Split from the wonky thread - why is the chain on the right of a bike?

[T42]

The fashion for driving on the right in other countries probably started with the french simply being cantankerous / rebellion from the british empire.

This presupposes that the French give a shit about British habits, other than as an occasional source of amusement.  They take a lot less notice than you might think.

Driving/riding on the left goes back at least to Roman times, when everyone drove/rode on the left and the peasants walked on the right. The reasons for the change are explained here:

http://www.lepoint.fr/automobile/securite/pourquoi-les-anglais-roulent-a-gauche-et-nous-a-droite-24-09-2013-1734586_657.php

[rogerzilla]

Pretty much all island nations drive on the left, which suggests it's the preferred way when land border crossings aren't a concern.  They're not all former British colonies, either (Japan, for instance).

[orienteer]

Japan adopted driving on the left because the Brits sold them their first railway, which ran on the left.

[Blodwyn Pig]

Whilst in That France last year, I spied a fun fair on t'beach promenade ,  hmmm!!! me thinks , why does that look odd??? Ah! the horsey roundabout ride thing was going round anti clockwise, and the 'orses were facing the other way, as you would go around a French r'bout on the road. Ours go the other way, if they don't they are imported from Europe.

[Cudzoziemiec]

This seems as good a time as any to say 'tendril perversion'

Words of endearment in a Brizzle accent.

[Cudzoziemiec]

just checked to make sure; Ducati still has chain on the left....

I have long since given up having any expectations about which side the chain will be on when it comes to motorbikes....

cheers

But most have the exhaust (assuming a single pipe) on the right. K-series BMWs an exception. I don't know why.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Japan adopted driving on the left because the Brits sold them their first railway, which ran on the left.

The reason I've heard is that it goes back several centuries, applied to walking first of all and was, I'm afraid, to do with swords. Apparently the samurai style of sword wearing meant the sword stuck out quite a bit to the side and walking on the left meant two samurai could pass each other without their swords clashing on each other. I think I read this in Wikipedia though, so it might be rubbish.

Edit: I thought I'd read it in this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic but it's not there. That page does point out though that kick stands for bikes of motorized and pedal varieties are virtually always on the left, regardless of where the bike is made and which side the chain (or exhaust!) is. Similarly, kick starters on motorbikes are almost always on the right; I think MZ put them on the left though, for some models at least.

[Brucey]

just checked to make sure; Ducati still has chain on the left....

I have long since given up having any expectations about which side the chain will be on when it comes to motorbikes....

cheers

But most have the exhaust (assuming a single pipe) on the right. K-series BMWs an exception. I don't know why.

it's 'cause it is a car engine that fell over, isn't it...

But it goes back to the horse thing, probably; one mounts from the left, and one's sword might otherwise get tangled in the exhaust pipe....?

cheers
 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Well it is a fact* that 1930s Indians were made with left-hand throttle so the cops could shoot their revolvers with their right hands.

*Perhaps.

[Biggsy]

Reading that sparked a memory: when I used to ride motorbikes I was confident leaning the bike fully over to the left but leaning to the right always made me slightly nervous. I am right-handed.

That will be the road camber.
If you are in the UK, and sane, you'll be riding on the left, so when leaning left you'll be on the banking, as it were, but on the right you'll be off camber. If you ask someone who learned to ride on the right, you'll probably find they prefer right turns.

i've always thought I was more skilled and confident with left turns because overall there are more tighter left turns than rights when we ride on the left.

(I am right-handed)

[Basil]

Reading that sparked a memory: when I used to ride motorbikes I was confident leaning the bike fully over to the left but leaning to the right always made me slightly nervous. I am right-handed.

That will be the road camber.
If you are in the UK, and sane, you'll be riding on the left, so when leaning left you'll be on the banking, as it were, but on the right you'll be off camber. If you ask someone who learned to ride on the right, you'll probably find they prefer right turns.

i've always thought I was more skilled and confident with left turns because overall there are more tighter left turns than rights when we ride on the left.

(I am right-handed)

Are you sure that this isn't just a 'handedness' thing again?  I am much more comfortable making tight right hand turns.  I am left handed.

Useful for turning round on small country lanes, whereas I see others (right-handers, I assume) perform a sort of figure of eight,  turning from the wrong side of the road.

[Whitedown Man]

I'm inclined towards the "camber" explanation - I'm left handed (and left footed) but am much more comfortable leaning into a left hand bend than a right hand bend, and tend to do my u-turns as a 180 degree left turn (i.e. anti-clockwise)

[Biggsy]

Here's a new exciting/tedius poll for turn preference!:

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=103710.0

[mzjo]

just checked to make sure; Ducati still has chain on the left....

I have long since given up having any expectations about which side the chain will be on when it comes to motorbikes....

cheers

But most have the exhaust (assuming a single pipe) on the right. K-series BMWs an exception. I don't know why.

it's 'cause it is a car engine that fell over, isn't it...

But it goes back to the horse thing, probably; one mounts from the left, and one's sword might otherwise get tangled in the exhaust pipe....?

cheers

Had a chance to look at a very nice little collection of motorbikes yesterday, just about all European. They all had the chain on the left. There is obviously no correlation between chain position on motorbikes and bicycles or indeed between motorbikes and carrying swords or riding horses   

Real motorbikes of course have an exhaust both sides so the sword always gets jammed somewhere (or slices open the saddlebags)

[ElyDave]

I haven't carried a sword on my bicycle for years, not since I stopped putting a playing card in the spokes to make it sound like a motorbike.

When I did carry a sword however, I always used to mount from the left.  The bike was much less skittish that way.

[Cudzoziemiec]

We should ask the Canadian Mounties which of their horse's ears they shoot through. Or something.

[ElyDave]

We should ask the Canadian Mounties which of their horse's ears they shoot through. Or something.

Surely that would depend on whether they use a left handed or right handed rifle?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Left-handed bullets for left-handed rifles? Or at least rifling. Well, not quite.

[rogerzilla]

Just thought of another couple of LH threads on bikes...the fixed sprocket lockring and the LH ball cup of pre-1970s Sturmey-Archer hubs.  Except the ASC, which had a pressed-in ball cup just like current hubs, for a fairly obvious reason.  Unlike pedal and BB threads, these are not southpaw because of precession; the former simply has to be the opposite way round to the sprocket, and the latter is because the LH ball cup is driven by the internals in low gear, and is being resisted by the shell.

One really, really obscure one I don't understand is the LH thread on a Sturmey-Archer lockring for a 12 spline driver.  It's the same situation as a Shimano Hyperglide cassette which does fine with a RH lockring.  Maybe there is a mild precessive effect and that's why the Shimano lockring is toothed?

[Brucey]

One really, really obscure one I don't understand is the LH thread on a Sturmey-Archer lockring for a 12 spline driver.  It's the same situation as a Shimano Hyperglide cassette which does fine with a RH lockring.  Maybe there is a mild precessive effect and that's why the Shimano lockring is toothed?

without the serrations on a cassette lockring, it will come undone.  I think the SA sprocket lockring would do the same if it were RH threaded. What is going on may be very complicated, but then again it may be as simple as the fact that when the sprocket moves vs the splines in one direction, the chain is very tight, and when it goes the other way, it isn't, so there is a different force available to drag the lockring with the sprocket (or not).

BTW at one time it was standard practice to make pedals with a LH thread on the RH cone and locknut.  A very few manufacturers still do this. Shimano have recently reintroduced this feature into some (but not all) of their pedals, making servicing of the RH pedal a bit of a guessing game.  For example PD-M530 uses a LH threaded RH cone but PD-M520 (which uses identical parts to PD-M530 on the LH side), uses a RH threaded cone on the RH spindle.

cheers

[Wombat]

just checked to make sure; Ducati still has chain on the left....

I have long since given up having any expectations about which side the chain will be on when it comes to motorbikes....

cheers

But most have the exhaust (assuming a single pipe) on the right. K-series BMWs an exception. I don't know why.

'cos the single sided swingarm is on the right, and its bloody huge.  Also the case on Big Helga, my R850R (which is up for sale shortly).

[McWheels]

So things are as they are because they've always* been that way, and we don't like change. Kind of like the so-called Safety Bicycle and then the decision to outlaw recumbents because they're too fast dangerous** not like us 

* Really not true
** Ditto

[rogerzilla]

I'd quite like to see recumbents in the Tour de France, just to watch them try and climb the mountains 

[Tigerbiten]

I'd quite like to see recumbents in the Tour de France, just to watch them try and climb the mountains 

So would I.
A team of recumbents would be so far ahead on just the flat stages that the mountains wouldn't make that much difference.
Look at the likes of RAAM ............ 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Depends on whether fairings would be allowed.