Understanding Max Riding Speeds and Distances for Bicycles

Video Blog

April 02, 2019

Hey, guys. Dustin here, CEO of Sixthreezero. Wanted to talk to you today about minimum and maximum riding speeds and distances for certain types of bikes. Actually, on our website, on the product pages, we actually give some ranges and recommendations for minimum/maximum riding speeds, and also distances, and sounds like there's been a little confusion out there about what they mean. Are those set in stone? Can you really only ride a bike as fast as we say or as far as we say? So, let's dive into it and I'll explain it.

Bottom line is with any bicycle on the market, whether it be a mountain bike, road bike, hybrid bike, comfort bike, is that the maximum speed is really determined by the output of the rider. So, with that said, if somebody has the strength and the ability, you could essentially get any bike going 20, 30, 40 miles an hour. Now, with that said, that's gonna be really difficult on a single-speed beach cruiser that has very wide tires. Albeit, not impossible to get a single-speed bike going to 20, 25 miles an hour.

Now, on our website, in particular, our recommendations. Now, these are just that, recommendations. We have a wide variety of bikes and a wide variety of speeds. We have cruiser bikes in single, three, seven, 21-speed. We have hybrid bikes in three-speeds, seven-speeds, 21-speeds. We have comfort bikes in three-speeds, seven, 21-speeds. So, the reason we give minimums and maximums for the speeds is that what we're saying is hey, we think that this bike would be ideal at this speed level. Now, again, if you feel like you want to ride the bike faster or slower, it's not that it's not possible to do it on that bike. What we're saying is, maybe there's a better bike that would be conducive to a speed above whatever the range is of that particular model you're looking at.

So, an example. If you're looking to just cruise around town and go at a leisurely pace, say five, eight miles an hour, I would recommend more of a cruiser or an EVRYjourney, something like that. Also, as you want to go faster, we a lot of times include some better features, higher-end tires, things like that, because the bike's obviously moving at a better, faster pace, so we increase the specs, make the specs better, so it's more capable of riding at faster speeds.

So, it's kind of like if you only want to ride five to eight miles an hour, it may not be the right decision to spend more money to get features and specs that you may not use. However, with that said, if you fall in love with a bike and it says, "Recommended speed is 10 to 15 miles an hour," but you're gonna ride slower or faster, that's totally up to you. And don't be ... Don't be pushed away by us saying it's not the right bike. These are just our recommendations.

Now, with that said, a lot of the top speeds that we put out there for our bikes is what we feel the average rider could do on these bikes if they were working as hard as possible. Now, not everybody's average. Some people are less than average, some people are above average. So with that said, there's gonna be some riders out there that could blow through the top speeds that we're suggesting on these bikes. What we're saying is if you're interested in going above these speeds, we believe there might be a better bike option out there for you. Again, if you fall in love with that bike and that's the bike you wanna ride and you want to ride faster than a recommended speed, by all means, go for it.

So, the same thing is true on the distance side. We're kind of giving a general recommendation of what we feel is right for distances. A lot of it has to do with specs and features, comfort level, things like that. If you're gonna be on the bike longer, you may want to spend a little bit more money to get some upgraded components, like the seats, the hubs, brakes, things like that. Whereas if you're not gonna ride as far, you don't necessarily need to pay for as much bike. Now, this is a very similar thing could be said of cars, right. Like SUVs or hybrid cars and things. People don't really buy cars for what they're actual usage is. Now, with our bikes, we're trying to recommend them based on what we think is the best usage, but, again, doesn't mean you can't buy a bike that you fall in love with recommended from us. Lots of people buy SUVs, 95% of people don't actually go off-roading with an SUV. But again, manufacturers are gonna say that this would be a great car for doing off-roading.

So, yeah, I mean the last thing I'll say about maximum distances, is all of our bikes are equipped to ride lots of miles, hundreds of miles, thousands of miles. And in one trip, if you want to do 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 miles, all of our bikes would generally support that. But, if you're going to log a lot of miles, try to find a bike that we recommend is really conducive to that, because we've added certain elements that are gonna make it best for the longer rides.

So, I hope that helps in helping everyone pin down a bike that's right for the speeds they want to go at and the distances they want to ride. If you guys have any questions, don't forget, please reach out. You can call us, 310-982-2877, or email us theteam@sixthreezero.com, and if you're shopping and browsing, you can navigate to the top of our website, click on men's or women's and take a look. And don't forget, enter your height and weight into our body fit calculator, and it will tell you which bikes on our website are a fit for your body. And if you don't find something, please, reach out. We can customize something that'll be right for you.

And lastly, we have a 365-day test ride your bike policy. If you buy a bike from us and you hate it, you have 365 days to send it back. If it doesn't fit, if anything goes wrong, we're gonna stand behind it and send it back. So please, take a look. Any questions, reach out. Our goal at Sixthreezero is to help you find the best bike for you.