Cycling with Metric Measurements

Having watched a few weeks of Le Tour, you can't help but notice that the race is (obviously, it's held in Europe!) using the metric system - 10 km to the finish line, the peloton is averaging 40 kph etc. Of course, Versus will do the conversions for the U.S., but I'm starting to think that I'd like to get to know the measurement system used by most of the world a bit better. (I doubt the U.S. would ever switch though - reminds me I'll have to move to Europe one day!)

So I changed the settings on my cyclo-computer to use metric, and now instead of cruising at a cool 20-22 mph, I'm looking at speeds of 32-35 kph! Obviously the same speed, but all of a sudden the numbers look so much bigger, it throws off my perception of how fast I'm going. Which can be a good thing if you find yourself checking your cyclo-computer more than the road ahead of you, as I sometimes do!

So the hilly lake washington loop is now a whopping 81 km!! Makes it sound much more enticing, doesn't it? The Seattle-to-Portland ride is 321 km - doesn't that sound crazy! (As if 200 miles doesn't sound crazy enough). I'm gonna do the lake wa loop today - let's see if I can keep up a speed of 31 kilometers an hour! (My site has a tool to do the conversions)

Anyone else out there using metric?

Update: I only achieved 26 km/h