- #1
Tom Kunich
- 54
- 11
Something occurred to me that doesn't seem to make any sense to the way I understand physics. Perhaps someone can explain it.
Riding a bicycle on a descending road on very rough pavement and coasting I came to a flat and they had repaved it and it was perfectly smooth. My understanding of physics tells me that if I am coasting that the bike would coast a lot further on the smooth pavement than on the rough. But it would be decreasing speed due to rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag.
But that isn't what happened - when I hit the smooth pavement the bike increased it's speed by 10%. I repeated this experiment many times during the summer and it continued to do this but as the summer wore on and the pavement got rougher this effect became less and less and then eventually disappeared.
The level road appeared to be level. My altimeter at least read 0% grade. This only means that it was less than 1%. But it did appear to be level without any visible grade. But wouldn't a 10% increase in speed need a pretty significant grade to achieve and not the "less than 1%" that my instrumentation reported?
In any case could someone offer a suggestion other than "you're crazy"?
Riding a bicycle on a descending road on very rough pavement and coasting I came to a flat and they had repaved it and it was perfectly smooth. My understanding of physics tells me that if I am coasting that the bike would coast a lot further on the smooth pavement than on the rough. But it would be decreasing speed due to rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag.
But that isn't what happened - when I hit the smooth pavement the bike increased it's speed by 10%. I repeated this experiment many times during the summer and it continued to do this but as the summer wore on and the pavement got rougher this effect became less and less and then eventually disappeared.
The level road appeared to be level. My altimeter at least read 0% grade. This only means that it was less than 1%. But it did appear to be level without any visible grade. But wouldn't a 10% increase in speed need a pretty significant grade to achieve and not the "less than 1%" that my instrumentation reported?
In any case could someone offer a suggestion other than "you're crazy"?