Monday, May 24, 2004

Bike Odometer

Tracie and I purchased a pair of odometers for our bikes. I installed mine yesterday, but I haven't gotten around to putting Tracie's on yet. It only takes a couple of minutes to do, and Tracie hasn't had a chance to go on a bike ride yet, on account of the poor weather we have been having and work.

The odometer is a fun little toy to have on your bike. It tells you how fast you are going, how far you have gone (both on the current trip and total distance), your average speed, if you are accelerating or decelerating (it detects if you have eaten celery that day, and it tells the correct time. You can also have it display in km or miles.

I found it interesting that on flat ground, I like to travel around 20 km/hr. Going 30 km/hr is pretty easily accomplished without much effort and going down a slight hill, it is quite easy to break 40 km/hr.

On trails around town, most are marked with a speed limit of 20 km/hr down hills. It seems to me that even the most responsible riders would have a hard time justifying going that slow down a hill, even if they were able to know how fast that they were actually going. 20 km/hr is actually quite slow.

Maybe someday I will ride my bike across Canada. If I could average 20 km/hr for 10 hours per day it would take me about 38 days. BC might cause some problems, but once I hit the continental divide, it's all downhill, and I think that I could make up a lot of time.

After awhile, I would be in prime bike riding shape and I could probably kick it up a notch and maybe hit 25 km/hr average speed. It would mean completing the cross Canada trek in a mere 30 days.

-Gary

ps. I'll call you from Halifax in July.

No comments: