Walking and Riding to Town—Is It Faster?

This puzzler was sent in by Doug Burnside. Of course, I did have to obfuscate and de-clarify.

Doug writes, "John and Fred have a dilemma. They need to get back to town as quickly as possible, but they only have one bicycle between them. And, of course, you can travel faster on the bike than you can by walking.

John says, "We'll leave at the same time. You start walking, and I'll ride the bike for a mile. Then I'll leave it by the side of the road, while you keep walking. When you get to the bike, you get on it, and you ride for a mile, and then you leave it by the side of the road. When I get to it, I'll ride another mile. We'll keep leap frogging like this until we get to town.

"Since we'll be riding part of the way and walking part of the way, each of us will have a higher average speed than if we walked, so we'll get there faster.

Fred says, "That isn't going to do any good, you dope! Think about it. Between the two of us, one or the other is going to walk every inch of the way from here to town. So, we can't possibly get there any faster than if we just walked all the way and didn't use the bike at all."

Who's right? Or, like us, are they both wrong?

Think you know? Drop Ray a note!

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]