How Far Does the Bicycle Travel?

by James Page

Submitted : Spring 2010

The project that I have chosen deals with the distance that a bicycle traveled given the velocity and time. I have a meter on my bike that tells the total time, speed and distance of every ride that is taken. The meter can be downloaded onto a desktop computer application where all of the information from a ride can be seen, along with a graph depicting the speed. The problem with the graph given on the computer is that it is given in velocity (mph) vs. distance (mi). In this project I set out to see if the same distance could be found by using numerical integration with a velocity vs. time graph. By running the cursor over the computer-generated graph, one can view the velocity in 25-second intervals. By riding for 2450 seconds I was able to plot 98 velocity and time points in Microsoft Excel, and then by numerically integrating with a formula I was able to get a distance that was only a couple of tenths of a mile apart from what the computer gave. My result showed that my way of finding the distance traveled was slightly less accurate than that of the meter on the bike.

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