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Usually hit between anywhere 50-60mph on the road bike now and again
But my record is 300mph! the computer never lies!
52 mph (as I saw later on Strava) on a descent in a closed roads Peak District sportive.
The main thing I recall was a bit of snot leaving a nostril and working its way up my cheek. I could feel it moving but knew I had to keep my hands on the bars or I was a dead man. Was too scared to even brake, just waited for the road to flatten out.
Seems funny looking back but no way I'd even consider it these days. Seeing the pro riders routinely descend at those sort of speeds (and more) just increases my respect for what they do.
High 50 on the Lecht - both sides. Same down Fleet Moss towards Hawes and on a road near Alston in the Pennines. All on a cat eye computer so may not be that accurate!
Did a charity event up and down the Tumble yonks ago, recorded multiple 57mph decents on Strava on my old flat-barred, V-braked hybrid. Never topped that on the CAAD8, but think I clocked a 56mph descent of the B4086, along the escarpment from Sun Rising Hill, north of Banbury.
I'm a larger gent, so going downhill fast on non-technical descents are the closest things I have to a strong point. Bit gutted to get smashed by tandems with trailers! 🙂
coming off the south side of glenshee
^^Yup,55mph on same stretch as ratty,dry road,no wind or traffic.
A lot of my fast club mates still clip 60mph on the hills,I have no bottle for that nonsense now and start braking after 45.:-)
Done 55mph off Woodhead to Sheffield side on a windy day. Bike started with a tank slapper due to the cross wind. Pharp.
Eased off, then went for it again..
62.7 down Cothercote Hill in Shropshire with a gale force tailwind. Something I won't ever try again, I was thinking while descending that I'd be dead if I crashed at that speed.
54mph down Bury Hill (A29) back in the 90s when it was steeper than it is today. Overtook two cars then slowed to turn right at the bottom cutting across the T-junction. Fully protected by Lycra and track mitts. Not the most stupid thing I have done but certainly in the top 100, far more sensible/dull these days
142 mph on a Suzuki Katana 1100. 1 am on the Edinburgh Bypass (the only section open at the time was between Wester Hailes and Fairmilehead). At that speed the gradual bend past Bonaly requires quite a lot of lean 🙂
142 mph on a Suzuki Katana 1100
I can beat the speed but not the bravery of doing it on a Katana!
My cycle computer went into 3 figures (kmh) at Ironman Switzerland 20 years ago this summer. To be fair it was the straightest, smoothest, widest most consistent descent with the longest run off you could possibly imagine. And the bike was a slippery disc wheeled beast with an aero lid on my bonce. Zero skill, just lots of young man sense of invulnerability and racing red mist. Good job I didn't come off as the wisps of lycra that constituted a race suit....I can't imagine the road rash.
A few year later at a very wet fred whitton I flashed past some poor lad being helped by paramedics who had seemly removed half his jaw making contact with a dry stone wall at similar speeds. In the work of a moment my big boy downhill with your arse on fire balls were reduced to shrivelled walnuts....where they seem to have remained ever since.
A quick look at some of my rides on Strava, 78kmph is my fasted off-road. There is one that showed 112kmph (mid ride) which must be an error as there 100% no way I have the skill/kahonas or trail to do that.
A lot of the guys do 60mph on this one but I refuse to go round the top bend off the brakes (because once there was a car in the middle of the road overtaking a bike coming up the hill) 🤣
And all the actual times above 50:
Also the road down towards Betwsy Coed, not the busy side. Pretty much straight road for 8 miles
Yup, tis a fast bit of road, reckon I’ve gone about as fast as I’ve ever gone on a bike down there, head down with a tail wind until my rear tyre went bang
88km/h off the Kirkstone Pass towards Brotherswater, many moons ago.
48.something mph, going down the long hill I live at the top of. I normally come down pushing 40mph, this day there was a fair tailwind and I was practicing my MTB position on my road bike (so probably acting even more like a sail than usual)... didn't realise the speed until I looked at Strava later, was annoyed because if I'd I've known at the time, I'd have pedalled a bit to try for 50!
I spend far more of my life grinding back up it at 6/7/8mph to get home though!
55mph/88kph coming south from Cairnwell (Glenshee), same place as Trailrat and Fasthaggis
Managed 44mph/70kph offroad last weekend though to be honest the track was like a motorway.
Fastest I can find on Strava is 53.7mph on my gravel bike.
Local -10% hill with a nasty blind bend at bottom.
Hit 50mph down there on the tandem last weekend. My g/f just closes her eyes and relaxes. So she says!
Well that python thing I linked to above doesn't work, but I wrote my own script that tells me I've been above 100km/h a few times. A quick look tells me some of those are glitches (I definitely didn't go that fast on a touring bike intoe a swedish headwind) but a couple of those were on Dyer's pass near Chistchurch NZ.
Offroad on my fatbike about 70 km/h throuh some alpine fields and I still got passed by the downhill rigs.
Road when I was about half my current age 114 km/h down a short but steep hill in Belgium
102km/h, somewhere in the Pyrenees on the Etape. Hurtling off a col between a series of hairpin bends. Properly sh1tting it. Reality check when at one of the bends there was a guy at the side of the road on a stretcher, covered in blood, bike smashed up, helmet a mess, and receiving medical attention. Slowed down a bit after that.
54mph down Kirkstone Pass towards Ullswster on the Fred Whitton a few years ago.
It was ace 😀
36mph according to strava on a long straight downhill blast out my local woods, how accurate that is though who knows 😂
64 Mph off Barbury Castle south of Swindon on a road bike many years ago. V Early in morning and giving it a good crank up before hitting the steep bit.
No F way would I consider anything near that speed these days.
Fraction over 100kph (62ish mph) on the descent of the Grossglockner Pass in Austria. It's got some long open stretches and good sightlines but it was still pretty bloody terrifying braking for the corners and feeling nothing...nothing...nothing...slight slowing. Was scared of bursting the tyres with the heat (this was on rim brakes).
I'd ridden the same bike in Etape du Tour on a baking hot day and on the first descent, loads of riders around me were puncturing with the heat from rim brakes.
I'm OK up to about 50-55mph now, any faster than that is terrifying.
There's a few hills I've ridden that had the potential for higher speeds - the descent off Stelvio into Bormio must be good for 60+mph on the top stretches but then the corners come far too fast lower down for anything that silly.
I remember (many years ago) doing high 50's mph on a descent in the Alps and the local guys were coming past me, sitting up for aero braking into the turns, whipping round them and straight back into the drops. Impressive stuff!
98.6kmph on a tarmac road on an mtb while commuting with my lunch on my back. There’s a 20% hill, with a long straight and a nasty bumpy dogleg. Mate on a road bike got the same speed behind me. Never quite matched that speed again.
On gravel there’s a few places locally I’ve clocked 70-80kph, overtaken cars.
57mph coming down a road decent in the Quantocks back in around 2007/8 on a Stumpjumper fsr with Fire XC’s and Mini monos.
In recent years, don’t know but fastest KOM is down Godlingston Hill in the Purbecks, average speed of 39mph, max 43mph.
52 mph (as measured by a Cat Eye lcd bike computer)
Bike: Fisher Hoo Koo e Koo (v brakes and a u-brake on the rear)
Road: Mt Ventoux
Tyres: spesh Fatboy slicks
Panniers: Karrimor massive green ones, plus a rolled up karrimat and a u-lock strapped to the top
Helmet: None
Pedals: Had reflectors
Shoes: Walking boots
Face: Sheer panic
Those were the days!
83.9 km/h coming down the Malaucene side from the top of Mont Ventoux in 2016. Since then, I've become a father, which seems to have put the dampener on things... as evidence, I came down the same descent in 2022 and had a top speed 60.9 km/h!
I've been faster skiing - there's a piste in Hochfugen that is extremely steep and wide and has an enormous (gently uphill) run-off. When I was there in 2014, I went well over 100 km/h - my legs started juddering/vibrating from the strain and I couldn't risk engaging the skis to slow down in case I caught an edge, so I just waited for the slope to go up and held on.
Not sure on fastest ever, but I had a look, and I regularly hit over 85kmh on a hill between Sidmouth and Newton Pop (bit cheeky too as it's a 40mph speed limit!)
48mph on a Singular Griffin with 2.3” tyres. Off Emley Moor, two of us taking turns pedalling and slipstreaming / freewheeling.
About 45mph going down Beech Avenue on my Rocky Mountain hardtail quite some time ago. I recall that my helmet was trying to lift off from my head and that I absolutely could not spin my legs any faster.
I don't use Strava and haven't had a bike computer fitted for a very long time but I can't think of any time I've cycled anywhere near that quickly.
Probably about 45 mph. Regularly hit 40 on my road bike and it’s terrifyingly fast. Yet I can hit 35 on the tt bike occasionally on a slight downhill with a favourable wind and it doesn’t seem nearly as scary. Probably because I’m still pedaling so the brain thinks I’m in control, despite being unable to reach the brakes
Regularly hit 40 on my road bike and it’s terrifyingly fast.
If I put my dropper down and tuck I do that speed on the hill past my house every time I head to work. I ride on the fog line for reduced friction 🤣
2.3” tyres feel safe though
High 40's, on a stripped down urban type bike. Scared the hell out of me as above, realized quite quickly what would happen if i lost it.
Love the use of kph to sound faster 😉 and further
A friend was attempting to set off the traffic speed reader sign into red figures, not sure if it was set to turn red at 30mph or 40mph. He was doing it by manualling his BMX down the hill.
Love the use of kph to sound faster 😉 and further
Nha it's just the unit that cycling uses as oppose to little Britain.
51mph on 23m tyres at 115psi dropping down in to Blanchland, couldn't see a thing with the vibrations!
42mph according to the speedo on my Stumpie M2 on the fireroads in Thrunton woods. Again couldn't see much and the v-brakes made major fade trying to stop for the gate at the bottom.
I've matched that 51mph on the road a few times, so much nicer when you can see things
56mph coming down here...
https://www.strava.com/segments/1623320
Recorded on my old Cateye computer pre-Garmin days, Strava has it a bit slower at 52, either way not good when you start thinking about a squirrel/pheasant running out...
Same as lots of others, 50+ down a Welsh road in a sportive back in the early noughties as measured on a old wired cat-eye. I've no idea how accurate those things are/were. Felt pretty fast though, and felt every surface change on the road, and had to brake very gently to begin with as I was absolutely sure I was going to burst a tyre.
Saw 64mph on the same sort of old Cateye on a bloke having a beer in Bar Robbo in Morzine once, he'd come down from Avoriaz on one of those old root beer coloured Enduros, and was showing it to everyone
54mph when I was 15 or 16 in the 90's, descending from Ribblehead down to Hawes on a newly resurfaced road. I remember at one point riding one handed eating a Mars bar.. I get a bit twitchy at anything over 30 these days!
Somewhere over 50mph descending from morzine, was super paranoid about my carbon rims exploding or the odd massive pothole
Was being overtaken by nutters wearing bandannas. I presume locals who know the roads!
Coming down Holme moss to Woodhead many years ago as a daft teen overtaking a couple sight seeing. Speedo rear a midge over 50mph un be knowns to me the car behind was of the police type who has a few words to say to me when I got to the main A628 junction.
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