Way OT: furlongs per fortnight

General
1

I like the idea of measuring my rides in these arcane units. Sadly I can’t reprogram my cycle computer so I have to do the manual conversions.

One furlong is 201.168m (don’t know what that is in feet or miles because we use metric in Aus). [Fortnight is a contraction of fourteen nights]

I just need to work a little harder and I can crack the 800 furlong per fortnight barrier.

Phil from Melbourne

2

Re: Way OT: furlongs per fortnight

“philowen” <philowen.ii5hn@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:philowen.ii5hn@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> I like the idea of measuring my rides in these arcane units. Sadly I
> can’t reprogram my cycle computer so I have to do the manual
> conversions.
>
> One furlong is 201.168m (don’t know what that is in feet or miles
> because we use metric in Aus).

A furlong is 220 yards, or in terms of something you Ozzies can understand
:wink: ten cricket pitches.
I must wonder WHY furlongs? When so many better measures exist:
chains, poles, perches etc, or would they only be applicable to giraffes?

Naomi

>
> I just need to work a little harder and I can crack the 800 furlong per
> fortnight barrier.

That’s 8000 lengths of the Melborne pitch. I’ll look out for you in the
next test match.

Naomi

3

One furlong = 220 yards (1 yard = 3 feet. 1 foot = 12 inches.)

1 furlong = 1/8 of a mile.

handily,
1/16 mile = 110 yards.
1/8 mile = 220 yards (furlong)
1/4 mile = 440 yards
1/2 mile = 880 yards

Which is why a mile is 1760 yards, which at first sight would seem a strange number!

Furlong comes from the old English and means ‘furrow long’ and is the traditional length of a single furrow in a ploughed field. This goes back to the day of horse drawn ploughs and small fields. A horse drawn plough could plough 1 acre in a day.

1 acre = 4,840 square yards.
Go back to the furlong and you will realise that 1 furlong squared = 48,400 square yards. So in one day, a single plough could do 1 furlong X 1/10 furlong of land. All very neat.

Applying these old units to unicycling, I’d suggest a cubit whel, or perhaps a royal cubit wheel, with cranks that are 1 span (for max torque) or 1 hand (for max speed).

Or a Coker, which has a wheel which is 1/2 fathom in diameter.

4

cant we all just measure in beers?

5

Mike and Naomi

Thanks for the edifying responses to my piece of whimsy.

The first half dozen years of my life were imperial, the next three dozen were metric.

I like the idea of ‘describing’ cranks as one hand or one span, and I love some of the possibilities inherent in a coker’s wheel being half a fathom.

Phil from Melbourne