Miles or Km

[Dogtrousers]

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.

I'd not heard of him. But I have now. Will read further

 

[Edwardoka]

Also the Velominati say you should use kilometres. Which is probably a very good reason to use something, anything, else. Kilosmoots, for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot

I feel that this wiki link didn't get enough appreciation.
The guy the Smoot was named after became chairman of ANSI and president of ISO.
If anyone knows anything about standards, he does. I'll be going with Smoots from now on.

 

[Tenkaykev]

I would walk 800k, and I would 800 more...
To be the man who walks 1600k to fall down at your door...

 

[Dogtrousers]

I would walk 800k, and I would 800 more...
To be the man who walks 1600k to fall down at your door...

Have you got anything by Km Wilde?

 

[Shearwater Missile]

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?

Whenever I was on the continent travelling and road signs were in km and I wanted a quick conversion to miles all I did was 1/2 the km and then add 1 for every 10km. Thus 10km divide by 2 =5 +1 = 6 miles actually it is 6.2 in reality but pretty darn close when you are assuming that the road signs are correct anyway. So 80km /2 =40+8 =48miles.

 

[snorri]

Assuming your computer reads out miles, after one mile you wonder how far you have gone in km. You make a guess:

I don't guess!
I got bored with the guessing game and bought a second computer to mount on my 'bars.
Of course this can lead to frustration as when converting miles to km (or vv) at the end of the day the distances recorded never agree, a bit like the man with two watches who is never sure of the exact time.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Of course the burning question is, do you say kilOMeters or KILometers?

Must be the latter, it's the only one that makes sense.

 

[Edwardoka]

Must be the latter, it's the only one that makes sense.

Bear in mind that there are some on here who think that "bath" doesn't rhyme with "path" and that "issue" doesn't have a "sh" sound in it

 

[pjd57]

I would walk 800k, and I would 800 more...
To be the man who walks 1600k to fall down at your door...

Would you be bringing almost every penny home or would it be cents ?

 

[Mr Celine]

Weights and measures for sale, which are the metric examples you quote, were forced on people by law. They were never adopted with any enthusiasm. People use the old imperial measures among themselves, although mm and g come in useful for small things (thou, 32nds and drams are a bit esoteric).

SI units make sense for science. I did an engineering degree and the American units are horrific. They taught us a bit of that stuff to show us how to appreciate SI.

Btw, I was only taught metric at school (cgs) and I was vehemently opposed to Brexit. But imperial units make sense for everyday purposes as they are the right size, arrived at by custom and long use.

Imperial measures ie London measures were forced on people by law.
In Edinburgh, for example -
A mile was 1807metres
A pint was 1.696 litres
A pound was 624 grams
No doubt the locals thought these units made sense for everyday purposes. Or perhaps the English are just lightweights.

 

[newfhouse]

Kilometres, just to irk the luddites.

 

[the_mikey]

I use Kilometres mostly, but mindfully convert to Miles when talking to 'normal' folk. 😬

 

[lane]

I use Kilometres mostly, but mindfully convert to Miles when talking to 'normal' folk. 😬

This. Also, i'm not really prepared to die in a ditch over it - just not really that important to me.

 

[SuperHans123]

Miles.
KM for kidding yourself you've gone further.

 

[rogerzilla]

I'm a big fan of fathoms, personally. Brilliant way to visualise depth.