FYI
Stefan Savage (savage@cs.washington.edu)
Fri, 10 Jul 1998 16:20:05 -0700
The record for 24hour road riding on a normal bicycle with no drafting
is 470 miles (an average speed just under 20mph). Drafting other
bicycles on a track the average speed goes up to 23mph... and using a
faired recumbent, it goes above 25mph. Finally, drafting behind a truck
on a track, one Michael Secrest covered more than 1200 miles in one day,
for an average speed over 50mph! (there is a squared frontal area term
that dominates the force equation for cycling above any slow speed...
just making the wheels spin fast enough and overcoming rolling
resistance is a minor problem).
The people crossing the country don't go any faster than about 15mpg on
average (~8 days).
- Stefan
P.S. Neither David nor myself are in any danger of challenging these
records ;-)