Do you find yourself going as fast as you can when you commute or are you more relaxed?

[LiamW]

Had a guy pass me on a CX bike this morning. I made no effort to catch him - but 3 miles down the road, I passed him anyway, blowing out his a****

Regular occurrence on my commute in and out of Belfast. I'm on a cheap Ribble with a rack and panniers while these boyos fly by looking a scalp. The little drag up the Lisburn road home soon sees you spinning by them huffing and puffing.

 

[steveindenmark]

My average riding speed is about 20kph. But I sometimes have commutes where I restrict my speed to under 20kph, except going down hills and then I don't pedal.

It is hard to discipline yourself to do this. But the big surprise is how little time you lose compared to a normal commute where you are often pushing quite hard. By pooling along, you only lose a couple of km per hour.

 

[ianrauk]

It is hard to discipline yourself to do this. But the big surprise is how little time you lose compared to a normal commute where you are often pushing quite hard. By pooling along, you only lose a couple of km per hour.

This in spades.
My usual 17 mile morning commute, dependent on the traffic can average anything between 14-17mph. Today I 'pootled' in, no racing, no 'all out' just taking it easy. I was still within that 14-17 range.

 

[mjr]

This in spades.
My usual 17 mile morning commute, dependent on the traffic can average anything between 14-17mph. Today I 'pootled' in, no racing, no 'all out' just taking it easy. I was still within that 14-17 range.

Amen. And for shorter commutes it's even worse: after four years or so since the last layout change, I'm now pretty sure that the time taken on my most-used 5 mile route is almost entirely determined by at what stage in the cycle I arrive at the second set of traffic lights... if it's a certain stage, I will get straight through without stopping, but arrive at a certain other stage in the cycle, I will get red lights at all of the next four until I'm delayed so it's as if I'd arrived at the straight-through stage. There's two sets of lights that can delay me or speed me up in rare situations but that's marginal, maybe 10 seconds each. Commuting - it's really not about the bike or rider

 

[Slick]

[QUOTE 4995268, member: 43827"]It's only racing if the other rider treats it the same way.[/QUOTE]
Oh they may put on a brave face trying to be all swan like but underneath their pedalling furiously trying to avoid being passed.

 

[mjr]

Oh they may put on a brave face trying to be all swan like but underneath their pedalling furiously trying to avoid being passed.

You keep telling yourself that, me duck, if it helps convince you to go buy a licence, pin a number on your back and test whether you can really race.

 

[Slick]

You keep telling yourself that, me duck, if it helps convince you to go buy a licence, pin a number on your back and test whether you can really race.

I can't, tounge in cheek.