Problema Solution
A tourist rents a beach cruiser to bike along a long flat stretch of beach. Biking with the wind, it takes 9 minutes to travel 2 miles.
Biking against the wind, the return trip takes 24 minutes. If there was no wind, how fast was the cyclist biking? Round to the nearest 0.1 mph.
Answer provided by our tutors
let 'x' represent the speed of the cyclist and 'w' represent the speed of the wind
cycling with the wind, the speed is 'x+w'
cycling against the wind, the speed is 'x-w'
9 minutes = 9/60 hours
24 minutes = 24/60 hours
distance = speed * time
2 = (x+w)9/60
2 = (x-w)24/60
solving this system, we have:
w = 4.17
x = 9.17
the cyclist would cycle 4.17 mph with no wind