Ah, so THAT'S what's holding me back!

[Chargeride]

And just think Charge how many people in Europe ride rough trails without any throttle
You could be wearing a wrist HR monitor such as Polar OH-1 to determine your actual effort.

Theres the thing, I would say offroad a throttles entire use is to prevent pedal strikes, this allows you to hit harder and steeper and faster by keeping momentum.
Riders who have the expertise to conquer extreme trails while pedalling truly are the fittest, but it should never be allowed on legal bike in my opinion, when I think of the amount of times I accidently hit the throttle while standing with the bike or propping it against something.

Imagine knocking it in this situation .

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Theres the thing, I would say offroad a throttles entire use is to prevent pedal strikes, this allows you to hit harder and steeper and faster by keeping momentum.
Riders who have the expertise to conquer extreme trails while pedalling truly are the fittest, but it should never be allowed on legal bike in my opinion, when I think of the amount of times I accidently hit the throttle while standing with the bike or propping it against something.

Imagine knocking it in this situation .

Totally agree: A throttle's really helpful for keeping momentum over rocks, roots, steep driveways, etc. And it would be a real bummer to get flung off that cliff.

But I've never hit my thumb throttle by accident in nearly 2,500 miles of riding. Could be a reason not to nose up to precipices like that, I suppose, but my throttle's way too valuable a riding tool to give it up for a risk that unlikely and that avoidable.

 

[Chargeride]

Im always doing it

 

[PSm]

Very enjoyable watch. All I need is better equipment, more aero position … and more training, and natural talent

 

[mschwett]

I can see some error in this reasoning. The energy spent would be indeed lower if you rode a given distance twice as fast but that would not cancel the third power term for the power demand.

I'd like to see some numbers to prove the energy spent on a very fast ride is closer to the square term.

going twice as fast takes half the time! use bikecalculator to see a more nuanced expression of it, you’ll see that it shows around 6x the instantaneous power to travel at 50 than 25kph (since not all resistance comes from wind), which means it’s only 3x the total work done to go 50km. 550w for an hour vs 92w for two hours. a bit less than the third power for instantaneous, a bit less than the square for total. as speeds increase it’ll get closer to the square and third power.