Bike racer vs bike cruiser: Who has the better commute?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- Special guest star: Mark (Hot Sauce) McConnell.
Is the best way to commute by bike to ride as fast as possible? That's the question we're testing in this video, thanks to a guest appearance by former pro cyclocross racer, current coach and all-around amazing guy Mark McConnell, aka Hot Sauce (go check out his website here: www.hotsaucecy...)
Here's how we tested the question. Mark, in athletic clothing and riding a fast bike, is to commute as fast as possible. Following the same route, I commute in my work clothes on my comfortable three-speed city bike with my own legs, which are decidedly slower than a former professional racer's legs. Who will have the better commute? Watch to find out!
#bikecommuting #biketowork #cycling
Follow Shifter: shifter.info
Facebook: / shifter.info
Medium: / shifter
Follow Tom Babin on:
Twitter: / tombabin
Facebook: / tom.babin
Medium: / tbabin
Tom Babin is the author of Frostbike: The Joy, Pain and Numbness of Winter Cycling: rmbooks.com/bo...
But now add the time it took to change into work clothes.
Good point. Shoes being a key factor.
I notice shoes help enough on the uphill ride home it is still worth changing them twice.
As a counter-point, I used to do a 42 minute pretty fast commute. Originally I used to only barely slow for stop signs and ran as many lights as I could safely get away with (not many). I used to have regular aggravation with cars and vise-versa, I’m sure. Just hand gestures and head shakes during the 1/2 of the ride that was in traffic. Then I decided to see how much slower it would be by being (mostly) perfectly behaved. I found that it took me only three minutes longer but the pleasure factor was 100% better with never again a conflict with a car, to which I always yield now.
My experience exactly.
Yeah, even when in a car, reckless driving doesn't get you anywhere faster, just increases your risk of an accident. That's why ambulance don't drive at 60 in a 15, they gain most of their time by jumping red lights and stop signs.
Traffic lights on crossroads in general are simple, timer controlled state-machines. After some time, on the same road you note you move faster, just because you can predict "red" switch by own clock and move in "green wave" without speed changes, like an express train. Heavy truck drivers use this tecnique to save fuel. Traffic wave in opposite direction inform you about cross-road state, even if you cant see it.
I would definitely agree with this. I have a similar situation, but I worked on smoothing out the routes I would take; even if they were longer in distance, I had such a better time getting to/from work with a slight penalty on time.
There's a mathematical explanation for this. The average amount of time you spend at lights, etc depends on how far you travel. So if you go 10 miles, walking, biking or driving, you will spend about the same amount of time at lights. Let's say for that 10 miles, you need to spend 5 minutes at lights. If you spend 2 hours walking that distance, that's only 4.2% of your travel time. If you spend 40 minutes biking that distance, that's 13% of your travel time. If you spend 20 minutes to drive it, that's 25% of your travel time.
So traffic lights seem a lot more bothersome in a car, simply because it's a large percent of your time. This is why cars are so impatient. Whereas someone walking doesn't care.
But on a bike, it does suck losing your momentum.
In my experience, cyclists have an easier time optimizing their route, you can walk cross walks, etc, take shortcuts, so you''re probably stuck behind lights only 10% of the time.
i have a 16 mile to work everyday, i usually hammer down and max out the entire ride. im not sure how fast i travel but it usually takes about 40 minutes to get to work. riding like this is fun and makes me feel kinda like a superhuman but i also get extremely agitated by bumps, stop signs, cars and slower riders and arrive to work kinda pissed and extremely sweaty. i recently decided to try riding and a much slower pace. so slow i listened to kings of convenience the whole ride. it was much more enjoyable and didnt really find myself focusing on the negative aspects of my ride as i usually did. i arrived to work barely sweating and was suprised when it took me 47 minutes. only about 7 minutes slower. 7 minutes was not worth the effort i was usually putting in. that being said sometimes my default is to ride like im racing a clock especially if im listening to faster music but in general i try to remember what i learned from that.
It's definitely also a lot safer to take your time. It increases reaction time and limits impact forces. Generally just makes for a more enjoyable ride, being less stressed, sweaty, and taking in more of the surroundings. For urban riding, slow is the way to go.
@@fibre0690 Increased reaction time is less safe, not more safe. The greater the amount of time it takes you to react to an event, the slower you are at reacting to it.
That feeling when you're watching a Calgary cycle channel and your old friend from highschool that you lost touch with is now in Calgary and used to be a professional cyclo cross competitor. Looking good Mark!
At the end of the ride, before work, the fast rider has to shower and change. That time has to be taken until account.
not really
Distance matters. Bicycle speed compresses. Over a longer distance, the city bike will go even slower and the faster bike will average faster from less stops.
In a 1 hour commute, the city bike and attitude will get there in 1 hour 20 min to the racer 40 minutes, that's plenty time to shower, if need be (and that's bullshi I've never had people, even intimate with me complain after a ride that follows a shower and clean body) you'd still be ready faster.
OK, so you missed the BIG QUESTION !
Would it be worth it to train in Europe for 4-years to save 4-minutes on your commute each way.
What are the chances your boss will support your training? Just inform his/her that by saving 8-minutes a day you could pay them back over the next 180-years !
Title : Who has the better commute
Actual video goal: Who is faster.
Guys, faster is not always better. If you get there like you just had a workout, you'll need to change and likely "freshen up" in some way. Plus a bike racer is likely to ride a racing bike. So they lose the advantages a city bike has for city riding. You can commute on any bike just as you can race on any bike. But some are better equipped for the job.
Factor in, changing clothes, shoes, sweating ,, .
I think as a commuter you save time as you get off the bike and ready for work, also I saw you had panniers ..
Whose commute is only 4kms?
The average commuting distance in Europe is close to 20km, in the US it's even more. This means two things: first, on an efficient bike (drop bars!), you will save more than enough time to be able to take showe and change clothes, and second after 60 to 90 minutes of riding, the guy on the inefficient omafiets will need a shower, too.
Five minutes difference is just apples and oranges. It's only five minutes difference and the solution is leave five minutes earlier.
5 minutes, yes, but the relative difference between 10 and 15 minutes is , that the "racer" was 50% faster than the "commuter"
And that probably scales up for longer commutes
@@danieleckert3508 Also that racer is sweating, so a shower and a change of clothes are in need
Would it be faster to get to work if you road your bike faster? Um yes!
Yes, but then you’d arrive sweaty and you’d need to take the time to shower, so which one is really faster?
@@Shifter_Cycling So what you're implying is one bike will be a little slower and therefore you won't get sweaty?
@@Shifter_Cycling no need to shower just take a small towel wipe of the sweat and put some deodorant
It really depends on how many green lights you catch. And don't tell me that reds and stop-signs don't apply to you.
@@Shifter_Cycling Yeah on short urban commutes riding fast doesn't really make a difference. But let's say you have a 30 km commute in a rural area. If you ride reasonably fast you can do it in 1 h. Going slow could easily take 30 min more.
Interesting and fun. And probably answers the question. Be interesting to take two commuters, roughly in the same conditioning, with the same bike, where one is going "all out" and the other is riding at a comfortable pace. In any case, the only real goal in commuting is "arrive on time" and safely. If you have to leave 5 minutes earlier, not a big deal.
urban cycling is only about SAFETY and definitely NOT speed : we share roads with cars and pedestrians, at the same traffic laws, those dictate our speed, so pace yourself otherwise you better get off the roads and make street safer for everyone
I feel like after the shower or at least change of clothes the time difference would be wiped out, although it would be interesting over a much longer commute if the faster time would be worth it.
It's easy to get used to booking it too work, but when I chill I'm not too much slower, just from an average of 19 to an average of 22 minutes. My fastest same course is 17 min, and fastest in a car (longer course) is 15.5 minutes, so that's pretty good for 5 miles (6.2 miles in the car due to highway length).
Notable, if I take the same course as bicycling with the car, minus the park shortcut, the car is about 4 minutes slower, around 22min fastest compared to fastest cycling time.
However I still rather leave earlier, gun it, and just take a longer brake at work before working. Or take a longer ride anyways.
Here in Barcelona at least, traffic lights are meant to be pleasant for cars, in that a car driving at a given speed will find many consecutive green lights. I have anecdotally found that when I ride my bicycle faster (for instance turning on the e-assist in a flat street) I catch long stretches of green lights, whereas when I ride slowly I catch red light after red light. Lights should not be synced to cars' speed.
Don't kid yourself. Bike commuting is fun.
This is the first video in a long time where I watched the whole thing before jumping to the comments.
Good conversation.
This is so much more intense than it has a right to be.
that's not a cruiser bicycle
that's a hybrid / city
4.1kms is quite a short commute and definitely not worth pushing it to the point of requiring a shower at the end. Scale that out to perhaps 3x and the 15minutes saved more than makes up the time to shower, and you get greater health benefits. I find that wearing a helmet messes up my hair and i'm happy for the shower anyway.
i want to ride my bike threw a camera light and give the camera the bird!
Add time to take shower, add time to clean and keep the speed bike in tiptop shape and all maintenance in the garage (compared to a slower more durable and maintenance free bike).
For only 4kms, I also wouldn't bother changing clothes. Just doodle along gently. But whose commute is only 4km? The average commute in Germany is nearly 20km, in the US it's even longer.
10km distance or more and usually changing clothes and riding an efficient bike (i.e. reasonably leightweight and dropbars!) will gain enough of a time adantage to easily make up for the shower and for changing clothes at work. Also, by treating your commute as a workout, you are saving even more time: you already get your exercise for the day in. If the leisurely guy riding his omafiets shifter-style would factor in the additional trip to the gym, the faster cyclist would "win" by an even bigger margin. ;-)
shower time should be included in commute time
I am commenting exactly a year later. I’m also thinking of commuting to University with my racing bike, but I stay in India.
is single bag on the side affects your riding balance?
You'd think so, but in practice, I never notice even with a quite heavy single pannier. I think it's the fact that the weight is still close the the centre line of the bike. A good rack is a good idea though.
Only the first time you do it and then only for the first 100 metres or so. Body and brain adapt quickly. Once you've done it a few times, you won't even notice.
I guess when you were going home you would bring down the hammer and max out. I usually do better on my return
I like to go fast.
Go Hot Sauce!
should've done 3 trials
Commute - no chances
no helmet???
shifter.info/most-of-the-time-i-ride-a-bike-i-wear-a-helmet-but-not-always-heres-why/
thanks for the article. i thought you had mentioned a few traffic lights in that video.
And they say hipsters are over...
Ahh what is a kilometer
Almost the same as a kiloyard
0.621371 miles.
1000 meters
It is a meter, of kilos.
Kilo is K in Y2K if that give you idea 😁 then times meter lol