Miles or Km

[Shut Up Legs]

What gets me is that there's no useful abbreviation for miles, so when I cycle 161km, did I cycle 100ml, or 100mls, or ???
On the other hand, miles works better in poetry and songs, rhyming with words such as piles.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

What gets me is that there's no useful abbreviation for miles, so when I cycle 161km, did I cycle 100ml, or 100mls, or ???
On the other hand, miles works better in poetry and songs, rhyming with words such as piles.

It’s 100 mi

 

[Dogtrousers]

As a child of the 60s I can mentally juggle most everyday units but there are a couple that really throw me, and I'm reduced to counting on my fingers.

The first is use of lbs for any large quantity (bigger than, say, a turkey). Mainly Americans do this, for example giving the weight of people or vehicles in lbs. What's that all about? Use kg, tons, tonnes, cwt, stone and I'm fine ... but not lbs. And 2.2 is a really awkward factor for convering to kg.

The second is feet for any large quantity. I'm fine with feet for the height of people, the depth of ditches and so on but anything bigger than that really throws me. 2,000 feet? WTF? Yards, metres, miles, km fine. But feet? Are you insane? (or a commercial pilot). Fortunately a quick division by 3 reduces it to yards, which are roughly a slightly smaller version of metres.

Both of the above I suspect are Americanisms. (Who also have their own pints, tons and hundredweight plus a slightly different mile standard I think)

Also fluid ounces. But I have never in my life had any reason to be interested in fl oz, and I doubt I ever will.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Miles for the bike and the car but always Kilometers when hoofing around in the mountains.

 

[Ashimoto]

Miles

 

[PaulSB]

Here's a fun game for you. Assuming your computer reads out miles, after one mile you wonder how far you have gone in km. You make a guess: It's about 2km so you say to yourself "1 mile is 2 km". It's a pretty poor estimate but it will do.

Now wait until you have done that number of miles, in this case 2. Add together the two previous numbers and you will get a better estimate - in this case 2 miles is 3 km.

And repeat the process: 3 is 5 (ie 2+3); 5 is 8 (3+5); 8 is 13 (5+8); 13 is 21 and so on. With each step your estimate will get better. By the time you get to 8 is 13 the error is already less than 1%.

Unfortunately I lied and it doesn't keep getting better for ever. Eventually it settles down with an over-estimate error of about 0.5%.

Of course what you are doing is calculating the Fibonacci numbers as you go along. Who says long distance cycling is boring?

I think this is just a variation on ÷3 *2 or *2 ÷3 depending on which conversion one is doing?

It's the one I always use

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The first is use of lbs for any large quantity (bigger than, say, a turkey). Mainly Americans do this, for example giving the weight of people or vehicles in lbs. What's that all about? Use kg, tons, tonnes, cwt, stone and I'm fine ... but not lbs. And 2.2 is a really awkward factor for convering to kg.

Divide by 2 then subtract 10% will get you near enough

So 168 pounds
Divide by 2 gives you 84kg
10% of that is 8 kg
So it’s 76kg

 

[Dogtrousers]

I think this is just a variation on ÷3 *2 or *2 ÷3 depending on which conversion one is doing?

It's the one I always use

No, the Fibonacci calculation is due to the fact that, purely by chance, the km to mile conversion factor (1.6093) is almost the same as the golden ratio (1.61803). It's just a bit of fun - it's of no practical use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

 

[PaulSB]

No, the Fibonacci calculation is due to the fact that, purely by chance, the km to mile conversion factor (1.6093) is almost the same as the golden ratio (1.61803). It's just a bit of fun - it's of no practical use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

That was an interesting read. Thank you.

The only golden ratio I was previously familiar with was 1000 feet climbed for every 10 miles ridden!!!!

 

[Vantage]

My dad's attempt to get me to pay more attention at school was to point out that I wouldn't always have a calculator to hand.
Then some smart arse invented the smart phone.
Miles to kilometers? Problem solved.

 

[Vantage]

Okay, you've convinced me, I've just switched back to miles!!!

 

[oldwheels]

Weight and volume I use metric but I convert fuel measure into gallons. Distance always miles. When in the past I bought yarn it was always metric but before that I bought barley in tons.

 

[mjr]

Both of the above I suspect are Americanisms. (Who also have their own pints, tons and hundredweight plus a slightly different mile standard I think)

All use of miles in this day and age is an Americanism, expressing a hope that England will be dominated by its former colony instead of cooperating with its neighbours.

I set everything to km except the car head up display when driving in the UK because I don't want to speed if I misremember part of the sixteen times table! Annoyingly, that sets all other car displays to Imperial, including fuel economy and range.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Interestingly, if we consider folk units I'm told that in some markets in Normandy the produce is still sold in "livres" (pounds) that predate the revolution.

Science and engineering is conducted primarily using SI units because anything else would be - not to put too fine a point on it - plain stupid. But it doesn't really matter a damn what ordinary people (including cyclists!) use.

I drink water in pints, set my gears up using gear-inches, measure my rims and tyres in mm and my rides in km and elevation in m, on tyre pressures in either bar or psi depending on which pump I'm using. How others do it is interesting, but not important.

 

[Hugh Manatee]

My dad was a fencer and drainage contractor. Way back in his younger days he still quoted for digging drains by the chain (22 yards)

Gunter was a genius. Mathematician and Clergyman if memory serves. His 22 yd chain allowed integration of imperial and metric systems.
I believe it is also why a cricket pitch is still 22 yards long.