Okay, so we all did the Risborough Sportive & got some worryingly good results by our standards.
I became fearful that we might not even be Rubbish at bicycling anymore.
Happily, it turns out that these fears were groundless. (I'm proud to say that even my anxieties are Rubbish).
Lest we get too excited about nearly averaging 17 mph in an 82-mile one-day sportive, the record shows that 17 mph (or 27 km/h) was the average speed over the entire 2,994 km course of the Tour de France... in 1905.
I became fearful that we might not even be Rubbish at bicycling anymore.
Happily, it turns out that these fears were groundless. (I'm proud to say that even my anxieties are Rubbish).
Lest we get too excited about nearly averaging 17 mph in an 82-mile one-day sportive, the record shows that 17 mph (or 27 km/h) was the average speed over the entire 2,994 km course of the Tour de France... in 1905.
Here's a photo of a mountain stage of the 1905 tour, showing what those chaps were riding. I reckon the machines must have weighed 15 or 20kg. The tubes look to be forged from iron girders hacked off Victorian bridges, welded together with the toxic spittle of hunchbacked blacksmiths, and weighted down with lead ingots to provide ballast for superior cornering. The bikes were single-speed fixies. I believe some had a rear wheel that could be removed (with a spanner, I suppose) and turned around to engage a second gear on the flip side of the hub. It would be another 32 years before deraileur gears were introduced to the Tour.
In 2009, the average speed over the whole Tour was 25 mph.
Just in case anyone else was wondering whether we were still Rubbish or not.
In 2009, the average speed over the whole Tour was 25 mph.
Just in case anyone else was wondering whether we were still Rubbish or not.
