Bike vs Car

[Fecn]

As I work from home and sit in front of a computer all day, I make a point of trying to go out on my bike every day.

As per normal, I had my phone with me tracking my speed, position and altitude via GPS.
Distance: 7.25miles
Average speed of 17.4mph
Top speed of 31.2mph.

This evening, we went to the pub I'd passed earlier in the day on the same roads. My wife was doing the driving, leaving me free to do the drinking .
Distance: 3.35 miles
Average speed: 17.2mph
Top speed: 31.4mph

* To confuse everyone, the graphs above are in KMH rather than MPH

So.. what does this prove. Well.. nothing really. On the bike I could have gone faster if I'd used the roads instead of cycle paths, and in the car, my wife could have gone faster if she wasn't such a cautious driver. It wasn't any kind of a race. I just find it interesting that although the car graphs seem to show much higher speeds, it was slower overall.

 

[Mussels]

Can you tell her she's killing the environment with her stop start driving and to practice making a smooth curve.

 

[dazzie]

Thanks Fecn, that's very interesting! As long as you can keep moving then a reasonably short urban (I'm presuming it was urban from the max speed on the car journey) trip is just as quick on a bike as in a car due to traffic, islands, traffic lights and other limiting aspects whilst driving.

 

[moon]

My 12.5 mile cycle commute is faster than taking 2 buses and a train...I guess that's not surprising though...

 

[wibble]

here's mine from yesterday:

bloody rain!.

 

[Fecn]

Haha wibble - love it I've got a very similar graph somewhere on my phone from when I made it all the way from the back door to the living room window before the cold, wind and rain changed my mind. Maybe we should become 'Training buddies'

Dazzie - My roads are more rural than urban. Lots of single track country lanes where the cars have to stop to let each other past.

 

[Barnowl]

Haha wibble - love it I've got a very similar graph somewhere on my phone from when I made it all the way from the back door to the living room window before the cold, wind and rain changed my mind. Maybe we should become 'Training buddies'

Dazzie - My roads are more rural than urban. Lots of single track country lanes where the cars have to stop to let each other past.

Can I join!

Sadly I made it all the way to work. Then got a real good soaking on the way home. The cold makes my poor ears hurt as well

It looked so much better today. Soon changed my mind with that biting cold wind.

4 mile commute 16 mins on the bike (avoiding pavement!). 12 - 40 mins by car.