Author Topic: Are long bikes more efficient?  (Read 5203 times)

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
    • Stuff mostly about weather
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It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Kim

  • Timelord
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Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #1 on: 24 July, 2020, 09:25:44 pm »
This thread wouldn't be complete without the Sprocket Rocket...

https://youtu.be/W6K18bgxn78
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/W6K18bgxn78&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/W6K18bgxn78&rel=1</a>

Failure modes left as an exercise for our official YACF Battle Mountain correspondent, whose reportage can be found here http://automatic-diary.blogspot.com/2019/09/day-9-battle-mountain-nv.html

Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #2 on: 24 July, 2020, 11:51:42 pm »
If long enough speed is no problem. The front end is already at the destination before the back end has left home!

DaveJ

  • Happy days
Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #3 on: 25 July, 2020, 02:30:23 pm »
If long enough speed is no problem. The front end is already at the destination before the back end has left home!

Its also the case, that as it gets faster, it gets shorter too.

Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #4 on: 25 July, 2020, 02:40:46 pm »
If the aero resistance is shared by more than one person it’s a simple bit of science - hardly worthy of research.

Tandems are faster than singles - look at anything from 200 metre times to 25 mile time trial times. Back in the golden days of track racing, riders were often paced by tandems or even triplets.

Within the confines of two riders on a tandem though, the shorter the tandem within sensible limits the better, so that there is no gap between rider one and rider two . Going fast on a tandem is a fairly intimate experience!

JennyB

  • Old enough to know better
Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #5 on: 25 July, 2020, 05:37:18 pm »
I once saw a photo of a weird tandem where the stoker sat at the front, facing backwards. To break the wind better, or something.
Jennifer - Walker of hills

Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #6 on: 25 July, 2020, 07:06:00 pm »
I once saw a photo of a weird tandem where the stoker sat at the front, facing backwards. To break the wind better, or something.

There have been at least one, maybe more. I thing Glen Longland from the Antelope CC might have been one of the riders.

Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #7 on: 26 July, 2020, 01:00:24 am »
I once saw a photo of a weird tandem where the stoker sat at the front, facing backwards. To break the wind better, or something.

There have been at least one, maybe more. I thing Glen Longland from the Antelope CC might have been one of the riders.
There was a recumbent tandem where the riders sat back to back IIRC. A few even got sold. I can't remember who made them, M5 perhaps

Re: Are long bikes more efficient?
« Reply #8 on: 26 July, 2020, 08:15:32 am »
I was involved in a team to build and race two “ Human Powered Racing” machines, supported by Halfords. One was a recumbent tandem, known as Black Horse, in which we placed two world class sprinters ( Trevor Bull and Paul Sydenham) as it was a straight line sprint event. It was very fast( and won).
The other machine was a standard tandem, but with a plastic tube and transparent polythene “ greenhouse “ over it. It was much faster than an unfaired machine.