Speed kills/thrills?

Dave - I'll have to video a descent of Ditchling Beacon again then. I think this time I'll recruit help as I went into the 150 degree right hander on the wrong side of the road using the stupid logic of youth that it's early in the morning and one car has already come up the other side. I think the first road traffic accident was a bit like this.

Clocked over 80kph on my mountain bike many times descending from Allport Heights towards Belper. I was getting close to that on my road bike here in Shropshire recently until the wind got under my Garmin etrex and whipped it off the handlebars and broke an internal connection. Garmin kindly replaced it with a new one for £68. I may be a demon descender, but I only wish I could get up the hills as well.

Hi the fastest ive clocked is going down hill into Barton under needwood and i topped 46.2mph then i started to think im gonna be a heap of snot ifi come off.But hey ho the thrill was fantastic

49.8mph on the Dragon ride - the wind resistance difference between 40-45 then 45-50 is quite marked!

I commute across the Quantock Hills in Somerset and my return journey usually takes me down Cothlestone Hill where my speed peaks between 45 and 50 mph. If I take the alternate route down Crowcombe Hill I've clocked 63 mph more than once (double checked by GPS and cycle computer).
You just need to have confidence in your brakes though, because I don't think the "Escape Road" at the bottom would be much use.

Here's the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOvwwO-l4ps

Exactly abudhadiChris, which is why this fact could only have been tested on the moon (that video alone shows that we must have been there).

60mph, Elm Grove Brighton is my record although that might have been a faulty cycle computer. I regularly took the left hander at the bottom above 40mph and was able to pull up at the next lights (by the corner of the level) in time.

1:25 is my record for descending Ditchling Beacon, an average over 40mph. If only I could climb as well!

I hit 52.4mph descending Dundry once. Hell of a rush.

Is being heavier an advantage when it comes to descending? I don't know, I'm asking. In terms of all-out speed I'd guess that the increase in momentum would outweigh the increased air resistance from being slightly bigger. But air resistance is tricky stuff, and I don't know if the sums would back me up.

In terms of cornering, does the increased tyre contact and friction outweigh the extra momentum?

I've hit 91km/h on a closed bypass; it's one of the few times that the gravitational effect of being 'large' has been appreciated!

My fastest - 89 km/h (55.3 mph) down the descent to Kalba in the UAE.

i think my 50mph days might be behind me now, i was young and foolish then (i feel old and foolish now)

I take childish - but real - pleasure in triggering a (30mph limit) speed camera every time I use Ditchling Road, one of the hiller routes into Brighton.

57mph sounds well hairy Dave. I don't think I've broken the 50mph mark. I'm always too terrified to look down when I get past 45 or so. I reckon 47-48 is as fast as I've gone.

If the rozzers stop you and ask you 'How fast do you think you were going?', just say 'I think I was going [enter speed limit here], officer'

So what is everyone's fastest clocked speed then? A bit off-topic but might be interesting

Mine's 57mph, coming off the Ventoux. Best I've managed in this country is 54mph somewhere outside Dumfries...

As Dave says, speed limits are for motor vehicles and bikes aren't caught by them. So you can 'break' them to your hearts content without fear of successful prosecution!

That said, I've found the police are generally not inclined to ticket cyclists for speeding (just to tell you to be more careful), and once you've been stopped it's not usually worth arguing the toss - I've been stopped by the police on several occasions (when I was much younger!) and they've never given anything but some friendly and sensible words of warning.

I don't think I could make 50mph going downhill with a tail wind although without a speedometer how would I know? I have passed one of those speed measuring devices registering me at 23mph but I think it measured the car behind me as I think it can't detect bicycles in the same way as most automatically changing traffic lights ignore me. There are plenty of 20mph zones now on my daily route so it is easy to fit a speedometer to a Brompton?

There's no legal requirement for a bike to carry a speedometer, so you can't be prosecuted for speeding on a bike in England.