Obvious non-transport analogies aside, this was absolutely my experience when commuting across London by bike. Rushing just stressed you out and didn't really get you anywhere.
The same goes for driving. On a highway, you can go as fast as you can (70 in the clear; whatever the vehicle in front is doing when not, so probably averaging low 60s on a moderately busy motorway). This requires a lot of concentration as you need to constantly plot a way forward through the traffic.
Or you can sit behind an HGV in lane one and just do 55 all the way. Listen to music or an audiobook maybe.
Total journey cost is a few minutes, but you arrive able to function rather then needing a coffee and a calm down to recover from the drive.
The benefit is even less in the city as you can aggressively tailgate all you want, but at best you'll get through only a small handful of lights one cycle earlier over the entire journey.
Stressful driving is the worst … I try to avoid. It costs so much energy, is dangerous and risky.
On long distance drives with my car I enjoy driving fast. In Austria the speedlimit is 130kmh, driving 145kmh kill the monotony … casual overtaking, nothing worse to drive 3 or 4 hours with the same pace.
In Germany 80% if the highways are unlimited, 160kmh is really nice traveling speed.
Its hard to not rush on my commute where arriving at the station 10 seconds too late could result in waiting 10 more minutes for the next train, which could be the difference between being considered late to the office or not
I've thought about this quite a bit (while driving and using trains and buses) and it seems to me that if the schedule of the train (or bus or traffic light) is independent of your journey, such that you arrive at the station, stop or light at any point in the cycle with even probability, then arriving 10 seconds later will on average translate to a 10 second delay in the journey.
It's just that maybe 9 times out of 100, you didn't miss the train (or got through the light on the same cycle) and the other 1 time is the one where you miss the train or the light goes red just before you arrive.
Of course, being on time on average (i.e. 10 seconds ahead for 59 days, 10 minutes late once) doesn't cut it if your boss is "that kind". I'm fortunate in that my start times aren't strictly policed. If they were, you can bet if be there at 8:59:30 (sitting in the car reading if necessary) and out of the door at 5:00:30 (and probably again reading to let traffic dissipate).
Also doesn't take into account non-idenpendence: if you usually leave so that you arrive just in time, only a small delay can cause a disproportionate effect (a feature of systems with nonlinear feedback loops).
I recommend working for a company that care about your results not whether you sometimes arrive 10 minutes late for work. Managers that focus on arrival time are in my experience incompetent.
>The benefit is even less in the city as you can aggressively tailgate all you want, but at best you'll get through only a small handful of lights one cycle earlier over the entire journey.
Or even: one *bicycle earlier over the entire journey.
From the Tim Ferris podcast the episode with Hugh Jackman, they are talking about the 85% rule which is about how relaxation is linked to high performance, for example elite athletes don’t tensión going full 100% but just 85% and you’ll go faster than if you think I’ll go full in because you are relaxed you can perform better you use your resources more wisely, nice article.
The principle behind it is called polarized training. Multiple studies have been done at this point. There are still tiny disagreements but the general idea well tested. I’m using it as well for schema’s as well and works like charm, people go faster and training is more enjoyable
The idea makes sense for work, but I don't buy that biking leisurely makes you move the same speed. What made the biggest difference for me was training, and the author maybe got faster from all the hard riding before testing the easy riding.
I also used to ride that Santa Monica path all the time, and there are some tight turns with sand on the path. Maybe biking hard then wasting energy braking on those turns negatively impacted the time, but idk, there aren't enough of those turns to make a big difference.
He most likely got exhausted very quickly and couldn't recover because he kept pushing. So he was actually riding pretty slow for the rest of the ride.
Endurance athletes know well that one has to start slow, warm up and get to cruising speed in order to achieve good times. Sprinting does not work.
Edit: actually, starting running was enlightening for me. I realized that, as for running, one has to work at 70% of their capacity most of the time and get ample recovery time to really improve. Then one can be effortlessly good and nice to work with.
Scrum talks a lot about "sprint" but, somehow, recovery time was lost in the analogy. Sprinters actually rest far longer than they run.
When I used to do the occasional "fun run", the sheer number of people at the start meant that unless I wanted to duck and weave through the crowd, I _had_ to start slowly and then gradually speed up as everyone spread out.
Even when I did a run without much training leading up to it, that forced slow start meant I'd ease into a sensible cruising speed and be fine for hours, as opposed to being wrecked inside of 20 minutes of running alone.
It's quite possible that the main reason he's taking nearly the same time is because he's now more fit. It's also quite possible that the improvements in conditioning only really became visible once he stopped doing it as intensively, as sufficient rest is also important.
I have kind of noticed that trying to ride faster can bring diminishing results in terms of time, though. This is mostly from commutes -- I rarely go on pure exercise rides nowadays and I never really time or measure them if I do -- but going from a semi-leisurely pace to one of actual exertion seems to cut my travel times by less than 20 percent.
I used to commute ~45 to 50 minutes to a previous job by bike, and increasing the intensity from moderate (getting a bit sweaty but not feeling real strain) to some significant exertion might have won me five minutes. Going all out might have theoretically won me a bit more but probably still in the teens in terms of percentage. Granted there were intersections, traffic signals etc. along the commute, so I couldn't really just keep a steady pace and that might also have an effect on how much you can gain, but there were also stretches of several kilometres where I didn't have to stop.
I don't necessarily buy the two-minute difference but I can buy the diminishing returns of increasing intensity.
Diminishing returns for sure. I usually bike leisurely to work cause I don't want to show up sweaty, and it's not a whole lot slower. I only bike fast if I want to get fit.
When biking having leftover reserves for the hill or the traffic lights saves a lot more time than using it up on the flat.
The actual output between a moderate effort and going as hard as you can is a 20-30% in terms of wattage, but that only translates to 5%-10% speed increase because the power required to overcome wind resistance scales with the third power of velocity. If that comes at a cost of a 5% power decrease (where power is proportional to velocity and you spend a greater amount of time per unit distance) on the hill because you're exhausted then the gains can wind up being minimal.
I calculated it and he basically would have need to have a speed of 1km/h less than his top speed to achieve that result (true in the range 10 to 20km). So indeed it is weird :) perhaps it has to do with hills. Or the taste if shit in his mouth made him want to go home faster to mouth wash
The same feeling I had with the car: to go to my girlfriend's house, I have to drive for 40 minutes.
I've always driven that 40 minutes at full 130 km/h speed, stressing about traffic and jumping from lane to lane.
Once I decided to drive differently in the slowest lane, enjoying the ride with a nice podcast, not worrying about the traffic and with an average speed of 110km/h.
The result was that I really enjoyed the ride and it took me ~43 minutes.
I had a lot of driver pass me quite aggressively (while I was going at speed limit or maybe 1-2 kph less) only to stop at red lights in 300 meters or park near a grocery store in 400 meters. I cannot understand their thinking, if this kind of road rage can have any thinking behind it at all. Those milliseconds saved likely mean a lot to them.
The winter is coming, and at least here in Europe all signs are that energy — be it gasoline or diesel or electricity — are going to be quite expensive. For any kind of vehicle out there, the only practical way to save fuel is to drive smoothly, in a relaxed way, without sudden acceleration/deceleration, and not at all at highway speeds.
As far as I know, no type of commercially sold vehicle has its optimum speed for maximising range close to highway speeds. Maybe it’s not true about some sport vehicles produced in dozen units total.
I used to be one of the aggressive weavers, and I think I was engaging in a very stupid attempt at activism - "I'll teach these slow sleepy drivers to wake up so we can all get to our destinations more efficiently."
Of course, that is completely futile and I was just being a jerk. Life is much better if you regard the other drivers as your fellow humans, and remember that we're all in this together. Being default-courteous has helped me be much more relaxed and happy.
Some sports skills, like driving a golf ball or serving in tennis, require relaxation. You hit the ball much harder if you are relaxed than if you try to "muscle it". In tennis, at least, the principle really applies to the whole game. As my coach said, "you won't play well if you're thinking about winning."
It reminds me of the Taoist poem by Chuang Tzu that Thomas Merton translated as "The Need to Win":
If an archer is shooting for nothing
He has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind
Or sees two targets—
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed But the prize
divides him. He cares.
He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting—
And the need to win
Drains him of power.
[EDIT: Trying to figure out how to get single-spaced line breaks here. Not much poetry on HN, I guess. :-)]
"When I notice that I’m all stressed out about something or driving myself to exhaustion, I remember that bike ride and try dialing back my effort by 50 percent. It’s been amazing how often everything gets done just as well and just as fast, with what feels like half the effort." -- Listen to Derek Sivers.
Also depends on topography and road quality and where you choose to push hard vs relax. Same effort on a bad part of the road will gain you less time and waste more energy than if you relaxed on that part and pushed hard on the good parts.
I've noticed recently that I'm more exhausted (to the point of "hitting the wall" and doing under 10 km/h for the last 5 km) when I'm going 30 km to my parents than after 110 km ride from Lublin to Kazimierz Dolny and back. The main difference is that the first half of the road to my parents is on a shitty brick-paved bike path and it's consistently slightly uphill for like 20 km. The other road is mostly asphalt country roads and small hills and downs every 100 meters so you can rest every few minutes.
“A pelican flew right over me in Marina del Rey. When I looked up to say ‘wow!’ he shit in my mouth. I can still remember that taste of digested shellfish. I had to laugh at the novelty of it.”
If only he'd ridden at maximum effort like usual, he would have avoided the bird incident.
Honestly the bird shitting in his mouth steals the show. What an unfortunate and disgusting thing to happen!
Even though his point about enjoying exercise is valid, the 2 minutes of pushing hard would translate into more burnt calories and muscle growth than what a casual ride would deliver.
Yeah that’s what bothers me as well. Muscle growth is discounted here. The distance and the time are meaningless. Of course pleasure riding along is a good metric but it was also always discounted until that one last ride.
Yea, 43 -> 45 minutes is a 5% decrease in performance, which sounds small but actually is pretty significant for any trained athlete. That's 15 seconds if you're running a 5:00 mile.
In cycling particularly you have all sorts of day-of considerations like hydration incl. electrolyte balances, RBC counts, sleep debt, glycogen levels etc. Even just having some carb-heavy meals a few days in a row would potentially affect his RPE. But none of that takes away from his deloading principle.
People who practice playing musical instruments eventually learn something similar. You shouldn't really push hard, you need to be relaxed and then the speed will come. Plus it's also lot more enjoyable.
There is a saying in Spanish that perfectly encapsulates the idea of this article: "vísteme despacio que tengo prisa" (dress me slowly, — because — I am in a hurry).
KE isn't really relevant except in repeated braking.
It's air resistance scaling as F=kv^2 or P=kv^3 that does it. Doubling the effort drops time by just over 20% in the aero dominated regime. Perceived doubling of effort is more likely 30-50% more power which is 8-13% less time.
You're often faster saving those muscles for taking off from the lights or climbing the hill in a commute type situation than adding 2-7kph to the straight.
The same goes for driving. On a highway, you can go as fast as you can (70 in the clear; whatever the vehicle in front is doing when not, so probably averaging low 60s on a moderately busy motorway). This requires a lot of concentration as you need to constantly plot a way forward through the traffic.
Or you can sit behind an HGV in lane one and just do 55 all the way. Listen to music or an audiobook maybe.
Total journey cost is a few minutes, but you arrive able to function rather then needing a coffee and a calm down to recover from the drive.
The benefit is even less in the city as you can aggressively tailgate all you want, but at best you'll get through only a small handful of lights one cycle earlier over the entire journey.