Km/h or Mph

fiestaman

Hey, does everybody use Km/h now or is anybody still the old way with miles, im kind of a mile man meself. On there speedo!

bcmf

I have/had this quandry myself. In the interest of being 'euro' I changed my speedo to kmh. Now I spend the time trying to convert the kmh back to mph. So its back to mph for me.

wotdef

Yep its hard adjusting to K's having used miles for years but you are better off going metric cus then you know if you are about to break the speed limit and how far you have left to go. hahaha

peterako

Was an mph man myself....till I decided to bite the bullet when I got my latest bike computer.

VERY strange looking at the larger figures. I still find myself mentallly converting what I see to mph

But at least I'll be able to have meaningful discussions with my kids whne they start to take teh cycling a bit more seriousl

Peter

All about the kms. Although I do use 'mileage'.

rigal

I'm a miler myself but I think that's just because I run and that's what I'm used to.. Guess I should really bite the bullet and go metric.

copacetic

mph for me, the weight of bike thread meant nothing to me in kgs either.

Dr.Millah

Km all the way. Hardly refer back to miles anymore. sort of like when the euro came in i spend the first year converting everything to pounds. But after a while you just get used to it.

copacetic

copacetic wrote: »

mph for me, the weight of bike thread meant nothing to me in kgs either.

Newtons?

copacetic

Dónal wrote: »

Newtons?

funnily enough I've been metric for work etc forever, just still think in lbs for bodyweight and miles/mph for distance. I convert in my head to them if people start talking in km/h. Maybe its being a runner from a young age as mentioned above. I 'feel' 7 minute miles when running for instance and have an idea want 20 mph on a bike is like, in km/h I just don't have the same feel for it. Bike size I'm in cm for some reason,swimming I'm in metres too.

DePurpereWolf

Dónal wrote: »

Newtons?

Now that just doesn't make any sense.

As an engineer I can't not respond to this.

Newton is force, kg is mass.

Being a metric man myself I have to say I'm pretty good in converting most empirical units, pressure I just can't do, I still don't know what a Torr is. Please use Pascal, although I prefer to say newton per square meter.

Beasty

Usually use miles (the Brit in me), but will use km if trying to impress someone:)

abbeyside1

Miles per hour for me too.

Raam

What the hell is a "mile"?

DePurpereWolf

DePurpereWolf wrote: »

Now that just doesn't make any sense.

As an engineer I can't not respond to this.

Newton is force, kg is mass.

Being a metric man myself I have to say I'm pretty good in converting most empirical units, pressure I just can't do, I still don't know what a Torr is. Please use Pascal, although I prefer to say newton per square meter.

He said 'weight' not 'mass' my fellow engineer.

ednwireland

light years

Chips Lovell

Was educated in km so use them. Wouldn't really have a breeze as to how far a mile is.

It is annoying at how some cycling clubs still insist on using miles though.

copacetic

generally if you find yourself saying 'as an engineer' stop straight away and don't say whatever was about to come next...

sy

parsecs/s for me;)

Captain Havoc

Everything I do is metric.

ROK ON

A 62mile spin is just underwhelming, whereas a century is a century.

Raam

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mile

Also called statute mile. a unit of distance on land in English-speaking countries equal to 5280 feet, or 1760 yards (1.609 kilometers).

How quaint

Fredo

jerseyeire wrote: »

Everything I do is metric.

Do you drink pints or half litres?

Raam

Raam wrote: »

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mile



How quaint

Anything you can do, I can do better...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile#Irish_mile

The Irish mile was longer still.[9] In Elizabethan times, four Irish miles was often equated to five English, though whether the statute mile or the "old English" mile is unclear.[9] By the seventeenth century, it was 2240 yards (6720 feet, 1.27 statute miles)[14][15][16] Again, the difference arose from a different length of the rod in Ireland (usually called the perch locally): 21 feet as opposed to 16½ feet in England.[15][17]

DualFrontDiscs

Fredo wrote: »

Do you drink pints or half litres?

Depending on where you drink, you're only getting 0.5L anyway!

DFD.

sy

Dónal wrote: »

Anything you can do, I can do better...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile#Irish_mile

Don't forget there are 80 chains in a statute mile, so I propose that we measure our bike speed in chains per second!

DirkVoodoo

The metric system is the only thing keeping us from being American.

Raam

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

The metric system is the only thing keeping us from being American.

The Atlantic Ocean is helping also. Don't forget about that. It's a big ocean.

Beasty

Many of you who do not seem to recognise the "mile" still want do 10m and 25m TTs!

Raam

Beasty wrote: »

Many of you who do not semm to recognise the "mile" still want do 10m and 25m TTs!

He's got us there, dammit!

DirkVoodoo

It's ok, we have conversion charts!!!

Sheeps Head

Dónal wrote: »

He said 'weight' not 'mass' my fellow engineer.

The same mass on the moon won't be the same weight.
Now there's a thought.
Might be an interesting ride...

Mostly a mile man myself, though trying to convert to k's.
After all I've used metric in engineering for decades, but somehow everyday life seems different.
I still think in terms of 'taking a few thou off' something when I really mean 100ths of a millimeter.
And I still sometimes call €10, 10 quid.:D

Super Freak

Kilometers,

It's a bigger number relative to miles so it makes me feel like I'm going faster

Kieran

Sheeps Head

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

It's ok, we have conversion charts!!!

Dive into the car and look at the speedo

mcgratheoin

Having lived in Norway for a few years, I can have it both ways - a Norwegian mile is 10km

DirkVoodoo

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Having lived in Norway for a few years, I can have it both ways.

Dude, too much information.

DurtyMurty

Super Freak wrote: »

Kilometers,

It's a bigger number relative to miles so it makes me feel like I'm going faster

Kieran

That's cheating! - You shoulld use Km per 5/8 hour

Anything else is for cissies

Planet X

fiestaman wrote: »

Hey, does everybody use Km/h now or is anybody still the old way with miles, im kind of a mile man meself. On there speedo!

Depends what you're after?
Racing or Sportives?
I'm not too much a Sportive laddie, done my share.
Racing......................
You'd want to be able to keep you're HR., if you'r interested in racing, up to about 170'ish for about 2 hrs. constant. Peaks etc. hills etc. will be different.
Off topic myself here, but to get yourself in shape, I would never do miles or kilos, just hours.
Anyone can cycle 50 miles.
Jockser can do 50 in 3 hours.....................
Can you do 50 in two in a half?
Put that in your pipe.

peterako

Planet X wrote: »

Depends what you're after?

Can you do 50 in two in a half?
Put that in your pipe.

Nearly

I prefer cigars myself

Peter

DePurpereWolf

copacetic wrote: »

generally if you find yourself saying 'as an engineer' stop straight away and don't say whatever was about to come next...

I know, but I can't help my self

Dónal wrote: »

He said 'weight' not 'mass' my fellow engineer.

No engineer would use weight in this circumstance and we would have to assume he means mass.

Weight is not constant due to the g not being constant and it is affected by any bouyancy forces acting on the bike

Weight is a force, and a force you don't have, it is applied.

You really want a battle of dorkiness going on here?

peterako

:eek:

I'm an engineer...and...even I .....feel...my....eyes....closing......zzZzzzZzzzz

rottenhat

ROK ON wrote: »

A 62mile spin is just underwhelming, whereas a century is a century.

An imperial century is a century - a metric century is just pissing about on bikes. If you're going metric, life begins at 200k.

Chips Lovell

Century = Lingo for unfit Americans who get stoked about riding 160km i.e. a reasonably long training spin for Europeans.

Raam

el tonto wrote: »

Century = Lingo for unfit Americans who get stoked about riding 160km i.e. a reasonably long training spin for Europeans.

There was some American lad in the park earlier this week banging on about how he did an "awesome 36km"

**Timbuk2**

I always use km/h - it's what I'm used to and if I had it on mph, I'd be constantly converting into km/h.

ten speed racer

I changed the bike computer over to km/h a couple of years ago. I'm not sure why I waited so long.

If I could now think of people's heights in terms of metres, I'd be fully metric.

tomasrojo

ten speed racer wrote: »

I changed the bike computer over to km/h a couple of years ago. I'm not sure why I waited so long.

If I could now think of people's heights in terms of metres, I'd be fully metric.

I think of everything in metric. It's a beautifully simple system, with easy conversions.

I just can't get imperial. It's such a cumbersome system. I never learnt it in school, and I really don't know where anyone under 55 actually learnt imperial.

I give people's heights in feet sometimes, just because people in Ireland don't get height in cm, but I think most younger people get weight (or mass :-)) in kg.

In brief, km/h, definitely.

lukester

Miles all the way. I also convert everything I buy from euros back to punts in my head.

Kms are for freds.

copacetic

DePurpereWolf wrote: »

No engineer would use weight in this circumstance and we would have to assume he means mass.

I did, and it was describing a thread title. The 'bike mass' thread didn't get much response and it was mostly people praying at the cervelo altar.

Repolho

Ever since I bought my previous car which has the newer KPH has the princial measurement and KMs on the odometer I've kinda switched over to KMs.

I'm metric for most things now. The notable exceptions would be
=> height (i'm a feet & inches man) ,

=> area (can't get to grips with sq meters even though I know multiplying it by 10 is very roughly the sq footage) and

=> pints of beer!

GearoidP

Metric is a far simpler & logical system that the old imperial system. I'm KM's all the way. Went cycling in Northern Ireland where it's still miles and it's a bit of a slog trying to count down the miles - the km's go a lot faster.

Glad Ireland as a country made the switch to KM's. Pity the UK and USA haven't followed suit (yet). I reckon like the pound the British won't change largely out of "national identity" reasons. I think in the US, they have tried a piecemeal change to metric which had to be abandoned. However in some of the more progressive states like California you do see some signs in km's as well as miles.