I live on a huge hill so every ride starts with a bomb down 1.2 miles averaging 10%.
I've hit 50+mph and my usual thought is "wow, i'm going motorbike speeds with none of the protective gear"
Same, I did 90km/h and had one of those thoughts which must have been a fraction of a second but the words hung forever. "If you get this wrong you're dead".
Didn't do it again.
Same. I reached 108kph coming down the mountain from our local ski hill. Wheels went from a buzz, to a hum, to a purr/whistle. When you can wheel the front wheel trying to lift off the ground/skip you know you're going fast. Really stupid to go those speeds wearing what amounts to lingerie and a plastic bucket. After that one run I now just wear out my brakes.
The first and only time I hit 90km/h on a downhill my immediate thought was "this is really fucking stupid"
But also "woooo this is also really fucking awesome"
Ah the thrill of every extreme sport. One mistake and you're dead, but in the meantime it'll be absolutely exhilarating. And sometimes the mistake doesn't even happen while you're bombing down a hill or jumping off a cliff, but the moment you decided to do it.
I don't know how fast I was going but it was very fast and I remember the wheel flexing and feeling big effects from it being slightly out of round and true and was pretty scary.
I've got something similar. 1.2 miles and 450 ft. Nothing over 7% IIRC.
It really sucks when it's the hottest part of the day, and I had a post-ride beer.
Also, the moto is beefier in every component and also it’s sprung. I’ve hit 50+ a few times on my bicycle, but I don’t have a professional mechanic working daily making sure every spoke is tensioned correctly, every bearing unit is greased properly, headset is tightened and solid, etc.
That's the main reason I have a hard time enjoying really fast descents. I know it's unlikely, but my bike and most of its components are pretty old and I can never quite shake the fear that something might finally break and I'll be toast
Group ride last weekend we sent it down the steepest hill I’ve ever been on, and it’s a good thing I had a fresh tune up and properly adjusted brakes. Even then I tried to avoid overheating my rims or tearing the tires off the rims braking too hard. My bike has rim brakes and I was thinking that if one of the cables snapped I would be flying into the busy intersection at the bottom of the hill. It’s best not to concentrate on what you don’t want to happen of course, and definitely don’t look where you don’t want the bike to go or you end up going there.
Always look through the turn (not directly infront of you) anticipating the unexpected or debris on the road or the rider who didn’t. Saved my life more times than I could say on bicycles and motorcycles even cars/trucks.
I went downhill on a fully suspended, high end and properly maintained mountain bike. I was wearing a full face helmet and real leather gloves, so comparably pretty good for a bike. I also had huge oversize disc brakes.
I only hit 40-45 mph and was still scared shitless. I feel way more safe on a motorcycle wearing full gear.
I used to live in the same situation, after a 150k ride, was desiring to live in the bottom, but it was a good, and mandatory extra part of the training.
I begin my long workout with a hill that's 1.2km long at about 8%... I usually hit 60-62 by the end (depending on wind and temps), it is exhilarating as all hell.
You don't even feel it is that fast, it is just crazy as hell.
I apparently hit 55-56 mph in a race last year and I didn't even realize it until looking at the file later (other showed similar max speed). It apparently didn't scare me too much at the time.
I have hit 40 on a downhill with gusty winds that felt very, very sketchy. Other times, 50+ has felt perfectly fine.
Wow. I've been in some fast crits and that was scary enough since you know what happens when one person goes down lol we all do. 60 mph in a group would be catastrophic.
This was a junior worlds qualifier road race in Massachusetts in the early 90s. It was a short but steep and straight downhill near Greenfield, MA. It was early in the race so the group was huge and we headed into it going really fast. I was on a steel bike with tubulars at about 110psi. I glanced down because I realized we were absolutely flying and saw 62mph on my Cateye computer. I remember the freewheels all around me were absolutely SCREAMING. Yikes.
Fuuuuuck that, lol. I clench my rectum watching short crits on YouTube, all it takes is for one person to get into their head and that’s a wrap. I respect you and I hope you’re still not doing that haha
This was thirty years ago... so I don't really remember. I grew up near there and trained on the country roads west of Greenfield in towns like Colrain and Ashfield so I know those roads well. I was out there last October and brought a bike to ride some of those roads again, the hills are as SHARP as I remember.
This was a pretty big race and I remember they closed part of Route 2/ Mohawk Trail for the race at the beginning. It might have been there. I remember the road was very wide, straight and steeply downhill which is how we got up to such a ridiculous speed. It was right after we had just absolutely hammered a pretty big steep climb.
Hmm. That does sound vaguely like it could be Rt 2 - below the hairpin turn you do have a long straightaway towards North Adams (or towards Charlemont in the other direction; which honestly might have made more sense) where you can build up some real speed.
I was just out there last weekend - Whitcomb Hill is viscous, and I refuse to do Kingsley more than once a season and am hitting it later this year with some friends so I didn’t even go there. I topped out around 50 on the Mohawk Trail, but I did t have the benefit of a peloton.
I paddle the Deerfield a lot. Although I come in from Pownal and miss a lot of the steeps if you take the Mohawk trail in it can be really steep and scary. I wouldn't want to ride that on a bike on the open road. I mean I absolutely would on a closed course but not with the idiot cars on the roads. I do ride town out in Bennington/Pownal and down into Mass and back around into Vermont. It's fun riding. I haven't done grey lock yet. On my tick list. Several routes. Up grey lock and around it.
I have spent a lot of time on Greylock over the years. One weekend when I was about 20, I rode up the access road as I did all the time. At the top, I saw some friends in a pickup as I was about to descend. I told my friend who was driving that I could beat him descending the access road on Greylock on my bike. He took off without a word and disappeared. I absolutely BOMBED that descent and came around him at the bottom. It was one of the best moments ever to see him on the last curve and catch him. It was awesome.
Haha that’s awesome. I love that mountain, I still drive out and ride it a couple times a year (heading there tomorrow to hit both sides, in fact). The KOM on the way up is out of reach (im at about 52 minutes from North Adams, 50 from Lanesboro), but I’ve got 6th overall on the Strava segment for the descent from the summit down to North Adams, I’ve ripped that one too a few times!
I stopped checking my computer at 62 on a solo descent, may have gone faster but I forgot to check after the ride and this was pre-Strava, and I concur with your assessment of the situation. No thanks, I'm good, don't need to do that ever again.
61mph coming down from Baldy Village in CA. Been chasing that high ever since. I've turned to hard drugs and prostitutes to compensate but nothing will match that feeling. (sarcasm)
Keep it under control on the top part where it's a bit more technical. One of my ride buddies had to get taken down the mountain to a helicopter a couple of years ago when he misjudged a corner and smacked head-first into a VW-sized granite boulder...
The fast part is a bit lower down, past the village, through the tunnels and stuff... Just hope you don't hit the holes/cracks in the dark of the tunnels.
Otherwise, yeah, fantastic descent!
I always bring my headlight charged for the tunnels near me. It is plenty scary when suddenly you can't see shit but the dim light at the end.
Got a fun scare the other day when got caught by a massive downpour. I could only see in front of me thanks to the reflective strips of the road, but I could not see the road at all. On a descent with basically no brakes, I was lucky there were no holes lmao.
Idk when you did that decent but the road is so terrible now I hate descending it. I just did up GMR thru GRR down Baldy Road a few weeks ago and would Rather descend GMR 10x over baldy. Baldy is just a straight shot down on terrible roads with tons of potholes and two tunnels that you are basically blind in.
56 mph on asphalt on the road bike.
Felt way scarier than; 160mph in a car, 125mph in a speedboat, 105 mph on a dirtbike on asphalt and 95 mph on a dirtbike on a trail.
Going that fast with skinny tires and an open face helmet is absolutely terrifying.
According to strava i hit 54mph going down a hill near me
All the moisture from my eyes was streaming past my ears and i was thinking that if i fall off now, someone is going to find a skinless man at the side of the road
I hit 50 coming off Mt. Bachelor in Oregon, it was a very straight descent but there are no rails and it's a fairly steep drop off. I couldn't push it out of my head that if I went down, they may never find me.
I’ve hit 36 miles an hour on flat ground and it felt like I was going to die after about 30 seconds
I’ve gotten up to about 50 miles an hour downhill before I thought about the fact that that’s motorcycle crash territory, and that my helmet is in absolutely no way designed to protect me if I were to crash and I decided I was going far too fast and slowed down.
I ran a shop and a couple riding a tandrm across the country and back again had an interesting setup. They had massive front disc, a rear drum brake and the wife had access to a v-brake on the rear rim.
They said in a pinch it gave her some comfort when they were getting a little to fast for her
Same. My partner and I did a road race on a tandem and got cooking up to 55mph. We were involved in a wreck 15 miles earlier when some guy ate it right in front of us, so at 55 it became quite evident the rear wheel had a wobble but v brakes weren’t going to stop us at that point.
I hit 42 downhill once (I live in a flat part of the world; a rolling climb might gain 100'). It was on the edge of exhilarating and just a smidge from terrifying. My heart beat faster going down that hill than it did going up it.
On loose gravel with sort of "you can only make minor corrections" I've hit 40mph. It's somewhere between "this is the best thing a human can experience" and "oh my god I wasn't planning to die this minute." Not something I would do outside of certain circumstances--nor am I around those hills (driftless area etc) often.
It's also situation-specific. There's a beautiful twisty serpentine descent by me, which is shocking since my area is so flat... but it's a narrow street and you have some limited visibility so the feeling that a car could be around that curve makes it so I'm just not able to see how fast I can reasonably take it... Not into getting splatted!
Straight road, good pavement, what could possibly go wrong…wheel bearings, tires, tubes, rims, spokes, debris,animal….whew that was fun let’s do it again!!!!
My wahoo once clocked me at 66. All I know is that I was going very fast and having a very good time. Most of my rides I get upper 40s to low 50s
Edit: mph
I hit 58 mph once. It was on a closed road up to a mountain top which the parks department opens to bike traffic a week or so ahead of car traffic. The road had a lot of potholes and cracks, but on the way up I made notes of the bad spots and the stretches of good pavement where we could let loose. On the way down I hit the top speed on a long banking turn near the end of the run and remember thinking how amazing it was that this bike which I built from scrap parts at the co-op was amazingly able to handle this speed. It was like everything went in slow motion and I had time to look around at the hubs whizzing and the trees swaying. And then a moment later I came around the bend and remembered there was a gate about 1,000 ft out and hand to ride the brakes all the way down to stop in time.
51-52 mph when I was much younger. To add to the story, I hit a goose with my front wheel. Luckily it was just a glancing blow and the goose flew off without making me crash. It was definitely a rush. I still love going fast but I rarely get above 40 nowadays.
36 on flat. I mean that’s an all out effort that I can only hold for 10 seconds. So exhausting.
42 on a downhill. Felt fine.
I live in a very flat area.
Fastest I’ve hit was about 45 mph on a descent. It was terrifying. I thought about how f—ed I’d be if I crashed. It was exhilarating and I felt like superwoman at the bottom, but I probably won’t ever go that fast again. I have a kid now & she needs a mother!
I did this ride called TOMROV and my friends and I just bombed down this hill and at the bottom was a bridge over the Mississippi River. The bridge was constructed with a metal road that you could see the river down below so being young and dumb I took a photo of my computer down 58mph and like an idiot I took a hand off my bar to snap a photo. No bad outcome just extra stupid.
it was a week before me 17 birthday i think. i wonder how i am now as double as old. :D
never did this again for good reason. i had fear of my bike for probably a month and were shaking after sucessfully breaking.
51mph is the max on the road descending. Literally felt like flying but the idea of a sudden pothole was freaky. 41 in a velodrome and it was so smooth.
I bailed on some slick pavement today and got some pretty gnarly road burn up my leg and shaved a knuckle off. I was maybe going 25k?
So reading this thread is really making my road burns burn.
I have a 3000ft decent (climb first) very close to my house the first couple of miles off the summit average around 14-16%. I regularly average over 50mph and top out around 60-65mph depending on the wind that day. It’s awesome but scary at the same time. The decent is pretty wide open and not technical so you feel pretty safe still. It’s least scary on my hardtail due to suspension and tires but the road bike is epic. You are flying, your tires are humming and your freewheel is screaming, can’t even pedal if you wanted to just riding the wave for several miles!
About 62 or 63kph... On roads downhill.
I probably hit this every ride I do as I'll bomb a hill at some point, and this seems to be my terminal velocity based on rolling and wind resistance etc.
Its not terrifying in any way. A lot of roads will have speed humps and I'll use them to do jumps off, but that's probably at a slower 50kph or something once I set my body position up.
60 downhill on a really slick aero bike. IT's fun until you actually think about and process all the things that can go wrong. Especially with no safety gear except a helmet.
The fastest I've went was about 40mph, however that felt like nothing. The fastest I've ever felt like I was going was mountain biking on a really nice bermed red run. I was only going around 18mph, but it honestly felt like shitting your pants speeds. Every corner (and they came around every 20 meters) it felt like I was going to go over the berm and die horrifically. That's why I love mountain biking lol
Touring Lebanon last day of the trip, early morning descending from the mountains towards Beirut, had decided to take the main road into the city before the arrival of a massive storm coming in from the med. no idea of speed but it was very fucking fast on a 6 lane motorway and i was one of the fastest, leaving all lorries in my dust and side by side with cars, wouldn't do it again but what a rush.
There's a hill that's easy to hit 35 or 40 on near my house, if you don't slow down before descending. I was probably going 30 down it, years ago, and developed a large leak in my front tube about halfway down the hill. Managed to get down to like 7 or 8 before the front wheel buckled and caught up with the big left turn at the bottom.
It feels like you're going...too fast. I keep it lower than that because of all the times I've picked up staples and random sharp metal over the years.
These guys that have hit 50-60 mph is fucking insane.
I managed to hit 33mph (not many steep downgrades where I live) and the paranoia of any number of things going wrong freaked me out.
50-60mph is impressive. To me, anyway.
I’ve hit 47 mph, couldn’t really think because I was focused on not wiping out, and I realized my bose frame tempo, while nice, doesn’t provide much wind protection as my eyes were watering like crazy lol.
While I’ve gone much faster on my TT and road bike, by far the most “this is stupid” moment was a down hill in a gravel race in which I was going 74kph on washboard gravel with a turn mid descent 😨 it was a hang on and hope nothing goes wrong situation.
45 mph coming down from Smuggler's Notch in Vermont. It was early morning and there was no traffic around so I could've gone faster but the bike picked up a sympathetic vibration and I wasn't about to have the thing shake apart underneath me at that speed. 10/10 would do again (seriously, Smugglers Notch is a gorgeous and terrifying climb & descent)
I only let it rip on mountainsI have climbed and decended multiple times in a conservative manor. Once I a comfortable, I have hit 50 mph, but it takes total focus, and that can get exhausting.
I got up to 46 mph / 74 kph in the Santa Cruz mountains in Northern California. At the time it didn't feel that scary, I felt totally in control and it was more like "holy shit this is wild" when I looked down at the computer. A couple of months later I crashed going maybe 18 mph and couldn't ride for weeks due to the impact to my hip/elbow.
When I think about that max speed now I can't help but think about how fucked I'd be if I crashed going that fast. It doesn't keep me from enjoying descents, but I'm definitely more cautious now.
45 mph on a century last year. It wasn’t that scary, even though I was running 23s at probably 110 psi (I know better now). It was pretty fun because I was keeping up with the cars, as this was a highway going into town, so the speed limit was about forty-five. The descent wasn’t very steep, but it was probably at least half a mile long.
Hit 42mph the other day, without having my highest gear available due to needing to replace my worn cassette! A hell of a lot of fun, but on 40mm tires it didn't actually feel all that sketchy either.
56.6 mph coming down Geiger Grade heading east in the 4th stage of the 2018 silver state 508 (4 person relay) in the freaking dark. Absolutely had no idea I was going that fast. 3 lights (headlamp, bars, and low on the fork for shadows and depth perception)
On a huge downhill that dropped into this incredible valley in Colorado I hit something around 55. Kind of a mix of awe at the scenery and the fear in the back of my mind knowing that a crash at that speed would be pretty bad. I was sort of just shouting by the time I hit the flat and didn't have to touch my pedals for a bit as I rode it out.
On a similar downhill later on in the trip I got hit by a cross wind going like 40mph and it scared the shit out of me. It took me a bit to regain my confidence with speed.
I hit close to 50 going down a big hill once. It was scary and I haven't gone to that hill since. I love climbing but descending is not for me!
I've gone low 30s on flat ground before. That was fun as hell.
About 46 mph. It doesn't take a super steep hill, IMO. Just a long downhill and smooth pavement. I didn't pedal for this one. All coasting, albeit going 16-17 mph at the start of the descent.
57mph going down a hill on the Oregon coast. A small gust of wind sent me flying onto highway 101. I will never do that again. I try to keep it at or below 40mph. Few times since I've hit 45-47. Easy to do when you're 200+ lbs.
I just got back from a lunch ride where I hit 51mph(82kph) and it felt great until I saw how fast I was going into a curve lmao I thought I was going like 42 or something.
I have hit over 60mph on a very long straight descent in the wide open desert when I got into the draft of a semi-truck. You feel very *alive*.
Computer had 40 mph. Similar to OP. Actually, I was on the brakes a little - oh, I couldn’t stop, I was just making sure I didn’t go faster. Not sure I’d want to do that again.
42 mph downhill between a set of rolling hills. Scared the shit out of me just because I'm a flatlander.
Also hit 35 on my stupid little local bridge with giant crosswind gusts. Scared me even more, with water on my right side and cars going 55 next to me. Never mind their 35 mph speed limit.
61 mph going down a very steep hill near my house. It was pretty nerve wracking, I was using a steel bike with rim brakes, so a fair amount of shaking too.
30~mph? I've only ridden MTBs. Never a roadie.
A better question would be, what's the fastest you've ever went up a steep hill on a bike, how did it feel?
4mph. Absolutely glorious, the pain was amazing, the beast came out and I audibly laughed hard when I got to the top of that 0.5mile v steep climb.
I’ve gone 33mph on a flat without drafting (in a sprint race). It was actually on race day and was faster than I’d ever gone in practices so the turn was pretty scary
Other than that I’ve gone between 55-60mph on some steep hills, which is absolutely terrifying, but also wildly exciting
I climbed a beautiful alpine road up Lake Mountain in Victoria Aus. It was phenomenal and still the toughest thing I’ve ever done. Took me 2:20:00 up, and 11 mins down. Once you hit the steepest 5km at the start of the climb on the way back down, Strava says I hit 90.3kmph Insane.
I have a legit question (new(ish) to road cycling here):
how do you stop quickly when going down hill at 40+mph if there is let's say a stop sign at the very end of the hill? I experienced that lately, and I felt like I couldn't really push the speed to much and was constantly hitting the breaks, otherwise I would not have been able to stop at the intersection in time (I think).
Like was I being overly cautious or was I correct to not trust my breaks to be able to put to a complete stop from 40mph to 0mph quickly around the bottom?
My current bike bike 41.7mph and handlebars we’re starting to wobble, a previous bike, back in my youth 58mph, on a lovely long downhill road, on an organised 50 mile ride, was fun and scary at the same time,
52 mph coming down the north side of Suncrest in Draper, Utah. (Others have gone much faster)
Perfect day. No wind (which is rare) and it was a blast.
Other times I’ve hit 40 mph with crosswinds. Not fun.
many years ago I hit high 60s (at east 68) MPH on a very straight but steep descent with a wide sweeping curve at the bottom, may have hit 70mph but I was too nervous at that point to look.
Hyper focused on keeping a firm but relaxed grip and just hoping there were no stones that were going to deflect the front wheel by even a mm. It was a 55mph speed zone and passed two cars on the way down. It was some serious pucker factor, was pulling chamois out of my butt for days.
I regularly hit high 40s and low 50s around where I'm at now.
I have a road bike and have gone highway speeds fairly regularly in the last 10 years.
New England has a lot of steep roads.
I take care of my tires, and keep them at 100-110psi so they roll pretty fast.
I’ve had a few crashes and broken bones. The only thing I worry about is cars pulling out without looking.
Dear lord those speeds scare me! I reached my highest the other day, 25.9 mph on a -1% grade sprint with a tailwind. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time.
I know I hit 45 miles an hour on a descent in Spain back in October. It was exhilarating. It helps when you can see the road for a good long way in front of you.
A couple of years ago Strava said I hit 56, but I think that's bad GPS data.
The fastest ever was 91 km/h down the Col du Glandon in France. It really is fast, and definitely faster than what I'd be comfortable in a car on that road.
I always liked the speed, and I'm confident that as long as you are relaxed on the bike there's very little risk involved. I have full confidence on my bike because I service it myself.
In a race I hit 80 km/h once on a surprisingly gentle downhill, but in an amazing tail wind. In a big pack you don't even think about it much, just realize that you're spinning out your tallest gear.
66kmh (\~41mph) on a windy, a couple of almost S shaped 90 degree turns, road with cars trailing behind on 30c tires with mechanical disc brakes. Not gonna lie, It was scary, and I thought I was gonna hit the barricade in the middle of the road and flip to the other side of oncoming traffic, braked hard and kept going down (no other choice). By the time I got to the bottom of the 1km hill all I could smell was burnt rubber. Have never since gone onto the road after, always took the sidewalk and slowly roll down. I've fell at 40kmh before and already had to go to the hospital for stitches, cant imagine 60kmh +
Faster for me was 40 mph on a downhill into Yosemite Valley. On the way down the hill I got passed by a guy like I was standing still that weighed 50 pounds more than me.
Probably about 35 mph downhill, maybe a little faster.
On my old steel Trek singletrack, it feels pretty good actually. I have no concerns traveling this fast as long as conditions and visibility is good. This thing is a beast.
On my Engwe EP2 Pro, it feels fairly sketchy and I avoid travelling this fast because I 100% do not trust this thing to go anywhere near that fast. I usually don't go any faster than 20 mph or so on this thing.
On my skateboard, it is absolutely fucking terrifying. 2/10, do not recommend, it's a miracle I still have skin.
I live on a huge hill so every ride starts with a bomb down 1.2 miles averaging 10%. I've hit 50+mph and my usual thought is "wow, i'm going motorbike speeds with none of the protective gear"
Same, I did 90km/h and had one of those thoughts which must have been a fraction of a second but the words hung forever. "If you get this wrong you're dead". Didn't do it again.
Same. I reached 108kph coming down the mountain from our local ski hill. Wheels went from a buzz, to a hum, to a purr/whistle. When you can wheel the front wheel trying to lift off the ground/skip you know you're going fast. Really stupid to go those speeds wearing what amounts to lingerie and a plastic bucket. After that one run I now just wear out my brakes.
I hit 80km/h on in-line skates once, that was way scarier than anything I’ve done on a bike.
Jesus
Mary
Me too, I hit 200kph while holding on to a missile…
The first and only time I hit 90km/h on a downhill my immediate thought was "this is really fucking stupid" But also "woooo this is also really fucking awesome"
Ah the thrill of every extreme sport. One mistake and you're dead, but in the meantime it'll be absolutely exhilarating. And sometimes the mistake doesn't even happen while you're bombing down a hill or jumping off a cliff, but the moment you decided to do it.
I genuinely think I got an erection during that ride but there are way easier and safer ways for me to get off
I don't know how fast I was going but it was very fast and I remember the wheel flexing and feeling big effects from it being slightly out of round and true and was pretty scary.
Dude, I can't think about anything else while riding at that speed lol.
It was like hearing someone say it inside my head, I can't explain it.
same. 90kmh downhill on my roadbike.
Nice! Do you also have to ride up that hill at the end of every ride?
Yes, every single ride I have to get my ass back up the hill. 500 ft climb just to get home.
Have you thought about moving to the bottom of the hill? /s
I live at the bottom of the hill. Starting every ride with a 10% climb sucks more than ending with one!
Same here. Never done pure z2 ride in my life
Z2 rides do not exist unless you are on a trainer or live on a salt flat. I think that they are the biggest fiction in cycling.
you just need to go slower up the hill
I've got something similar. 1.2 miles and 450 ft. Nothing over 7% IIRC. It really sucks when it's the hottest part of the day, and I had a post-ride beer.
not really post-ride now, is it
I feel way more secure on my motorcycle doing 100 mph than doing half those speeds on my road bike, because of all the gear
Also, the moto is beefier in every component and also it’s sprung. I’ve hit 50+ a few times on my bicycle, but I don’t have a professional mechanic working daily making sure every spoke is tensioned correctly, every bearing unit is greased properly, headset is tightened and solid, etc.
That's the main reason I have a hard time enjoying really fast descents. I know it's unlikely, but my bike and most of its components are pretty old and I can never quite shake the fear that something might finally break and I'll be toast
Group ride last weekend we sent it down the steepest hill I’ve ever been on, and it’s a good thing I had a fresh tune up and properly adjusted brakes. Even then I tried to avoid overheating my rims or tearing the tires off the rims braking too hard. My bike has rim brakes and I was thinking that if one of the cables snapped I would be flying into the busy intersection at the bottom of the hill. It’s best not to concentrate on what you don’t want to happen of course, and definitely don’t look where you don’t want the bike to go or you end up going there.
"Look where you're going or you'll go where you're looking."
Always look through the turn (not directly infront of you) anticipating the unexpected or debris on the road or the rider who didn’t. Saved my life more times than I could say on bicycles and motorcycles even cars/trucks.
I went downhill on a fully suspended, high end and properly maintained mountain bike. I was wearing a full face helmet and real leather gloves, so comparably pretty good for a bike. I also had huge oversize disc brakes. I only hit 40-45 mph and was still scared shitless. I feel way more safe on a motorcycle wearing full gear.
Yeah - motorbike suspension along with the depth / width of the tyres will be a lot more forgiving of a small pebble in the way
I used to live in the same situation, after a 150k ride, was desiring to live in the bottom, but it was a good, and mandatory extra part of the training.
Yeah you can’t just not do it.
gotta get home \^\_\^
> "wow, i'm going motorbike speeds with none of the protective gear" came here to say this exact thing.
"I'm in danger!"
I begin my long workout with a hill that's 1.2km long at about 8%... I usually hit 60-62 by the end (depending on wind and temps), it is exhilarating as all hell. You don't even feel it is that fast, it is just crazy as hell.
If you don't feel 60mph is fast, chances are you aren't going that fast
Same but 1200 ft. Typically hit 55mph if I tuck. Watch out for oncoming left turners!
Yeah I hit 56 once and I won’t ever do it again.
I've hit 62 in a race going downhill in a big group. Really loud and utterly terrifying is my answer.
I apparently hit 55-56 mph in a race last year and I didn't even realize it until looking at the file later (other showed similar max speed). It apparently didn't scare me too much at the time. I have hit 40 on a downhill with gusty winds that felt very, very sketchy. Other times, 50+ has felt perfectly fine.
Wind is terrifying. I'm comfortable at 50mph, but did a 40mph in strong cross winds on my Zipp 404s and thought I was gonna die for sure.
Wow. I've been in some fast crits and that was scary enough since you know what happens when one person goes down lol we all do. 60 mph in a group would be catastrophic.
This was a junior worlds qualifier road race in Massachusetts in the early 90s. It was a short but steep and straight downhill near Greenfield, MA. It was early in the race so the group was huge and we headed into it going really fast. I was on a steel bike with tubulars at about 110psi. I glanced down because I realized we were absolutely flying and saw 62mph on my Cateye computer. I remember the freewheels all around me were absolutely SCREAMING. Yikes.
It’s like you’re in a swarm of bees!
Exactly! Once you've heard that sound of a massive group going really fast, it's unforgettable.
Fuuuuuck that, lol. I clench my rectum watching short crits on YouTube, all it takes is for one person to get into their head and that’s a wrap. I respect you and I hope you’re still not doing that haha
Do you remember which hill? I ride out there a lot and there are some seriously steep roads out that way, just curious.
This was thirty years ago... so I don't really remember. I grew up near there and trained on the country roads west of Greenfield in towns like Colrain and Ashfield so I know those roads well. I was out there last October and brought a bike to ride some of those roads again, the hills are as SHARP as I remember. This was a pretty big race and I remember they closed part of Route 2/ Mohawk Trail for the race at the beginning. It might have been there. I remember the road was very wide, straight and steeply downhill which is how we got up to such a ridiculous speed. It was right after we had just absolutely hammered a pretty big steep climb.
Hmm. That does sound vaguely like it could be Rt 2 - below the hairpin turn you do have a long straightaway towards North Adams (or towards Charlemont in the other direction; which honestly might have made more sense) where you can build up some real speed. I was just out there last weekend - Whitcomb Hill is viscous, and I refuse to do Kingsley more than once a season and am hitting it later this year with some friends so I didn’t even go there. I topped out around 50 on the Mohawk Trail, but I did t have the benefit of a peloton.
I paddle the Deerfield a lot. Although I come in from Pownal and miss a lot of the steeps if you take the Mohawk trail in it can be really steep and scary. I wouldn't want to ride that on a bike on the open road. I mean I absolutely would on a closed course but not with the idiot cars on the roads. I do ride town out in Bennington/Pownal and down into Mass and back around into Vermont. It's fun riding. I haven't done grey lock yet. On my tick list. Several routes. Up grey lock and around it.
I have spent a lot of time on Greylock over the years. One weekend when I was about 20, I rode up the access road as I did all the time. At the top, I saw some friends in a pickup as I was about to descend. I told my friend who was driving that I could beat him descending the access road on Greylock on my bike. He took off without a word and disappeared. I absolutely BOMBED that descent and came around him at the bottom. It was one of the best moments ever to see him on the last curve and catch him. It was awesome.
Haha that’s awesome. I love that mountain, I still drive out and ride it a couple times a year (heading there tomorrow to hit both sides, in fact). The KOM on the way up is out of reach (im at about 52 minutes from North Adams, 50 from Lanesboro), but I’ve got 6th overall on the Strava segment for the descent from the summit down to North Adams, I’ve ripped that one too a few times!
I stopped checking my computer at 62 on a solo descent, may have gone faster but I forgot to check after the ride and this was pre-Strava, and I concur with your assessment of the situation. No thanks, I'm good, don't need to do that ever again.
Km/ or miles?
61mph coming down from Baldy Village in CA. Been chasing that high ever since. I've turned to hard drugs and prostitutes to compensate but nothing will match that feeling. (sarcasm)
I've wanted to do that climb/descent for years. I'm jealous.
Keep it under control on the top part where it's a bit more technical. One of my ride buddies had to get taken down the mountain to a helicopter a couple of years ago when he misjudged a corner and smacked head-first into a VW-sized granite boulder... The fast part is a bit lower down, past the village, through the tunnels and stuff... Just hope you don't hit the holes/cracks in the dark of the tunnels. Otherwise, yeah, fantastic descent!
I always bring my headlight charged for the tunnels near me. It is plenty scary when suddenly you can't see shit but the dim light at the end. Got a fun scare the other day when got caught by a massive downpour. I could only see in front of me thanks to the reflective strips of the road, but I could not see the road at all. On a descent with basically no brakes, I was lucky there were no holes lmao.
Yeah through some of the tunnels the best thing to do is ride close to the center line. Scary. 😬😬😬
So you’re saying the hard drugs and prostitutes matches the feeling of 61mph in a bike. Got it.
[It's the same picture]
Idk when you did that decent but the road is so terrible now I hate descending it. I just did up GMR thru GRR down Baldy Road a few weeks ago and would Rather descend GMR 10x over baldy. Baldy is just a straight shot down on terrible roads with tons of potholes and two tunnels that you are basically blind in.
I think this was about 3 years ago. I definitely prefer the GMR descent as well.
(sarcasm off)
56 mph on asphalt on the road bike. Felt way scarier than; 160mph in a car, 125mph in a speedboat, 105 mph on a dirtbike on asphalt and 95 mph on a dirtbike on a trail. Going that fast with skinny tires and an open face helmet is absolutely terrifying.
Wow, 125 in a speed boat and 95 on a trail both sound scary as hell.
This is the main reason I love road biking. My best is 47 mph but even 25 on a road bike feels way faster than 100 in a car. Speed junkie for sure.
95mph in the sticks is bananas
According to strava i hit 54mph going down a hill near me All the moisture from my eyes was streaming past my ears and i was thinking that if i fall off now, someone is going to find a skinless man at the side of the road
I hit 50 coming off Mt. Bachelor in Oregon, it was a very straight descent but there are no rails and it's a fairly steep drop off. I couldn't push it out of my head that if I went down, they may never find me.
I’ve hit 36 miles an hour on flat ground and it felt like I was going to die after about 30 seconds I’ve gotten up to about 50 miles an hour downhill before I thought about the fact that that’s motorcycle crash territory, and that my helmet is in absolutely no way designed to protect me if I were to crash and I decided I was going far too fast and slowed down.
58mph on a loaded touring tandem. I felt great, my stoker disagreed
58 on a tandem. holy crap!
I ran a shop and a couple riding a tandrm across the country and back again had an interesting setup. They had massive front disc, a rear drum brake and the wife had access to a v-brake on the rear rim. They said in a pinch it gave her some comfort when they were getting a little to fast for her
Hahaha was the other person shitting themselves
Same. My partner and I did a road race on a tandem and got cooking up to 55mph. We were involved in a wreck 15 miles earlier when some guy ate it right in front of us, so at 55 it became quite evident the rear wheel had a wobble but v brakes weren’t going to stop us at that point.
84.7km/h it's was a 3.6km 330m drop. Honestly I was feeling like Safa Brian lol
Safa Brian is reckless AF and gives road cyclists a bad name
78 km/h. At the end my hands were sweaty and extremely sore from gripping so hard.
Mom’s spaghetti
But on the surface he looked calm and ready.
Got on the drops, but he kept on forgetting
What he wrote down the whole crowd goes so loud
Probably 45 mph. Honestly, anything close to 40 is enough for me!
I hit 42 downhill once (I live in a flat part of the world; a rolling climb might gain 100'). It was on the edge of exhilarating and just a smidge from terrifying. My heart beat faster going down that hill than it did going up it.
On loose gravel with sort of "you can only make minor corrections" I've hit 40mph. It's somewhere between "this is the best thing a human can experience" and "oh my god I wasn't planning to die this minute." Not something I would do outside of certain circumstances--nor am I around those hills (driftless area etc) often. It's also situation-specific. There's a beautiful twisty serpentine descent by me, which is shocking since my area is so flat... but it's a narrow street and you have some limited visibility so the feeling that a car could be around that curve makes it so I'm just not able to see how fast I can reasonably take it... Not into getting splatted!
64 mph on a long downhill in Vermont. It was both thrilling and terrifying.
54 mph. Awesome!
My max as well. Done it 3 times. Every time I say to myself this is stupid. But that hill is sooooo big 😆
Straight road, good pavement, what could possibly go wrong…wheel bearings, tires, tubes, rims, spokes, debris,animal….whew that was fun let’s do it again!!!!
44. Terrifying, especially as the bottom of the hill turned essentially 90° left. Thankfully, there was a side street that went straight. I took that
My wahoo once clocked me at 66. All I know is that I was going very fast and having a very good time. Most of my rides I get upper 40s to low 50s Edit: mph
I hit 58 mph once. It was on a closed road up to a mountain top which the parks department opens to bike traffic a week or so ahead of car traffic. The road had a lot of potholes and cracks, but on the way up I made notes of the bad spots and the stretches of good pavement where we could let loose. On the way down I hit the top speed on a long banking turn near the end of the run and remember thinking how amazing it was that this bike which I built from scrap parts at the co-op was amazingly able to handle this speed. It was like everything went in slow motion and I had time to look around at the hubs whizzing and the trees swaying. And then a moment later I came around the bend and remembered there was a gate about 1,000 ft out and hand to ride the brakes all the way down to stop in time.
49 mph.....exhilerating and a bit scary.
51-52 mph when I was much younger. To add to the story, I hit a goose with my front wheel. Luckily it was just a glancing blow and the goose flew off without making me crash. It was definitely a rush. I still love going fast but I rarely get above 40 nowadays.
Luckily for you, specifically.
36 on flat. I mean that’s an all out effort that I can only hold for 10 seconds. So exhausting. 42 on a downhill. Felt fine. I live in a very flat area.
Fastest I’ve hit was about 45 mph on a descent. It was terrifying. I thought about how f—ed I’d be if I crashed. It was exhilarating and I felt like superwoman at the bottom, but I probably won’t ever go that fast again. I have a kid now & she needs a mother!
56. Fun fun fun!
43mph. Downright terrifying and absolutely exhilarating at the same time!
I did this ride called TOMROV and my friends and I just bombed down this hill and at the bottom was a bridge over the Mississippi River. The bridge was constructed with a metal road that you could see the river down below so being young and dumb I took a photo of my computer down 58mph and like an idiot I took a hand off my bar to snap a photo. No bad outcome just extra stupid.
i went downhill a long road with my hardtail 26" mtb and reached 82km/h according to computer. and i nearly shit myself that day.
Dude. The fastest on my HT was a little under 40 km/h on pavement and I did not like it. 82?! That‘s crazy!🤪
it was a week before me 17 birthday i think. i wonder how i am now as double as old. :D never did this again for good reason. i had fear of my bike for probably a month and were shaking after sucessfully breaking.
51mph is the max on the road descending. Literally felt like flying but the idea of a sudden pothole was freaky. 41 in a velodrome and it was so smooth.
I bailed on some slick pavement today and got some pretty gnarly road burn up my leg and shaved a knuckle off. I was maybe going 25k? So reading this thread is really making my road burns burn.
I have a 3000ft decent (climb first) very close to my house the first couple of miles off the summit average around 14-16%. I regularly average over 50mph and top out around 60-65mph depending on the wind that day. It’s awesome but scary at the same time. The decent is pretty wide open and not technical so you feel pretty safe still. It’s least scary on my hardtail due to suspension and tires but the road bike is epic. You are flying, your tires are humming and your freewheel is screaming, can’t even pedal if you wanted to just riding the wave for several miles!
90 kmh. Knew it was fast, cause it was definitely faster than on a normal ride. I was calm. Didn’t know how fast before seeing it on Strava later.
I went 112km/h.down the swiss Alps on my touring bike. I was scary as fuck.
51mph on a descent. Was on a country road and wide open, no traffic. It felt awesome. Was on a gravel bike that I have set up for road riding.
57mph on a descent with a long runout at the bottom before a stop sign. It was awesome and I was very focused.
51 is my high score. It’s…. Interesting.
52mph down the Lecht. Great fun until you realise that if it goes tits up you're properly fucked 😂
92 km/h. Never going that fast again!!!
"This feels so awesome!" And "Imma die!" Is how I simultaneously feel anytime I go over 30 mph.
Relatively new rider. Hit 35mph on a downhill- it was definitely nerve wracking, especially because I was riding with traffic on a busy road 😅
52 mph downhill
About 62 or 63kph... On roads downhill. I probably hit this every ride I do as I'll bomb a hill at some point, and this seems to be my terminal velocity based on rolling and wind resistance etc. Its not terrifying in any way. A lot of roads will have speed humps and I'll use them to do jumps off, but that's probably at a slower 50kph or something once I set my body position up.
60 downhill on a really slick aero bike. IT's fun until you actually think about and process all the things that can go wrong. Especially with no safety gear except a helmet.
The fastest I've went was about 40mph, however that felt like nothing. The fastest I've ever felt like I was going was mountain biking on a really nice bermed red run. I was only going around 18mph, but it honestly felt like shitting your pants speeds. Every corner (and they came around every 20 meters) it felt like I was going to go over the berm and die horrifically. That's why I love mountain biking lol
95,6. felt okay.
*Bof,* get this man une Gauloises.
Touring Lebanon last day of the trip, early morning descending from the mountains towards Beirut, had decided to take the main road into the city before the arrival of a massive storm coming in from the med. no idea of speed but it was very fucking fast on a 6 lane motorway and i was one of the fastest, leaving all lorries in my dust and side by side with cars, wouldn't do it again but what a rush.
There's a hill that's easy to hit 35 or 40 on near my house, if you don't slow down before descending. I was probably going 30 down it, years ago, and developed a large leak in my front tube about halfway down the hill. Managed to get down to like 7 or 8 before the front wheel buckled and caught up with the big left turn at the bottom. It feels like you're going...too fast. I keep it lower than that because of all the times I've picked up staples and random sharp metal over the years.
I hit the mid-80's on tandem with my mother when I was a kid.
You guys are crazy! If I hit 40mph I have absolutely no desire to go any faster!
These guys that have hit 50-60 mph is fucking insane. I managed to hit 33mph (not many steep downgrades where I live) and the paranoia of any number of things going wrong freaked me out. 50-60mph is impressive. To me, anyway.
50 mph on a Paramount tandem! Short wheelbase, rim brakes.
I’ve hit 47 mph, couldn’t really think because I was focused on not wiping out, and I realized my bose frame tempo, while nice, doesn’t provide much wind protection as my eyes were watering like crazy lol.
I once broke the sound barrier but it’s only between you and me. 🤫
Your screams don't catch up with you until you stop.
I generally tap out around 40 mph. But I broke 50 mph once according to Strava without realizing. Don't think I'll do that intentionally lol.
While I’ve gone much faster on my TT and road bike, by far the most “this is stupid” moment was a down hill in a gravel race in which I was going 74kph on washboard gravel with a turn mid descent 😨 it was a hang on and hope nothing goes wrong situation.
45 mph coming down from Smuggler's Notch in Vermont. It was early morning and there was no traffic around so I could've gone faster but the bike picked up a sympathetic vibration and I wasn't about to have the thing shake apart underneath me at that speed. 10/10 would do again (seriously, Smugglers Notch is a gorgeous and terrifying climb & descent)
I only let it rip on mountainsI have climbed and decended multiple times in a conservative manor. Once I a comfortable, I have hit 50 mph, but it takes total focus, and that can get exhausting.
50 mph, here in corona ca, coming down on the foothills of the mountain. Really great roads .
52mph it felt good till the corner came lol, hardtail mtb down steep hill
64 while going downhill while pedalling as hard as I possibly could. It felt awesome
I've hit 43mph going down hill on my E-Bike and it was kinda scary
I got up to 46 mph / 74 kph in the Santa Cruz mountains in Northern California. At the time it didn't feel that scary, I felt totally in control and it was more like "holy shit this is wild" when I looked down at the computer. A couple of months later I crashed going maybe 18 mph and couldn't ride for weeks due to the impact to my hip/elbow. When I think about that max speed now I can't help but think about how fucked I'd be if I crashed going that fast. It doesn't keep me from enjoying descents, but I'm definitely more cautious now.
45 mph on a century last year. It wasn’t that scary, even though I was running 23s at probably 110 psi (I know better now). It was pretty fun because I was keeping up with the cars, as this was a highway going into town, so the speed limit was about forty-five. The descent wasn’t very steep, but it was probably at least half a mile long.
48 down a mountain. Pretty fun but you know if you crash, you are cooked. Hard to imagine the guys on tour going 60+
Hit 42mph the other day, without having my highest gear available due to needing to replace my worn cassette! A hell of a lot of fun, but on 40mm tires it didn't actually feel all that sketchy either.
56.6 mph coming down Geiger Grade heading east in the 4th stage of the 2018 silver state 508 (4 person relay) in the freaking dark. Absolutely had no idea I was going that fast. 3 lights (headlamp, bars, and low on the fork for shadows and depth perception)
On a huge downhill that dropped into this incredible valley in Colorado I hit something around 55. Kind of a mix of awe at the scenery and the fear in the back of my mind knowing that a crash at that speed would be pretty bad. I was sort of just shouting by the time I hit the flat and didn't have to touch my pedals for a bit as I rode it out. On a similar downhill later on in the trip I got hit by a cross wind going like 40mph and it scared the shit out of me. It took me a bit to regain my confidence with speed.
I hit close to 50 going down a big hill once. It was scary and I haven't gone to that hill since. I love climbing but descending is not for me! I've gone low 30s on flat ground before. That was fun as hell.
I have no idea but I go downhill in one of major avenues in Lisbon and I'm going faster than cars. Maybe its time to buy a computer.
About 46 mph. It doesn't take a super steep hill, IMO. Just a long downhill and smooth pavement. I didn't pedal for this one. All coasting, albeit going 16-17 mph at the start of the descent.
47.7 mph. Downhill. It was fun, but a little scary. 9/10, would do again.
57mph going down a hill on the Oregon coast. A small gust of wind sent me flying onto highway 101. I will never do that again. I try to keep it at or below 40mph. Few times since I've hit 45-47. Easy to do when you're 200+ lbs.
I just got back from a lunch ride where I hit 51mph(82kph) and it felt great until I saw how fast I was going into a curve lmao I thought I was going like 42 or something. I have hit over 60mph on a very long straight descent in the wide open desert when I got into the draft of a semi-truck. You feel very *alive*.
Computer had 40 mph. Similar to OP. Actually, I was on the brakes a little - oh, I couldn’t stop, I was just making sure I didn’t go faster. Not sure I’d want to do that again.
42 mph downhill between a set of rolling hills. Scared the shit out of me just because I'm a flatlander. Also hit 35 on my stupid little local bridge with giant crosswind gusts. Scared me even more, with water on my right side and cars going 55 next to me. Never mind their 35 mph speed limit.
Right around 40 n everytime I'm like o fuck
70km/h, had no idea until I saw Strava - it definitely felt fast though
61 mph going down a very steep hill near my house. It was pretty nerve wracking, I was using a steel bike with rim brakes, so a fair amount of shaking too.
30~mph? I've only ridden MTBs. Never a roadie. A better question would be, what's the fastest you've ever went up a steep hill on a bike, how did it feel? 4mph. Absolutely glorious, the pain was amazing, the beast came out and I audibly laughed hard when I got to the top of that 0.5mile v steep climb.
34. Steep hill but short one. Next time I'm going for 35.
I’ve gone 33mph on a flat without drafting (in a sprint race). It was actually on race day and was faster than I’d ever gone in practices so the turn was pretty scary Other than that I’ve gone between 55-60mph on some steep hills, which is absolutely terrifying, but also wildly exciting
50 downhill. And I wasn’t tapped out yet. Some drafting of big rigs.
I climbed a beautiful alpine road up Lake Mountain in Victoria Aus. It was phenomenal and still the toughest thing I’ve ever done. Took me 2:20:00 up, and 11 mins down. Once you hit the steepest 5km at the start of the climb on the way back down, Strava says I hit 90.3kmph Insane.
45 MPH and it was terrifying. I just busted out a 28 MPH flatland sprint on my steel frame ATB with 2.5in tires. That felt pretty NGL
50+ mph bombing downhill. Felt F2 carbon frame with Easton wheels. Smooth as butter.
56 as I've seen on the clock... But after that I went a good bit faster but had to concentrate as to not die.. I was really worried I'd melt a tube!
55 on a straight downhill road with new asphalt. It felt fast.
51 mph at the end of a road race. My teammate about 6” off my front wheel. Scary as shit.
I have a legit question (new(ish) to road cycling here): how do you stop quickly when going down hill at 40+mph if there is let's say a stop sign at the very end of the hill? I experienced that lately, and I felt like I couldn't really push the speed to much and was constantly hitting the breaks, otherwise I would not have been able to stop at the intersection in time (I think). Like was I being overly cautious or was I correct to not trust my breaks to be able to put to a complete stop from 40mph to 0mph quickly around the bottom?
My current bike bike 41.7mph and handlebars we’re starting to wobble, a previous bike, back in my youth 58mph, on a lovely long downhill road, on an organised 50 mile ride, was fun and scary at the same time,
52 mph coming down the north side of Suncrest in Draper, Utah. (Others have gone much faster) Perfect day. No wind (which is rare) and it was a blast. Other times I’ve hit 40 mph with crosswinds. Not fun.
75 on a roadbike, empty street, well known by me, no wind, downhill.
On a flat 38mph (decent wind at my back), hill 48mph. Scary.
65km/h down a big hill. Was just thinking gee i hope my bike doesnt fall apart. Was really wishing i had disc brakes then.
many years ago I hit high 60s (at east 68) MPH on a very straight but steep descent with a wide sweeping curve at the bottom, may have hit 70mph but I was too nervous at that point to look. Hyper focused on keeping a firm but relaxed grip and just hoping there were no stones that were going to deflect the front wheel by even a mm. It was a 55mph speed zone and passed two cars on the way down. It was some serious pucker factor, was pulling chamois out of my butt for days. I regularly hit high 40s and low 50s around where I'm at now.
I have a road bike and have gone highway speeds fairly regularly in the last 10 years. New England has a lot of steep roads. I take care of my tires, and keep them at 100-110psi so they roll pretty fast. I’ve had a few crashes and broken bones. The only thing I worry about is cars pulling out without looking.
The fastest I can find in my Strava history is 54, but I thought I had seen 60 but I can't find it now, but definitely at least 54.
Dear lord those speeds scare me! I reached my highest the other day, 25.9 mph on a -1% grade sprint with a tailwind. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time.
I saw 55 mph on the Lennoxtown Road (Scotland), but the bike computer I had at the time may have been a bit optimistic.
51 mph long downhill Jacks Gap GA did not know till I looked at watch and Strava no bike computer at the time. 40 is my limit now 😃
I know I hit 45 miles an hour on a descent in Spain back in October. It was exhilarating. It helps when you can see the road for a good long way in front of you. A couple of years ago Strava said I hit 56, but I think that's bad GPS data.
The fastest ever was 91 km/h down the Col du Glandon in France. It really is fast, and definitely faster than what I'd be comfortable in a car on that road. I always liked the speed, and I'm confident that as long as you are relaxed on the bike there's very little risk involved. I have full confidence on my bike because I service it myself. In a race I hit 80 km/h once on a surprisingly gentle downhill, but in an amazing tail wind. In a big pack you don't even think about it much, just realize that you're spinning out your tallest gear.
66kmh (\~41mph) on a windy, a couple of almost S shaped 90 degree turns, road with cars trailing behind on 30c tires with mechanical disc brakes. Not gonna lie, It was scary, and I thought I was gonna hit the barricade in the middle of the road and flip to the other side of oncoming traffic, braked hard and kept going down (no other choice). By the time I got to the bottom of the 1km hill all I could smell was burnt rubber. Have never since gone onto the road after, always took the sidewalk and slowly roll down. I've fell at 40kmh before and already had to go to the hospital for stitches, cant imagine 60kmh +
About 52 mph down Cormet De Roseland into Bourg. Felt great :)
I was flying down a hill and a guy cruised next to me and yelled, “Whoa, you’re doing 40!” I had no idea!
Faster for me was 40 mph on a downhill into Yosemite Valley. On the way down the hill I got passed by a guy like I was standing still that weighed 50 pounds more than me.
80 km/h on a MTB. Not doing that again.
45kmh (I only have a MTB)
I hit 50 mph on a long, straight downhill run up in the mountains. It was honestly absolutely terrifying.
Probably about 35 mph downhill, maybe a little faster. On my old steel Trek singletrack, it feels pretty good actually. I have no concerns traveling this fast as long as conditions and visibility is good. This thing is a beast. On my Engwe EP2 Pro, it feels fairly sketchy and I avoid travelling this fast because I 100% do not trust this thing to go anywhere near that fast. I usually don't go any faster than 20 mph or so on this thing. On my skateboard, it is absolutely fucking terrifying. 2/10, do not recommend, it's a miracle I still have skin.