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Comment by j0057 | Hacker News Reader

In an unclear situation (i.e. any busy city), doing 30 km/h is way too fast. The sibling post talks about 25 mph = 40 km/h(!), that's racing speed, pretty dangerous if there is other traffic around.

There's a difference between the cycling the Dutch do at 18-20 km/h -- maybe 25 km/h on a dedicated cycle path with no chance of interaction with other traffic -- and race-cycling at 30+ km/h, which is in no way appropriate in a city with pedestrians and cars. I saw it in London too: very busy streets, and the cyclists are in full racing gear on racing bikes where they're hunched over instead of upright (bad for overview of traffic situations), doing 25-30 km/h, that's asking for trouble and it also gives cyclists a bad name.

It also explains why people complain about getting to work sweaty -- they're going way too fast! If you relax and do 18 km/h, it will take only a little bit longer but you won't be soaked when you arrive.

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As I said in another message, the Dutch are lucky to have cities that are mostly flat.

In my city we've got some hills in spite of the region being plain — and riding a bike on a slope you can easily reach 60 km/h without sweating. It's foolish to do so, but you get carried away.

I was driving way too fast on that event and I even told that girl afterwards that she may have stepped on the bike lane, but I was also going too fast.

However not to detract from my main point — when I first fell off my bike this year and hit my helmet-protected head, I wasn't doing more than 10 km/h. And so in both situations I was protected by my gear and the outcome would have been much worse without it.

Except for people trying to be fit, your speeds keeps increasing for a while. When I was in good bike shape (am not now), I would need to ride 20 MPH to get a decent workout. Riding 15mph wouldn’t even get my heart rate to 120. High heart rate is important to get the health effects of a workout. The whole reason I commuted on bike was to get a workout as I travel

Either

A) the paths need to be safe up to a reasonable workout speed (25 mph)

B) people wanting a workout need to buy heavier and heavier bikes to go slower. I can get a great workout at 15 MpH if I ride a 49 pound fat bike with huge knobs.

It would seem pretty silly for me to commute to work at 15 mph, get no health benefit, then go spin on a stationary bike at 25 mph.....

> In an unclear situation (i.e. any busy city), doing 30 km/h is way too fast.

Yet drivers of motor vehicles can go that speed without too many issues between intersections. If one rides a bike in the middle of the general purpose traffic lane, then going 25 mph is safe.

> It also explains why people complain about getting to work sweaty -- they're going way too fast!

Depending on the distance one must cover during the commute, going "fast" is necessary if you want to complete your trip in a reasonable period of time. If I wanted to go at walking speed, then I would just walk.

Your definition of safe must be different than mine, because car drivers are protected by wrinkle zones, roll cages, airbags and seatbelts, whereas a cyclist is less visible, takes up less space and has ~nothing to protect their body.

Yet, motorcyclists ride in the traffic lane at similar speeds on urban streets. The definition of safety is to act in a predictable manner in terms of following the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Then you're far less likely to be involved in a collision in the first place.

There are large portions of the world where you could walk your bike to work ~1km away and still arrive quite sweaty, cycling simply isn’t a viable option in a lot of cases if that’s the concern.

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