Back in my early 20's I used to ride a Huffy Stalker mountainbike to work... no engine, just pedal power... but I was in a Lot better shape back then and could pedal that thing up to 32mph and on my 5 mile trip to work I could average about 20mph.
Here's where it got fun... and this is still the fastest I've been on a bicycle... there was this big hill between Lackland and Kelly Air Force base that tied the 2 bases together so I would go in thru Lackland and cut across then go down that hill to the other side. Every morning I would pedal my way to top speed (or at least try to be around 30mph) before I got to this hill, then I'd pdeal as hard and fast as I could in high gear while ducking down chin on the bars style. I remember if a car was in front of me I'd shoot past them like they were sitting still (the speed limit on base is 30 and most people follow the rules more on base) then I would coast it down to a more sane speed when I got to the bottom.
I did this for several weeks but started to wonder just how fast I was hitting going down that hill so I bought one of those little digital bike computers, installed it and calibrated it, then got my wife to drive beside me and tell me how fast I was going... I wanted to make sure this thing was reading as accurately as possible.
Monday comes along and it's time to ride to work, I get up, get the bie out, and head off to Lackland, can't wait to get to that hill but taking it easy so I don't burn up all my energy getting to the hill...
Hit the straight before the hill and start to accelerateuntil I saw 32 on the speedo.... Down we Go!!! I'm pedaling as hard and fast as I possibly can without my legs triping up on me, chin on the bars and I'm haulin'... look down to see how fast I'm going and can't read the numbers that close to my face... so I pop up and look down to see the speed quickly dropping 46,45,44,43,42,41,40... in about 3 seconds or less just from the wind braking... I tried it everytime i went down the hill until my orders were up and I had to go back to my real job that was too far to ride to. my guess is that I was somewhere around 49 or 50 since it always took me 2 or 3 seconds to focus in on that little speedometer at 7:00 am before there's rteally enough daylight to see it good, but by the time I got focused in on it I saw the same 46,45,44,43,42,41,40,etc so I'm not really sure how fast I was hitting.
I probably shoulda took a ride on the weekend during the daylight to try it just so I could see how fast I was going, I probably should have made a bracket to mount the speedo down on the fork tube or somewhere that was about 18 inches from my face so I could read it with my chin down to the bars... I coulda done this or that, but I didn't so who knows how fast I was really hitting...
I just remember what a rush it was and actually looked forward to my ride to work every morning.
And now I got an engine on a bike that's better and more stable, but still hadn't topped that speed...