Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => The Dark Side => Topic started by: McWheels on 24 February, 2018, 08:43:18 pm
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I'll start one here, and one in the conventional pages. I wonder the reactions it will get.
SaferCycling.org (http://SaferCycling.org) There's a valid question that bike design hasn't changed on account of safety in nearly 100 years, so why don't we start addressing that?
Some background is provided here at 1:09.20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGpUPNYcLXM&t=3353s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGpUPNYcLXM&t=3353s)
So, do we know any Corporates who'd like to invest in improving the safety of cycling? Not least event organisers.
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It's a good idea to get some objective data on bike crash safety. It would hopefully provide evidence to allow 'bent riders to gain access to events and rides where they are currently prohibited. £80k or so is a lot of money to raise though/
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Hmm. Several issues to conflate here.
Ultimately, I'm not convinced that bicycles (even, say, track bikes) are inherently dangerous. The risk comes from what people do with them, either pushing the performance envelope too far (for sport or for fun, or out of carelessness), or operating them in the presence of external hazards such as incompetent road users.
That said, I do believe that certain cycle geometries lend themselves to changing the nature (and therefore potentially reducing the severity) of injury sustained by the rider in a collision or fall, and that others reduce the probability of a collision or fall to begin with. And you could reasonably argue that musculoskeletal or contact point problems in endurance riding are also a safety issue. It would certainly be interesting to see some crash test data, but I query its ultimate usefulness.
I'm not sure any corporate entities would be particularly interested either way, unless they stand to benefit from sales of protective clothing, or from the removal of pedal cycles from the road. I don't think people are going to go out and buy a recumbent cycle for a safety benefit (even if scientifically demonstrated), unless they're switching from bicycle to tricycle due to balance impairment.
As for event organisers rejecting recumbents, I can accept there's a potential safety issue from mixing cycles with very different dynamics on certain events, in much the same way that there would be from mixing riders of very different ability levels. There are ways to work around those without excluding people. But usually it comes down to "that's weird, let's just ban it", with safety or insurance being a convenient excuse. If you want to fight that, I'd suggest that using disability equalities legislation (which must apply to a significant minority of recumbent riders) would be a stronger approach.
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The organisers of a sportif round the Isle of Man Mountain Circuit are actively seeking velomobile pilots to join in the next running. Wonder if they'll change their tune when they clock someone coming down to the Creg at 80 mph...
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The organisers of a sportif round the Isle of Man Mountain Circuit are actively seeking velomobile pilots to join in the next running. Wonder if they'll change their tune when they clock someone coming down to the Creg at 80 mph...
Didn't a certain Mr Wilkinson outpace the Police outriders doing that on the fully faired Windcheetah?
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Wilko reported doing 75 with the brakes hard on, and said he Had Words with Bob Dixon about the continued use of Sturmey-Archer drum brakes on any future record attempts.
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My understanding on the longevity of the diamond frame design is that UCI outright refuse to consider anything other than a DF as a bicycle. look at the trouble Mr Obree got into for daring to even marginally deviate from what the UCI define as a bicycle.
Indeed, Mr Larrington and friends had to set up a whole new international organisation to sort out rools for competing on bicycles not made from 531 tubesets
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My understanding on the longevity of the diamond frame design is that UCI outright refuse to consider anything other than a DF as a bicycle. look at the trouble Mr Obree got into for daring to even marginally deviate from what the UCI define as a bicycle.
Indeed, Mr Larrington and friends had to set up a whole new international organisation to sort out rools for competing on bicycles not made from 531 tubesets
Aah yes, the only reason recumbents haven't taken over the world by now is that the UCI are such a backwards lot.
Alternatively, the diamond-framed design is rather good for most people's purposes :thumbsup:
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Aah yes, the only reason recumbents haven't taken over the world by now is that the UCI are such a backwards lot.
The UCI don't help, but I reckon it's mostly down to conservatism within the industry. See Mike Burrows' rants about his attempts to bring a genuinely innovative (upright) city bike design to market.
Alternatively, the diamond-framed design is rather good for most people's purposes :thumbsup:
It's readily apparent (from the absence of things like lights and mudguards on bikes primarily used for transport) that appropriateness for the purpose is second to fashion-driven availability in the average person's bike buying decisions. The main reason that people don't buy recumbents is because they're rare enough that they've never been able to try any, so it simply never appears on their radar. The second reason is that they're prohibitively expensive, and you have to make critical decisions about more than how wide the tyres should be and what shape handlebars you want.
Which isn't to say that recumbents suit most people's purposes. But you have to wonder when you see people complaining about carpal tunnel or saddle sores; pedalling with the saddle too low because they need to put their feet flat on the ground; riding upright trikes because their balance is a bit dodgy; or struggling with DF's when they only have one hand.
Cycle touring and endurance riding are sufficiently rare that you're never going to cause a recumbent revolution on the back of SWB bicycles, and attempts at expanding into the potential market for CLWB utility bikes have always been a bit half-arsed (some parallel with electric cars there, tbh). It's the trikes that sell best, for good reason: They enable motivated people to ride who'd otherwise struggle with bicycles and/or uprights, and can be ridden safely without any particular skill.
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Actually, I've just remembered something that crash testing would be useful for:
Anecdotally, I've found that when I lose control of a recumbent, I end up with fewer leg injuries if I don't manage to unclip from the clipless pedals in time. Staying clipped in means you don't move forwards into any derailleur posts, chainrings and similar nasty objects. On the other hand, maybe it's a bad idea at high speed (I've only had one high-speed crash, where I did unclip)?
The release conditions of a pedal system seem eminently suited to being engineered to exploit this effect, if it turns out that it really is a net safety advantage. Or even if it's not, to release automatically if they detect the bike lying sideways.
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Actually, I've just remembered something that crash testing would be useful for:
Anecdotally, I've found that when I lose control of a recumbent, I end up with fewer leg injuries if I don't manage to unclip from the clipless pedals in time. Staying clipped in means you don't move forwards into any derailleur posts, chainrings and similar nasty objects. On the other hand, maybe it's a bad idea at high speed (I've only had one high-speed crash, where I did unclip)?
The release conditions of a pedal system seem eminently suited to being engineered to exploit this effect, if it turns out that it really is a net safety advantage. Or even if it's not, to release automatically if they detect the bike lying sideways.
Whilst I wholeheartedly endorse everything Kim says about the immediate after effects of the inadvertent loss of verticality whilst recumbent at speed (or even low speed), the inevitable (well, it seems to me to be inevitable) erosion of the tissue, cartilaginous material, and maybe even bone, around that joint in one's arm we loving call our elbow, as a result of sliding along that frictional material with which our nation surfaces its roads, suggests to me that even a recumbent has a minor design flaw in that our elbows slide along the road after that loss of verticality.
However, it may well be that such loss of tissue (to which I for one have become quite attached) may be deemed by the better informed to be significantly less detrimental to our long term health and functionality than a broken collar bone, or similar, as evidenced by those Grand Tour Pro cyclists who seem to fall off DF bicycles with monotonous regularity on my TV screen, and be back racing again a month later. It took me 3 months to recover from a severely scraped elbow having laid my 'bent on its side, but then I'm 63 and don't need to earn a living chasing P Sagan around the countryside. I must be a wimp.
Don't get me wrong; I'd much rather roll sideways about 500mm onto the road than go over the 'bars and land on my head, but even a severely scraped elbow can be a serious injury once your body starts telling you that you are no longer the 21 year old you'd thought you were for the last 40 years. Whilst Which is why I now wear elbow pads. So maybe 'bents are a safer design, but they ain't perfect.
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I seem to recall that Giant tried marketing a semi-recumbent (EZB) for everyday folk - it looked a bit like a bike version of a motorcycle 'chopper'. Saw a couple in a shop in York and I thought it offered some serious advantages for town/utility riding.
My partner doesn't ride now (and when she did she had issues due to arthritis), the Giant would have overcome a lot of her problems. Easy to put a foot down without having a saddle 'too low' for efficient pedalling. Offered the recumbent strong braking and increased safety in the event of a forward collision. Upright viewing/looking ahead
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andytheflyer's tales of topographic elbows are why nearly all BHPC racers use elbow guards. Though in the last big off I had the wretched things didn't stay put and caused one youth to ask me, six days later, why I was wearing a sturdy leather jacket in the mosh pit at a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club gig.
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I seem to recall that Giant tried marketing a semi-recumbent (EZB) for everyday folk - it looked a bit like a bike version of a motorcycle 'chopper'. Saw a couple in a shop in York and I thought it offered some serious advantages for town/utility riding.
My partner doesn't ride now (and when she did she had issues due to arthritis), the Giant would have overcome a lot of her problems. Easy to put a foot down without having a saddle 'too low' for efficient pedalling. Offered the recumbent strong braking and increased safety in the event of a forward collision. Upright viewing/looking ahead
Exactly.
Cycles like the HPVelotenik Spirit could make things a lot easier for all sorts of people, but they're sneered at in a way that step-through city bikes aren't, and remain confined to the niche of expensive toys for people with beards, sandals and scabby elbows. (Where CLWBs are generally regarded as a kind of gateway drug to proper recumbents.)
It's a bit chicken and egg, and I don't really know how to solve it. One thing I'd like to see would be cycle hire schemes including a percentage of alternative cycles by way of accessibility. Obviously electric assist is the big one, and I think that's coming, but I'd like to see some CLWBs and Pashley-style trikes in the mix too.
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^^I know at least one of the people mrcharly will have seen riding these bikes, and he has both a beard and a lectureship in engineering ;D
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If one were to put dskateboard wheels (or other fast turning smallish wheels) on the elbow pads, could a recumbentist right themselves without the human tarmac interface? Sort of like the cycling equivalent of a dry capsize in sailing?
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If one were to put dskateboard wheels (or other fast turning smallish wheels) on the elbow pads, could a recumbentist right themselves without the human tarmac interface? Sort of like the cycling equivalent of a dry capsize in sailing?
I'm struggling to picture how the rider of a low-racer-rolling-on-an-elbow tricycle could shift enough mass to lift the elbow-wheel at any sane velocity without making the bike's lean angle worse. It'd be like pushing the mast through the middle of the boat in an attempt to right it.
Maybe at insane velocity? ;D :demon:
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If one were to put dskateboard wheels (or other fast turning smallish wheels) on the elbow pads, could a recumbentist right themselves without the human tarmac interface? Sort of like the cycling equivalent of a dry capsize in sailing?
I'm struggling to picture how the rider of a low-racer-rolling-on-an-elbow tricycle could shift enough mass to lift the elbow-wheel at any sane velocity without making the bike's lean angle worse. It'd be like pushing the mast through the middle of the boat in an attempt to right it.
Maybe at insane velocity? ;D :demon:
Maybe it would have to involve a steering input as well? Or maybe the rider would need the wheel mounted on a spring so as their falling energy is used to return them back up again? :)
As you may have gathered, this is not an entirely serious suggestion, merely an attempt to iterate onwards from elbow pads (from someone who's recumbent experience is limited to a few miles on a trike).
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What about some sort of self-righting mechanism? maybe using gas-rams with wheels on the ends?
Or you could just start out with 3 wheels.
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Maybe it would have to involve a steering input as well?
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As you may have gathered, this is not an entirely serious suggestion, merely an attempt to iterate onwards from elbow pads (from someone who's recumbent experience is limited to a few miles on a trike).
I was assuming steering input, too. This would probably make sense if your few miles on a trike included hooning round a car-park with your bodyweight on the wrong side lifting a wheel. :)
What about some sort of self-righting mechanism? maybe using gas-rams with wheels on the ends?
Retractable stabilisers are a thing in HPV racing. Means you can start/stop when there's a fairing in the way of putting a foot down. Not really the sort of thing you'd use at speed.
Or you could just start out with 3 wheels.
Indeed. As any child who's grown up with balance bikes then tried to ride their friend's bike with stabilisers will tell you, it's generally better if the number of wheels remains consistent.
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One thing that has always intrigued me is why no one has tried to build and race a SWB recumbent motorcycle beyond the streamliners used in land speed attempts.
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One thing that has always intrigued me is why no one has tried to build and race a SWB recumbent motorcycle beyond the streamliners used in land speed attempts.
I suspect control has something to do with it.
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Something like these?
http://www.oesten-creasey.eu/hightech/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar_(motorcycle)
BTW, motorcycle racers (and motormamils) wear knee sliders; no wheels, springs or self-righting but I'm sure you could wear them on your elbows. Come to that, skateboarders and BMXers. But then, you knew that, so that's not the sort of thing at all. Sorry!
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I bought a second hand recumbent for less than my DF commuter has cost me to build (... 10 years ago). The reasons I don't use it are:
* It's heavier
* I can't see above/around traffic
* I know how to ride a DF, I need to learn to ride a recumbent
* I feel like it is much easier to hop on/off the DF than the recumbent (though this could be linked to the above point)
* I do not feel that my DF is uncomfortable or inefficient (or more dangerous than my recumbent)
If the UCI allowed recumbents in races this would not change my view. I think that if recumbents became "the new thing" in racing you would get MA(W)MIL converts but this would not change the above issues affecting utilitarian cyclists (who are a significant proportion of cyclists). (And even with recumbents in UCI races you would see lots of bike changes as riders would ride DFs uphill - which is where all the interest is, so recumbent MA(W)MILs would be mostly time trialing I reckon).
Apologies for agreeing with Karla, I promise it will never happen again.