fastest you've gone?

[C5 Golfer]

And not one of you can feel it?

I'm sure you can...

First off, start moving. Then open your eyes. Observe all that stuff whizzing past. Broadly speaking, and if we take Newtonian Physics as an approximation, and if you look at stuff which is unlikely to move itself in any way which is meaningful, then the faster that stuff seems to be going, the faster faster you're going.

Ahh but grasshopper-- one can see speed/velocity -- one can not feel speed/velocity.

Blindman once said a longtime ago- I cannot see how fast I am going.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Ahh but grasshopper-- one can see speed/velocity -- one can not feel speed/velocity.

You don't feel wind? You don't feel edge chatter?

[C5 Golfer]

You don't feel wind? You don't feel edge chatter?

I feel the wind ok... especially on the golf course -- there was a 40 mph wind in my face so how fast was I going? My bet with edge chatter is you are feeling acceleration and deccelleration of your edges, not speed.

[Puddy Tat]

You can't feel velocity. You can only perceive velocity. If you could feel velocity you'd be able to feel the combined velocity vector that is the earth in its orbit around the sun, the solar system orbiting in our galaxy and our galaxy moving through space to wherever the hell it is going.

You can however feel acceleration that is above your perception threshold.

Edit: For those interested the earth's speed as it orbits the sun is approximately 66,660 miles per hour (107278.87 km/h) which you definately aren't feeling while you sit and read this in front of your computer/tablet/phone etc.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Puddy Tat

[Willow 15]

Not sure of that... I know you are in Scotland.. Coming there soon BTW. But the area to which I am referring is a wide open flat straightaway highway with very few autos. Used to be years ago -- no speed limit there. My question is more related to this area and no speedometers to keep most everyone with in 10-15 mph. I wonder what the spread would be if we only drove by feel of what is safe.

kieran-- different subject -- yes coming to Scotland and Ireland to play golf for 8 days next April.. I just have to get thru this snowboard season with no broken bones so I will limit my fast speeds at Whistler accordingly.

As the title suggests bring your boots as this vid was shot on 28th of April and its started to snow in Scotland yesterday.

http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?37961-Hardbooting-in-Scotland

[Neil Gendzwill]

You can't feel velocity. You can only perceive velocity.

Good grief, semantics based on undergraduate physics. Define "feel". Care to put a number on the acceleration you feel? Velocity only has meaning in relation to something else. You can't perceive it ot measure it without a reference. Luckily when riding, we have several reference points. We feel the wind, we see the trees whipping by, I'll bet each of us can estimate instantaneous speed relative to the snow better than we can estimate the acceleration at that point. Edited October 27, 2012 by Neil Gendzwill

[kieran]

Not sure of that... I know you are in Scotland.. Coming there soon BTW. But the area to which I am referring is a wide open flat straightaway highway with very few autos. Used to be years ago -- no speed limit there. My question is more related to this area and no speedometers to keep most everyone with in 10-15 mph. I wonder what the spread would be if we only drove by feel of what is safe.

straight roads? probably up to the point the chassis starts shaking from component vibration reaching sympathetic frequencies.

my first car would do that at 82mph, smooth like glass at 83mph.

kieran-- different subject -- yes coming to Scotland and Ireland to play golf for 8 days next April.. I just have to get thru this snowboard season with no broken bones so I will limit my fast speeds at Whistler accordingly.

castle stewart is the nearest big name course to me. gotta come 57.5°N for that one though.

[theboarderdude]

[ATTACH]31481[/ATTACH]

Not sure how accurate app is, but it was fast.

I wouldn't say that is very accurate, I did and overall search for snowboards and saw speeds 270+ kph. or 167+mph.

[Puddy Tat]

Good grief, semantics based on undergraduate physics. Define "feel". Care to put a number on the acceleration you feel? Velocity only has meaning in relation to something else. You can't perceive it ot measure it without a reference. Luckily when riding, we have several reference points. We feel the wind, we see the trees whipping by, I'll bet each of us can estimate instantaneous speed relative to the snow better than we can estimate the acceleration at that point.

I disagree. The 'perception of velocity' is a mental interpretation you make based on other sensory inputs. We actually sense acceleration and can be tricked into perceiving that we are moving based on this sense and a visual input. A good example of this would be Star Tours at Disneyland.

In spite of acceleration not being listed as one of the classic five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste,and smell), it is something you sense and feel. And yes it is difficult for people to put a number on because as a sense acceleration isn't something we normally think of. That being said if you blindfolded and suspended someone in a random orientation they could generally tell you which way was down but they couldn't tell you how fast they were going without making reference to another sense such as sight.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Puddy Tat
Changed 'feel' for sense

[Willow 15]

I wouldn't say that is very accurate, I did and overall search for snowboards and saw speeds 270+ kph. or 167+mph.

I agree, if you do a general search on the website you get some bad readings. However I have been using this app very successfully for road and mountain biking, boarding, skiing and running with no peculiar readings for speed, distance or heart rate. I have a lot of readings in the 50's and 60's in La Plagne where there a lot of flats so mach speed is required to escape unclipping and walking.

Fastest I have done on my road bike is around 48ish down steep hills and I personally feel I go faster on my board. Tarmac is way scarier than snow.

[Johnny]

Resurrected...

I've been using AlpineReplay on my phone, and my highest speed last season is 99.6kmh or 61.8 mph. I've ordered their Trace device which has this description: It has 9-axis sensors, advanced multi-Hz GPS, BT 4.0, and its own processor. Trace also has a rechargeable battery which will last 7 hours and charge through a water-tight micro-USB port.

I'm wondering how good this will be. They are saying it can identify skateboard tricks when you do them. I should have it next month hopefully.

[SkoonyMcGroomer]

At Steamboat the previous weekend with my son for his slopestyle comp, and afterwards wanted to check out the mountain. We rode the gondola up and while looking at the runs below, he said he wanted to "bomb that run to see how fast I can go". I told him that he could download the ski tracks app, which he did. The run was completely clear from top to bottom with a long shallow run-out. I met him at the bottom and he showed me stats on his phone... 130kmh, which equals 80.78mph on a frickin DC 154 MLF park board. Clearly a mistake to have encouraged him.

Edited January 29, 2014 by SkoonyMcGroomer

[patmoore]

It doesn't look that fast in this video but I was clocked at 88 kph (55 mph) in Davos in 2007. They have a start house with no wand and a finish area. If you look very closely on the left side of the course you'll see two dots. Those are electric eyes that calculate your speed at that point. Our ski club was on a club trip and several of us tried it. The fastest skier hit 74 kph. Going 88 kph on a snowboard (168 Volkl RT GS) at age 60 probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done.

[poutanen]

At Steamboat the previous weekend with my son for his slopestyle comp, and afterwards wanted to check out the mountain. We rode the gondola up and while looking at the runs below, he said he wanted to "bomb that run to see how fast I can go". I told him that he could download the ski tracks app, which he did. The run was completely clear from top to bottom with a long shallow run-out. I met him at the bottom and he showed me stats on his phone... 130kmh, which equals 80.78mph on a frickin DC 154 MLF park board. Clearly a mistake to have encouraged him.

This is the trouble with smartphone GPS apps, they're not even close to accurate as far as peak speed is concerned, and they encourage people to "see how fast they can go"...

I GPS track every day I'm out with a GPS watch, and the last thing I look at is peak speed. It's great (and so are the phone apps) for monitoring total distance, vertical feet/M, and that's about it!

[philw]

It doesn't look that fast in this video but I was clocked at 88 kph (55 mph) in Davos in 2007. ...

Yeah, that looks steep enough. I've worked on FIS controlled speed courses and their timing works the same way, although you'd not be allowed on with a toy board like that, and you certainly would not attempt to turn at serious speed.

That sounds like a correct speed reading (and is faster than I'd want to go). On an actual speed course the run-in is much bigger, iced and probably steeper, and then the run out is twice as long as all that put together. You're not allowed to try to stand up even until the very bottom. When people crash at the very bottom, their speed is clearly frightening.

So yeah, it's really funny when people think they're going fast because their 'phone tells them they are. I'm afraid you can't really blame the tool for being stupid though.

[wantok]

Bravo,...I absolutely can't imagine trying it on a board! There used to be an annual FIS ski race at the old Fortress Mountain with speeds running over 130 kph in production class, which felt like standing on the roof of a car passing trucks on the highway. Some KL class skiers got up to 160 kph on a speed track down Bye Bye Bowl at Sunshine but there weren't a lot of participants,...

[sic t 2]

Hunter Mountain: 48 mph most runs I make (on the straights not carving)

Hunter Mountain: 58 mph (highest ever reading... trying to make the lift on a sticky spring day from Racers Edge)

Greenwood Lake in New York: 71 mph behind a snowmobile (I told him 40's, then I thumbed up to 50's which is a good speed. of course, friends being friends he eventually pinned it wide open and i could not let go under that heavy an acceleration). and that is what went down in February of 2013 !!

I clock my speeds with a phone: HTC Incredible

#1. it is dead accurate for speed, within 30 feet of latitude/longitude, and totally worthless for elevations (duh).

#2. of course you can't get a carving speed because of the infrequent samples of a phone (double duh).

#3. I have confirmed it with measure mile and with the "side of the road" police radar displays

When I clock my speeds with my new phone: Samsung Rugby

#1. almost worthless. very slow processor. seems to get overwhelmed by the gps samples flowing in. too unreliable to quote.

However, the HTC is great. we use it to calibrate the analog water pressure speedometers in our slalom boats.

Fun facts at 70 mph: the '98 corvette speedometer is dead on; the 2008 miata speedometer is dead on; my 2003 S10 pickups speedometer is overstated by 2.5 mph, my wife's vibe overstated by 2 mph. But here's the clincher: two BMW's I have been in (3 series overstated by 6 mph !!!). And my brother's 2011 Cayenne overstated 6 mph also !!!). No wonder all those drivers say that "hey, we are doing 70 mph and it feels like 60". Cause they basically are doing 60 :)

Edited February 3, 2014 by sic t 2

[John Gilmour]

Isn't Gilmour known for lay it down on Ruthies going 70+ in soft gear? At least thats what he says...

I couldn't get shot of me going 7mph. Here is a shot of me going 6mph with a big tailwind. I had several trained marmots toss snow up behind me and had Spielberg himself manning the mouse at Industrial Light and Magic photoshop in the rest.

Actually the snow conditions weren't very good for roostertails that day... sorta wetter clumpier snow (actually true). This is pretty much average in this shot- likely around 50mph or so. it's softboots , Union bindings with a Rossignol Judge 168cm. Heelside (i'm twisted a lot here)

Fastest I have gone going straight was also down in Aspen with a speed trap - Vin Quenneveille and Sean Martin of Donek were there (it was Sean's first day riding hard boots) . I had been riding my 158 and couldn't get much above 68 mph through the speed trap on that short a deck- Vin Admirably managed some 57mph in softies. I got on Sean's bigger Donek (I think it might have been a 175cm or larger maybe 181+ ???Sean might remember as he seems to remember most things) ) and I climbed way waaay up above the top of the start (which was not groomed- the speed trap part was silky smooth) I was really getting tossed about at around 30- 40+ mph through the chop and almost had to call it quits .... when suddenly...I hit the smooth groom of the start and the speed started building from there instead of Zero. That was really really fast. (made me feel an adrenaline rush and also quite stupid right after for going that fast) ... I couldn't hear anything through the wind roar. I had a good tuck on that run- and since the fastest prior to that was 68- this felt and sounded quite a bit faster. it also took a scary amount of space to slow down. I "Christ Airbraked"- gently standing up because of the lift.. and that drops you down to 50mph pretty quick so you can begin a regular stop.

Edited April 1, 2014 by John Gilmour