Los Angeles Cyclists to Race JetBlue Flight during #carmageddon

Used search, scanned General, couldn't see this, so apols if it's a repost...

Anyway, across yonder side of t' pond, Freeway 405 in Los Angeles is being closed for two days. This prompted airline JetBlue to offer $4 flights from Burbank to Long Beach, a distance of 55km.

That, in turn, prompted a Twitter flurry which resulted in a cycling club, Wolfpack Hustle, to suggest a race. Cyclists vs Plane, today, Saturday 16 July.

Blog post about it is here: http://www.bikecommutenews.com/2011/07/los-angeles-cyclists-to-race-jet-blue.html?spref=tw

Heh!

I like this.

Go bikes!

55km- about 35 miles, about two hours hard riding? Allow check in, security, taxiing. Would be a close call I imagine.

this is interesting, Tom Vanderbilt wrote the awesome book' traffic'
knew Id seen his name before, deeper digging needed
bet the bikes win

I'd put my fiver on the bikes. Then again, domestic flights are slightly faster to board.

I'd fly to macdonalds right now in this rain

Not really a fair race. I can do 35 miles in an hour fifty. And the cyclists are setting off an hour and a half earlier than the flight leaves. As that's what time passengers are told to be at the airport for. They'll easily win.

It's door to door, it's totally fair. You can't have a proper race if one person has an hour-and-a-half head start!

Ok. Yeah its door to door, but when the cyclists and the plane passengers set off at the same time, the plane passengers have a full hour and a half before the plane actually departs. So if the flight is only 10 minutes long, that still gives the riders and hour forty to get to the destination. Unless I'm totally mistaken by what was written in the tweets in the article? I might be??

No, you're right, but I think just counting airborne time isn't fair. I always cycled E11 to SE1 faster than I could tube it, but I counted my house door to work door, not tube door to work door!

Anyway, who won?

Bikes have just won it (#flightvbike on Twitter)

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/bike-v-jet-los-angeles-or-bust/011522

Bikes arrived even before the plane took off due to airport delays ^_^

Good win for the bikes - I was glad to see that they extended the challenge to include someone taking the metro.

riders completed it in 1hr 34 mins. Metro commuter took 'just under 2 hours', whilst Jet Blue + taxi completed the journey in 2hrs 54mins. Flight time itself was 12 minutes (it was an A320), but the delays at the airport killed the challenge, it looks like.