mph is possible just need a spotter as it involves straight lining a corner. Very smooth quiet road in the middle of nowhere.
Please not again, someone make him stop!
Matt
shibbolath,look
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_records
78 on the road bike.45 on the mtb.fire/gravel road.
63 on the flat on a road bike behind a truck.
that's km,not miles.
43 mph on the road, prob only high 20s/30 off road though.
48 mph down the minor road from Nant-yr-arian to Penrhyncoch one night, and have clocked 38 mph on the bottom of the moorland section of the Summit Trail there. Latter was a tad dodgy as there were sheep about doing their usual random sprints across the trail
Okay, I was talking rubbish.
Just did the maths though (will this get me banned?), and terminal velocity appears to be proportional (assuming identical CD) to the square root of area over mass, i.e. sqrt(A/M).
Assuming that increased mass results in simply a bigger person (same density just bigger in very dimension), then area will scale as M^(2/3).
This results in terminal velocity (if my maths is still good at this time of day) varying with M^(-1/6).
Therefore doubling mass gives ~0.9 times terminal velocity.
A gross simplification perhaps, but it's a bit better than fatter=faster.
A gross simplification perhaps, but it's a bit better than fatter=faster.
This pleases me... You may continue! 😉
49.8 according to my Garmin.
Arggg, doing too many bits of simultaneous maths..
Terminal velocity goes as sqrt(M/A)...
So for scaled up identical density people V_t = kM^(1/6)
Doubling mass leads to a 12% increase.
I'm trying to do something really quite complex at the same time as this, either this excuses my poor efforts at very basic aerodynamics, or I'm going to be spending the next month debugging a truly awful model as I'm in no state to be working...
Ive been eye watering fast whatever speed that is?
that depends if you were wearing goggles/glasses or not.
49.2mph according to cateye down Winnat's Pass on the road bike. Endomondo said 60!
58mph, 1995, Kona Hahanna, lycra, Corney Fell.
6 riders in full on tucks all registered between 55 -60mph on various makes of computer so I reckon it's as accurate as anything else.
We tried it again the next day in the wet and 3 ended up in hospital...
[url= http://app.strava.com/rides/14840179 ]If its not on Strava etc etc[/url]
76.7 kmh on road, with road bike - full tuck, spinning out the gears. Reckon the only way to go quicker is to find a steeper, longer hill and have an operation to pin my ears back