True speed of average car commute

[jimboalee]

How old were the geria ... *ahem* ladies in question?!

When I was in my teens, in my red Alfa ( cus Jensens were out of the question, being the price of a house ), I also had a dogs bollox racing bicycle.

From experience, the lightest and most expensive racing bicycle ridden by the guy with the biggest legs in the group was NEVER going to be a 'fanny magnet', even when we were standing outside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre cafe where the girlies congregated.

In the evenings though, sat behind a leather steering wheel with the Alfa badge on it, the bunnies came hopping.


When a chap walks into a club ( any age chap ), one thing that is a certain impossibility is :-
A girl thinks to herself "Cor, look at that intelligent chap".

The chap has to demonstrate by posture and appearance he 'lives comfortably' by showing prizes earned by his clevenress ( or lottery win ).

When chatting up said girl, try saying "I've got a Specialized SWorks roadrace bike that weighs 16lb", and see how far you get.

You should say "I've got a Bentley Continental GT".


I chatted up a lady once and she asked me "What's the square root of minus one?"
"J". I'm still with her.

 

[Greenbank]

I get about the same, but this is rolling traffic speed. The average doesn't include time stopped at lights, and I would be very surprised if your calc did.

Maybe 1mph less when looking at elapsed time rather than rolling time, but I'm confident that my assertion will hold even considering elapsed time. It's the bits between home and Putney Bridge, and Lambeth Bridge and work that bring down my average speed. On the bit in between I generally get stopped by only one or two sets of lights. If I get stopped by one set then the next group are usually green. Progress along Embankment is swift.

I can confirm it have a look tomorrow when I get back into work as I have pretty much every one of my commutes logged with both moving average (from cycle computer) and elapsed time thanks to the GPS.

Looking at what images I've uploaded before, the first of these shows a very uncharacteristic stop start commute:-

http://www.greenbank.org/misc/commutes.jpg

The second shows the return journey (albeit at 8pm, and after playing 5-a-side football for an hour and two pints in the pub, so rather heavier legs) with almost no stops (despite me stopping for every red light).

Given an average, relatively clear run, with only a few stops (http://www.greenbank.org/misc/commute_in.jpg is a poor example, still more stoppy than usual, and is HR trace only not speed) the average closes in on 20mph. The dip at 5 minutes will be waiting to turn left onto Putney Bridge, Lambeth Bridge will be just before the 25 minute mark. So that's 18-ish minutes to do 5.3 miles. 17.6mph.

Obviously the GPS trace doesn't tell me whether I saw any of the same cars/vehicles over Putney Bridge as I saw near Lambeth Bridge, but it's pretty common. Today, as I coming in after 9am, they were all faster than me. I rarely saw the same cars after Parson's Green.