471–480 of 515 posts
As a side-side note, ever asked someone (friends, family, etc.) to draw a bycicle by heart? This guy did: http://www.gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html
This is cool. Except it's driving me nuts that I can't figure out what's wrong with the first picture, or at least why it would immediately break.
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> As for ball bearings these are incremental improvements not a necessity (see horse chariots and carriages with wheels used for millenia before we had ball bearings). For another example see medieval wooden windmills - all cogs and bearings made from wood with some animal fat and skin for bushings and lubrication - worked well enough for centuries. ... >> Anyone accustomed to modern practice finds it hard to believe…
It would be less efficient, but still workable. Even just wood on wood is sufficient. Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcvFpbh2fjE [1] I think people vastly underestimate what you can do with very simple "naive" technology. [1] Yeah it uses aluminium spacers on the chain, but you can do a bicycle without a chain.
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>This is "you're holding it wrong" logic. Nope. I did cycle regularly, got my bike fitted, and all that. But there's no getting away from the fundamental physics of pressure = force / area. Nope sorry it isn't the "your holding it wrong logic". If you do any physical activity that you are unused to you will have slight pains etc. I recently started Thai boxing again and loans behold my body hurt after the workout. Pr…
> If you do any physical activity that you are unused to you will have slight pains etc. It's not about being used to it - I'd been cycling for years. There will always be muscle soreness from using your legs, but an upright brings a totally unnecessary set of aches and pains in other places - wrists, taint, shoulders, neck - because of the awkward hunched position and the fact that you're supporting your body weight…
Your bike doesn't fit! This is like saying "I wore shoes that are two sizes too small and my feet hurt". This isn't a valid argument.
> you're supporting your body weight on a handful of tiny contact points.
Your hands, feet (those thing that are at the end of your legs that you can stand on all day) and arse are a tiny contact points? Give over, this is nonsense.
> I made the switch to a recumbent and even with far less experience than I'd had on an upright, I was easily riding twice as far per day before things became too uncomfortable to continue - and I was able to stop needing padded shorts or gloves as well, which means less luggage when touring or less need to store special clothes in the office.
You are not everyone and just because you have problems the vast majority of people do not. My nan who is 4ft 11 (so a very small lady) managed with a regular bicycle until she was in her late 70s. Are you saying that you are frailer than a woman in her late 70s?
I ride almost everywhere in jeans and t-shirt unless when it is boiling hot in summer when I wear T-shirt and shorts. I don't ride like some people who seem to think it is the tour-de-france everyday.
In my bag, I have a set of lights, a pump, a puncture and repair kit (which is the size of a small wallet), some light water proofs (I am driving if it is tipping it down) and my lunch.
> They jam or fall out of alignment pretty often, so I wouldn't say "almost never go wrong". Yes an experienced cyclist can fix them pretty easily, but it's a barrier for newcomers and for non-enthusiast commuters who just want something to get them to/from work.
No they don't fall out of alignment often. Fixing the chain coming off is literally just feeding it back on. Does it take years of experience to loop something round cog ... no.
You are just making stuff up to win the argument at this point.
> The technology trickles down though. If you go back far enough then things like ABS, electric windows, or fuel injection were something you'd only find on the Rolls Royce (because carburettors were cheaper and more reliable and just required a little bit of manual adjustment occasionally); now you find those things in the cheap Ford too. It'll be the same for bicycles: right now you only find good hub gears on the Rolls-Royce tier tourers, but that will change as the technology gets cheaper.
Except it hasn't. Hub gears have never worked well, the only ones that have stood the test of time are the extremely limited 3 speed sturmey archer models (which require oiling) and very expensive Rohloff models. Every so often hub gears come up, or belt drives and they don't go anywhere.
At this point I am pretty sure you want to be right so this is my last reply to you on this thread.
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> "The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" > Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. I hadn't realized screws would be needed to create a screw-making machine. I love that we have machines that make better versions of their own components, something…
I don't have a source, and maybe I'm misremembering, but I think compilers (for software) and CPU production tooling (for hardware) both bootstrap off their own performance. A better compiler can compile itself more efficiently, same for CPU/chip layout systems.
There is certainly a major milestone in each new language though, when it becomes feature complete enough to write its own compiler.
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I've ridden many different types of bicycle from fixed gears, single speed mountain bikes and more traditional mountain bikes and racing bikes. Recumbent is horrible to ride in traffic (you are below the height of most traffic) and the handling is atrocious. Yes they are maybe more efficient but they are not pleasant to ride. TBH the current design is efficient enough, is well understood both in terms of the technolo…
> Almost all improvements now are iterative. Improvements are directed to where the money goes. UCI racing rules hold back experimentation outside of concept bikes. E-bikes may have broken the dam open and we'll start to see a lot of interesting things come out in that direction.
The fact of the matter is that the current design is near optimal and other designs aren't as well understood, aren't as cheap to make (it is three triangles made out of tubes stuck together with a fork shape at the front) and normally have some horrendous downside.
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I've ridden many different types of bicycle from fixed gears, single speed mountain bikes and more traditional mountain bikes and racing bikes. Recumbent is horrible to ride in traffic (you are below the height of most traffic) and the handling is atrocious. Yes they are maybe more efficient but they are not pleasant to ride. TBH the current design is efficient enough, is well understood both in terms of the technolo…
> Shimano's hub gears need regular maintenance where traditional derailleur setup will go on for thousands of miles with only basic maintenance. I think you got that bit wrong: you have to clean and change parts more often with derailleur systems (the teeth for example erode much quicker). Insurances for hub systems bikes are cheaper because of this reason, at least where I am in Germany. Not a bike expert but I happ…
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> "The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" > Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. I hadn't realized screws would be needed to create a screw-making machine. I love that we have machines that make better versions of their own components, something…
Which is incidentally yet another reason why it's very important to ensure stability of our technological civilization. We've pulled ourselves by the straps of our boots a couple hundred meters into air now; it's not safe to stop pulling. Given big enough shock to economies and populations, we'll regress not a decade or three, but all the way to the beginning of industrial revolution - you can't build the technology…
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I did too. These days, I save nuts and bolts. Not because they are expensive to buy, but I don't want to spend a couple hours going to the hardware store to get one.
I thought everyone had a container where they keep a random selection of nuts and bolts that have been collected over the years...
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Yes, but I don’t think that was the factor here. Ancient technology was astoundingly precise (see the famous Antikythera mechanism). I think the problem was roads. If you combine bad (or nonexistent) roads with airless hard tires, the result is much much less useful than any modern bike on any modern road. The first bikes were indeed wooden with wooden wheels. No ball bearings, no hollow steel tubes etc. But streets.…
The Antikythera Mechanism was a completely exotic Roman artifact. It was the space shuttle of its time. Not really a fair comparison. Dually, Romans were known for their extensive roads system. My family home sites directly below the Ancient Roman frontier in Germany, where you can climb a mountain and still find a 10 foot wide stone road they built 2000 years ago mostly intact
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Yes, but I don’t think that was the factor here. Ancient technology was astoundingly precise (see the famous Antikythera mechanism). I think the problem was roads. If you combine bad (or nonexistent) roads with airless hard tires, the result is much much less useful than any modern bike on any modern road. The first bikes were indeed wooden with wooden wheels. No ball bearings, no hollow steel tubes etc. But streets.…
The Antikythera Mechanism was a completely exotic Roman artifact. It was the space shuttle of its time. Not really a fair comparison. Dually, Romans were known for their extensive roads system. My family home sites directly below the Ancient Roman frontier in Germany, where you can climb a mountain and still find a 10 foot wide stone road they built 2000 years ago mostly intact