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Comment by sponaugle | Hacker News Reader

This was interesting: "By contrast, a person on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than a pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories. "

That sounds about right for a bike on a paved road, but I would assume over uneven ground the ratio of efficiency is less? Is a hiker on a trail that much less efficient than a mountain bike on the same trail? I would think that at higher slopes the efficency ratio goes down even more due to the mass of the bike?

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There's a small loss possible due to tires slipping a bit, also higher rolling resistance due to usually wider and less smooth tires. The grade needs to get steeper than 10% on pavement or off for the weight penalty of a bicycle to count against the rider versus the efficiency, depending upon the weight of the bicycle+rider. If you look at the times of guys in the Tour de France for climbs up mountains the fastest can do a four minute mile on the uphill parts, here's last years winner on a 10 mile climb https://www.bicycling.com/tour-de-france/a44465449/tour-de-f... For reference if a marathon runner could go that fast I believe they would run a 1:45 marathon - up a mountain. The top end cross country mountain bikes weigh about 6-10 pounds more than the bikes the road professionals are using.

I haven’t done scientific experiments but I think a MTB is still quite efficient on average. But a lot less than a road bike without suspension nor grip on a flat road.

When going uphill on difficult terrain with my mountain bike, I sometimes get passed by trail runners. If we continue on the same path, I pass them back on flat and downhill sections so it may be worth it. I can also bike quite a bit longer than I can trail run.

Sometimes I have to push or carry the bike and the efficiency isn’t great for sure but a mountain bike isn’t that heavy and you can use it as support too. But it’s slower than a hiker going uphill.

Good walking paths are always faster by bicycle. There is a 1000 km path through the woods of Stockholm it is not ment for cycling but I can still go at least 3x times the distance with no extra energy. This is with a normal bike.

Sörmlandsleden?

Indeed and it is perfectly fine to cycle there it just roots and rocks over the path. That said it is almost impossible to use the routes near Stockholm during summer.

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