I don’t think I’ve ever met someone claiming to be able to easily maintain 70 km/h. Maintaining 50 km/h for an hour puts you well into top professional territory, especially if riding solo.
There’s basically no chance you got to that level without serious training, coaching, and a lot of experience.
That is a very different situation from just using a credit card and being able to zip down the road at 50-60 km/h. People have been killed by these fat bikes (as in, a pedestrian being struck), because fat bikes are significantly heavier than road bikes, and kids with no experience drive them in places where pedestrians do occur.
I doubt you were pulling 50+ km/h in the city centre, or on the beach promenade. Yet this is what we see with fat bikes.
The laws aren’t designed to protect the rider. They’re designed to protect the uninvolved bystanders who just want to enjoy a stroll.
The thing is, I lived where I had several routes of about 2km length with several steep inclines of 12% in them, right from my door. And not much else to do. So I did that, first on a road-bicycle with 26" rims for youths, which I grew out of very fast.
Got a bigger frame with 27 x1 1/4 then.
Now when that was new to me, I've been KO after riding up there, even needed to step of the bike, some times. But I persisted. Got myself some 'mountain gears' for the rear hub(ten speed only, so five mountain gears back there).
That helped. But I grew out of these, too! Because I didn't need them anymore!
Installed the normal ones back, and thundered uphill as if it was nothing, being just warmed up enough to thunder over the mostly flat, and excellently paved ways going through the forest on the high plateau.
Giving it all, until absolute exhaustion, pulsating tunnelvision, nearly 'grey-out'. Again and again. By myself. No coaching whatsoever. Until I didn't have these grey-outs anymore. I later discovered this is called "Interval Training".
Topped that by installing cranks two centimeters longer than usual, and installing 'speed gearing' front and right, to get an even higher transmission ratio.
Where only 3 to 4 speeds were really usable for me. The rest I had no use for(most of the times). I started mostly in the eight gear, carefully, to not burn rubber, because tires were expensive for me. Didn't help much though, because even with that gearing the back wheel slipped when I pushed down hard from stand in tenth gear.
So wheelie it was, because why not? Whoo hoo hoo!
> I doubt you were pulling 50+ km/h in the city centre
Of course I've been, to show off! :) Sustained for my way to school for about 10km, without breaking a sweat, not arriving wet and stinky. Even in bad weather. Because that took me 15 minutes max, and public transport would have taken me 45 minutes to an hour. I tested. And refused.
(Imagine the surprised faces of some girls in my class, seeing me arriving in time, after I waved to them in the tram they rode, at the start of the trip(Heart Heart Heart beating sooo fast(Theirs). Ooooo wow!(Giggle))
At the time I made up to 300km per day, which I didn't even notice at first, because all I ever cared for was moving the 'needle' to the right as far as possible for as long as I could. A neighbor looking at my speedometer noticed that, and of course couldn't believe it :-)
Now that wasn't the rule, but it 'happened' again and again. 150km to 200km was more normal.
When I've been out of money for spare parts I ran 'almost-marathon' up there, just 39km instead of the usual 42.x. Sometimes two times, after a short pause, and a meal, back home. I didn't feel good until I had that sort of exercise. Shrug?
One could say my power was equivalent to a light motorcycle with up to 60cc. 50cc I always won against. 80cc I've been chanceless against, except if the rider switched and coupled clumsily, but not for long, they always won.
What else? I could jump over closed turnpikes, and the hoods of (police)cars. Still can do, btw.
> The laws aren’t designed to protect the rider. They’re designed to protect the uninvolved bystanders who just want to enjoy a stroll.
I actively avoided pedestrians, meaning going slow in the forest on weekends, or not going fast at all along the river. Only during bad weather when there only were few people, or none at all.
Also not harassing them in the pedestrian zones downtown, just slowly curving around them, sitting upright, hands off the handlebar. Sometimes from still afar(when they were standing in clusters with no way around them), to not disturb them by ringing the bell, instead saying loudly ring, ring and making "parting the water" motions
with my hands :-)
Maybe it's a cultural thing?
Had different relations with most car drivers, though. They always honking, me always flipping them the bird, because I've been just going within their flow, instead of the curb, without forcing them to slow down, so fuck off? (Yes, I knew about dead/blind angle already, and rode accordingly)
With all that said let me intone Darth Vader here: "I find your lack of faith disturbing!"
Great story, and I believe you. I go through similar slope to work, 5 to 15%, 120 m altitude difference. Doing it daily since Covid has improved my fitness a lot. I fully believe that doing something like you in my teenager days would have shaped me differently.
There’s basically no chance you got to that level without serious training, coaching, and a lot of experience.
That is a very different situation from just using a credit card and being able to zip down the road at 50-60 km/h. People have been killed by these fat bikes (as in, a pedestrian being struck), because fat bikes are significantly heavier than road bikes, and kids with no experience drive them in places where pedestrians do occur.
I doubt you were pulling 50+ km/h in the city centre, or on the beach promenade. Yet this is what we see with fat bikes.
The laws aren’t designed to protect the rider. They’re designed to protect the uninvolved bystanders who just want to enjoy a stroll.