Slashdot Mirror
Biking @ 80 MPH
sadclown writes "Saturday marked the conclusion of the World Human Powered Speed Challenge in Battle Mountain Nevada. Canadian Sam Wittingham now holds the world record for human powered speed on land, 80.55 mph, on the Varna Diablo, a fully enclosed 60 pound recumbent bicycle. Other competitors included Matt Weaver, with his video-camera-navigated bike (no windows)the Kyle Edge, World (conventional bike) Sprint Champion Jason Queally, with his bike the Blue Yonder Challenge, designed by the formula one race car designer Reynard, and the UC Berkeley team, The Bearacuda, in which two riders pedal back to back. Wittingham's new record is nearly 8 mph more than his record last year. Hopefully some of the aerodynamic technology can be applied to commercially available vehicles (cars, maybe?)."
the reason we use imperial is because it requires the users to be smarter than those of the metric system.
Converting square inches into Acres takes MUCH MORE intelligence than mm^3 -> km^3.
By practicing these conversions, we are constantly honing our math skills, while you lazy europeans (french) just relax in your afterglow of 1000mm=100cm=...0.001km and your tasty fine british wine and your superb french autos. LOL.
And, for what it is worth, if you aren't smart enough to be able to figure it out, you're probably not smart enough to ride a bike either, so go back to your Big Wheel and wear your helmet to school...
oh, and PS, should we have metric time & calendars? If Imperial measurements bug you, then you just must hate 3600 sec = 60 minutes = 1 hr = 1/24 day = 1/365 year (except leap) and so on...
plus some months have 30 days, others 31, and one has either 28 or 29, depending....
...just get over it.
The US is JUST DOMINANT ENOUGH to keep Imperial measurements around about as long as they want. Like it or not.
7.95MPH faster and a bolt of lightning, and we'll see the world's first time-travelling bicycle!