A letter writer to The Irish Times has taken issue with claims made in the newspaper that cyclists travel at 60km per hour, saying even Irish sprinter Sam Bennett could barely go at the speed being claimed.
Martina Callanan penned her letter to take issue with a man, Joe Burns, who had written to the paper claiming modern bicycles were so fast and lightweight that riders could go around the streets at 60km per hour.
Mr Burns made his point in a letter published yesterday
as he welcomed the pedestrianisation of some of Cork’s streets, but pointing
out the streets should be for pedestrians and not cyclists.
“Gone are the days when the bicycle was a sedate method
of getting around,” Mr Burns wrote in his letter published by the newspaper on
Monday. “The modern cycle, using super-efficient high-tech gears, can travel
quietly at speeds up to 60km per hour, and is a mechanically propelled mode of
conveyance.”
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However, experienced cyclist Martina Callanan took issue with this description as she felt the claim cyclists could easily ride around at 60km per hour wasn’t realistic. And she deployed Sam Bennett’s sprinting data to support her argument.
She pointed out that bicycles were not mechanically
propelled vehicles and that the speed of the average cyclist was about
15-20km/h, adding even professional sprinters couldn’t hold a speed of 60km/h
for much longer than 10 to 15 seconds.
“Please note that 68.9km per hour was the average
10-second sprint speed achieved by Sam Bennett when he won stage four of the
UAE Tour in February,” Ms Callanan wrote.
“Sam Bennett in his green jersey and cleats chasing a win and me in my orange skirt and sandals pedaling to the supermarket share only one thing in common: a similarly shaped object under our respective arses.”
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