Off the top of my head, it jibes with what I’ve discovered in other sources.
Queuing this with a reminder to self: add that Cartographer’s Guild thread link to this, it has more details w basically the same numbers.
… things i never did: add that link. Ahem.
Just to add re: horses re: typical 4 gaits
Walk is an average of 4mph Trot is an average of 8mph Canter is an average of 16-20 mph Gallop is an average of 25-30 mph
Your gallop is probably only gonna be 40 mph if a) your horse is really fit or b) your horse is built for running, a la the English Thoroughbred or the American Quarter Horse. Your horse also needs to be pretty physically fit to sustain a gallop for more than a couple of miles. Top level eventing equines, at the peak of physical fitness, only sustain a gallop for about 11 minutes/4 miles, and that’s a tremendous effort resulting from serious conditioning, and is also including going over/through various terrain and obstacles that the average horse might shy away from. If your horse hits that speed, they will need to recover immediately afterward, either through stopping, or going at the walk.
Your horse will probably be able to maintain a relatively high speed for longer if they are alternating between walking and trotting, with some cantering.
Good references for horse travel include the Pony Express, literally any cavalry program, and modern-day endurance racing.
More on horses and distance.
Message riders, including the Pony Express, would switch horses so they could run a horse to exhaustion without killing it and then grab another fresh one while a groom took care of the spent horse. Which would then do another run after it had recovered. Pony Express riders would switch horses about every 10 miles. Also, the riders were restricted to 125 pounds. Most Pony Express riders were teenaged boys. So, how far did a Pony Express rider ride in a day? About 75 miles. Still not 100. Could you do it? Probably, with multiple horses, but you’d be riding yourself beyond exhaustion and it’s more likely you’d fall off from tiredness, bluntly.
Stage coaches also used a similar system to maximize speed. A stagecoach could cover 60 to 70 miles per day. This was, by the way, the fastest way to travel in Regency England.
100 miles in a day on a single horse?
The Tevis Cup is a 100 mile race with a time limit of 24 hours. In 2016 the winning rider, Karen Donley, rode Royal Patron to the finish at Auburn at 9:48pm, having set off from Robie Park at 5:15am.
This means it took her 16.3 hours to cover the 100 mile distance on a single horse.
The Tevis Cup is the most difficult endurance ride in the world.
After such a ride, both horse and rider would be spent. They take days to recover from these rides. Days.
The horses have to be at least 8 years old to compete at the top level. They’re checked by a vet regularly, and these horses and riders train extensively.
There is absolutely no way horse and rider could cover 100 miles in a day and be fit for anything else afterwards. Furthermore, if a top race rider is taking 16 hours to do that distance, with anything quicker likely to kill the horse…
70 is more reasonable, but they’re still not going to be much use.
So, how far should you have your character travel on horseback in one day.
The answer is 20-30 miles, maybe 40 if they’re on a road in level terrain. Less if they’re having to trailblaze, use game trails, etc. That is assuming that your characters know how to ride and that their horses are in appropriate condition.
It’s also assuming you don’t have a wounded, unconscious companion tied across the saddle. Or have a pack horse. Dead weight – unconscious or dead bodies, the deer you just killed, your packs, or somebody who doesn’t know how the heck to ride slow horses down considerably.
The distances are similar, by the way, for mules.
I’m going to add this because no one else will:
Most tractors’ top speed, on a highway, is about 20mph.
If you’re writing someone driving down a rural road (backroad or highway) during the spring or the fall, there’s a chance that they’ll be caught behind a tractor. You wanna frustrate someone, have that happen to them.
another person on facebook was having trouble getting their family to understand the spoon theory because they couldn’t wrap their head around the metaphor so I wrote up a detailed version of my battery post I made ages ago inspired by my macbook, might as well post it here too.
I’ve never been a big fan of the spoon theory because it’s kind of
abstract and confusing to explain unless you print out and carry the
thing with you and make people read it because it makes NO SENSE out of
context so I made one that most people will be able to understand
easier. (might not help with elderly people but generally they will get
it because their battery might not be defective, but all batteries stop
holding charge when they get old so they are more likely to Get It without a metaphor)
When you get an electronic device, like a laptop or cell phone it comes
with an rechargeable battery. Some people are unlucky and get a dud. Or
maybe there is a recall and the entire line of the product due to a defect.
My battery isn’t any good.
When I’m all charged up I and it says it’s ok to unplug the charger,
I’m not at 100%. I haven’t been able to charge that far up for years. I
am already basically in the yellow when I start my day. If you only have
a half hour of battery life just browsing the internet, how are you
expected to load a flash video to watch that takes up way more juice?
You can maybe do it with the right help, such as a portable charger
(here representing accessibility devices like wheelchairs, or treatment/medication). Sometimes the percentage amount is also inaccurate
to. It says you have 20% battery and 20 minutes left and then your
computer just -shuts off- out of nowhere. Surprise! you crashed! I hope
you were anticipating that risk and saved your work!
In addition
my charger doesn’t always work.
I can plug it in and it just says “not
charging”. So sometimes you leave the computer overnight to charge and
wake up, wait, 30% battery when my 100% is a normal person’s
60%????!!!?? not fair! This is what happens when you combine in the
restfulness or inadequate sleep.
The combination means you are
really working at rationing what you can do with your device. Should I
turn it off most of the day in case I need it later? How many people can
I talk to on my phone for how long before it runs out of juice. How
much work can I get done on my laptop before the battery dies, possibly
taking the work with it?
That’s how are bodies are. We have to
carefully monitor how much energy we (think) we have, what amount of
stuff we should be able to do with it, what must be sacrificed, as well
as try and keep track of charging stations, battery packs etc. to rescue
us if we miscalculate. And if we do we could lose something important
in the power outage.
But batteries aren’t user replaceable and
we don’t have a warranty, we can’t get it fixed, just have to deal with
it as well as we can. The battery does not define us but it effects every part of our lives effecting everything we do and every decision because while most people haven’t experienced a energy crash, they have probably experienced the hell that is the computer shutting down and destroying hours of effort you’ve put into something as punishment for taking that risk.
