Do you record your rides in Kilometres or Miles?

mudsucker

Hi,

I'm sure this will open up a can of worms but hey.

Do you record your rides in Kilometres or Miles?

for me, I was born in England, I live in England, all our road signs are in Miles and our car odometers record in Miles so why do some cyclists in the UK use KMs as a measurement of distance and speed?

Is it to make it look like you have done more as KM is a higher number? No fighting please, just something I have always wondered.

Thanks!

whyamihere

Kilometres. I think in metric. The only things I use imperial for are speed limits when driving (when looking at journey distance for the car I do it in km too, and my odometer is set to km) and buying a pint.

pblakeney

I use miles for my records as miles is what we use on the roads here.
However, my head unit has whatever is applicable depending on location.

As an aside, do those using kms to get higher numbers use feet for climbing?

Tashman

Kilometres as it' what the rest of the world uses. Still can't understand why no government in this country has ever taken the leap

First.Aspect

Kilometre is the international unit of cycling.

My front brake lever is on the left as it should be, as well.

JimD666

Anything human sized I still deal in imperial. Cant get visualise how tall/heavy someone is in metric. After that Metric all the way, but it's easy enough to convert (approximately) depending on who I'm having a conversation with.

mudsucker

JimD666 said:

Anything human sized I still deal in imperial. Cant get visualise how tall/heavy someone is in metric. After that Metric all the way, but it's easy enough to convert (approximately) depending on who I'm having a conversation with.

I know what you mean, we in the Uk just use what sounds right for certain things!

kingstongraham

How do people who think in miles for cycling distance cope with watching cycling on telly?

mudsucker

kingstongraham said:

How do people who think in miles for cycling distance cope with watching cycling on telly?

I find watching cycling on TV a bit dull TBH. Much like I enjoy going sailing but it's boring to watch.

wallace_and_gromit

kingstongraham said:

How do people who think in miles for cycling distance cope with watching cycling on telly?

The km is the natural unit of measurement for cycling as in the run in to a sprint finish, the average speed is typically 60kmh or thereabouts so if there’s 10k to go you can do something else for 8 minutes, come back and catch the final 2 minutes of action.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

I use both.

I display Zwift in Km, going back to getting 20XP per Km as opposed to 30XP per mile, quicker level progression.

My Lezyne GPS displays mph and gives splits every mile.

I use miles on Strava. On at least one occasion since '17 I've had a monthly Fondo challenge fail by ~0.2 miles.

rick_chasey

How else can you compare your ride to the pros?

KM

pblakeney

kingstongraham said:

How do people who think in miles for cycling distance cope with watching cycling on telly?

Maybe a factor of age and living through the conversion, plus travelling, but I find using the 5/8 factor quite simple. But more generally, I don't even think about it. It is what it is.

First.Aspect

So do the people who record things in miles drive really really slowly when they are on holiday in Europe?

Or is that an equally daft question?

Dorset_Boy

Which bit of your road bike is meaured in imperial? Everything is in mm and cms.

Imperial is for mountain bikers and for UK based TTs. It has no other place in cycling.

pblakeney

First.Aspect said:

So do the people who record things in miles drive really really slowly when they are on holiday in Europe?

Or is that an equally daft question?

Speedometers already display kmph and 60mph is faster than 60kmph. Or is that an equally daft answer?
Do the people who record things in kms drive really really slowly when they are in Britain?

First.Aspect

pblakeney said:

First.Aspect said:

So do the people who record things in miles drive really really slowly when they are on holiday in Europe?

Or is that an equally daft question?

Speedometers already display kmph and 60mph is faster than 60kmph. Or is that an equally daft answer?
Do the people who record things in kms drive really really slowly when they are in Britain?

You get the idea though. It is not hard to be literate in both. We aren't talking about converting pound acre feet into kgm^-3 here are we?

Munsford0

Miles for me. I grew up cycling in the late 60s / early 70s, navigating using 1 inch to a mile O.S. maps, and tracing the route with a bit of cotton in order to measure how far I'd been.
Mind you, as I now descend into decrepitude I'm considering switching to km so my speeds and distances sound less embarrassing...

gethinceri

KMs
For the maths.

pblakeney

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

First.Aspect said:

So do the people who record things in miles drive really really slowly when they are on holiday in Europe?

Or is that an equally daft question?

Speedometers already display kmph and 60mph is faster than 60kmph. Or is that an equally daft answer?
Do the people who record things in kms drive really really slowly when they are in Britain?

You get the idea though. It is not hard to be literate in both. We aren't talking about converting pound acre feet into kgm^-3 here are we?

Agreed but I think this is a UK specific thing. *Edit - Or not as it happens.
Doubt many other countries* bother with conversion as it is one or the other.

*Maybe more than I thought. Canadians going to the States for example.

MidlandsGrimpeur2

KM - largely because my first cycle computer was set to KM and I just got used to it. The added bonus of higher speeds and distances compared to miles has probably kept me programmed to km

pblakeney

Here's an observation. I recently switched my Garmin to kms in preparation for going on holiday. My average speeds have dropped since then.

wallace_and_gromit

N0bodyOfTheGoat said:

I use both.

I display Zwift in Km, going back to getting 20XP per Km as opposed to 30XP per mile, quicker level progression.

My Lezyne GPS displays mph and gives splits every mile.

I use miles on Strava. On at least one occasion since '17 I've had a monthly Fondo challenge fail by ~0.2 miles.

My "Imperial Centuries" for 2019 and 2020 were actually 99.94 and 99.98 miles respectively when viewed in imperial on Strava.

In 2019 I rode "161 plus a bit" km on my Garmin, aiming to hit 160.9km (100 miles) but hadn't factored in that on my main display, 161km is anything in excess of 160.5km after rounding, and I'd only done 160.8km when I stopped.

The year later I rode home for what felt like hours into a headwind and CBA to add the necessary 20 metres to get up to the actual Imperial Century as getting off the bike felt more important than arbitrary distance targets!

First.Aspect

pblakeney said:

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

First.Aspect said:

So do the people who record things in miles drive really really slowly when they are on holiday in Europe?

Or is that an equally daft question?

Speedometers already display kmph and 60mph is faster than 60kmph. Or is that an equally daft answer?
Do the people who record things in kms drive really really slowly when they are in Britain?

You get the idea though. It is not hard to be literate in both. We aren't talking about converting pound acre feet into kgm^-3 here are we?

Agreed but I think this is a UK specific thing. *Edit - Or not as it happens.
Doubt many other countries* bother with conversion as it is one or the other.

*Maybe more than I thought. Canadians going to the States for example.

The world is mostly in km now, and essentially all science is now SI units. But the US is the biggest economy in the world and still uses standard units so it doesn't hurt to know the main ones.

mrb123

Miles.

I'll always remember the elation of hitting 100 miles for the first time on a ride (and subsequently 200 miles).

First.Aspect

mrb123 said:

Miles.

I'll always remember the elation of hitting 100 miles for the first time on a ride (and subsequently 200 miles).

Shame there wasn't an option for manpoints.

davebradswmb

km for me, since riding in France a few years ago and found that I liked it.

For milestones it's handy to be able to be able to switch between both systems

50 km - 50 miles - 100 km - 150 km - 100 miles - 200 km - 150 miles etc.

As an aside I used to use 100 ft per mile as a measure of whether a ride was properly hilly, I now use 20 m per kilometre which is very close.

DeVlaeminck

I've put miles, though in zwift I use KMs, never really considered why. I did start measuring road rides in km once but I found I was always making a mental conversion to miles anyway - I've got 66km to go so that's about 40 miles kind of thing - so switched back.

ibr17xvii

DeVlaeminck said:

I've put miles, though in zwift I use KMs.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that does this.

The reason for me is as already stated quicker level progression.

singleton

I stared doing triathlons and all training was done in km, but now that I only cycle, I switched to miles as most riding friends used miles.

crescent

Whatever the road signs use in the location I'm cycling in, so miles in the UK, Km when I'm on holiday abroad. It's just easier that way, I find.
For DIY I use metric, but that would be a different vote.