The sport of cycling appeals to my inner geek. I used to watch Mr. Wizard's World on Nickelodeon when I was a kid. And I took physics in high school and didn't understand that much of it, but cycling is mostly elementary physics, so I can grasp that now.

The other day I was thinking about how a car's gas mileage decreases as the car's speed increases. For example, if you drove 100 miles at 60 mph, your car would use less gas than if you drove 100 mile at 70 mph. That's because the wind resistance against your car increases exponentially as its speed increases. The same is true for cyclists. Thus, it would require more energy for me to increase my average speed from 20 to 21 mph as opposed to an increase from 19 to 20 mph. So, let's say there are three triathletes riding the same bike in a time trial, and athlete A averages 20 mph, athlete B averages 21 mph, and athlete C averages 22 mph. Athlete C put in a larger proportion of work to beat athlete B than athlete B put in to beat athlete A.

Capiche?

In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave Zabriskie beat the average speed record of the 19 km (11.5 miles) time trial (the first stage of the tour).

"When Dave Zabriskie finished the 19km time trial, the average speed was said to be 54.68 km/h. If this is accurate, today’s victory will be the fastest non-prologue time trial in the history of the Tour de France."

54.86 km/hr = 33.97 miles/hr. That is THIRTY FOUR MILES AN HOUR, and that is REALLY FREAKING FAST. Those TDF riders are amazing.