That's unbelievable to imagine honestly, someone on a bike going as fast as they can and this guy sprinting past them
But it's reality
Reaching those speeds on level ground doesn't seem possible for a normal human, but level ground is rare.
I think if we're talking about how fast you can get your bike to go, flat land, still air is implied. I don't have a lot of those conditions to try, but I'm happy to cruise around 15, and maybe push it to 20 if I don't need to save my energy for a nearby hill.
I used to be a back-of-the-front-of-the-pack triathlete, with a previous history as an ultramarathon and touring cyclist. In my best shape (probably aged around 46), I was training on a flat loop course with some younger very strong but not professional cyclists where we would generally pull the group at 28mph for about between 20-60 seconds at a time.
I appreciate that there's a distance between that sort of thing and an "average person", but it's not a whole lot larger than the distance between the people who were in the group and, say, professional tour cyclists.
People like Bolt should be compared with bike sprinters, who top out at around 45mph.
It’s awe inspiring. His times are just so fast, and over hilly terrain in the heat, for day after day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_track...
edit to add the Tokyo Olympics qualifiers all under 10 seconds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_at_the_2020_Summer_Oly...
A friend of mine had a low speed crash on his bike, and knocked his front teeth out. After that, both he and I bought full face helmets.
When I ride dirt bikes, I wear a full set of armor. I look like a storm trooper. But I've crashed many times, and was unhurt. The armor is worth every penny. (The only way to learn how to ride a dirt bike is by crashing it.)
also low speed crashes can be worse than high speed because it's worse to hit and stick vs hit and slide.
Personally would argue these guys do this same sprint/distance so many times in practice/competition that they generally implicitly know when they're running a WR type time and generally don't slack off (in this video he's not in any threat of being caught but still presses on for the WR).
This is obviously dangerous, but the truck was going slow; slow enough that if it slammed on the brakes, I would have been able to react (and failing that, not get badly hurt).
It was a strange sensation. It took effort to pedal up to the tailgate, but then you feel the effort drop off, as if you went over an invisible ridge.
They are usually speed limited to below what a road bike travels at, but in bad weather they are very useful windbreaks.
Today, I regularly see e-bikes and scooters easily keeping up with traffic that is moving upward of 50 km/h.
If there are still e-things on the market today with speed limitations not related to their power capacity, people must be easily working around those limits somehow, with firmware patches or secret codes or what have you.
Most of the stuff comes from China, which is an uncontrollable entity that doesn't care about regulations in North America and elsewhere.
Where I am the max speed is 32kmh by regulation.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/walking-cycling-and-public-transpor...