Humans didn't evolve to ride bikes

[Phil W]

I enjoyed reading this.

http://cyclefit.co.uk/humans-didnt-evolve-to-ride-bikes

[Mr Larrington]

It rather glosses over the fact that Graeme Obree's "record" is more than 30 mph off the pace though.

[mrcharly-YHT]

It falls down when starting to talk about riding up hills - because once riders get out of the saddle, they are back in the biomechanically-efficient stair-climbing posture that was described earlier.

Apart from that, it is very enjoyable.

[Kim]

There's a reason we don't ride around on ElliptiGos thobut...

[Phil W]

It rather glosses over the fact that Graeme Obree's "record" is more than 30 mph off the pace though.

What's the unfaired recumbent record  which would be a fairer comparison.

[Mr Larrington]

Not sure anyone has kept records, though I've a vague recollection of hearing of someone doing 45-46 mph.  Generally courses at national or international events aren't measured with anything like the degree of accuracy required for proper record attempts and anyone who has run an unfaired machine at Battle Mountain has done it either arms-only or strictly for laughs.

Record for a faired upright bike is still Jim Glover's Moulton one from Vancouver in 198-mumble, which was around 52 mph.

[mrcharly-YHT]

It rather glosses over the fact that Graeme Obree's "record" is more than 30 mph off the pace though.

What's the unfaired recumbent record  which would be a fairer comparison.

I thought he did his runs with a fairing?

[Mr Larrington]

He did.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The faired upright record is about the same as Obree's.

[Cudzoziemiec]

What's applicable to record breaking or even road racing isn't always suitable for general use, it has to be applied in a usable way. Space travel has given us teflon frying pans not home jet packs. So if we usually ride around at about 25% of maximum output, we don't necessarily need that much efficiency. Other considerations are more important, probably quite mundane ones like riding something the local workshop knows hows to fix and not looking unusual.

As for why the Victorians put the bike rider in a sitting position, maybe that was because they were used to sitting on horses. A more interesting question seems to me why were chairs invented at all?

His thinking is flawless:

Spinal extension
Optimal glut and core co-contraction
Open hip
Can only produce power with ground contact - i.e. pushing down against the ground (climbing stairs)
No power in hip or knee flexion (no theoretical ground-contact)

Obree's fourth point there, about ground contact, reminds me of this pedal which is supposed to support both toe and heel:

1) POWER – By supporting both ends of the arch of the foot you naturally support the arch itself, which gets rid of flex in the arch.
2) EFFICIENCY – The mid-foot placement of the axle balances the foot, which takes stress off of the ankle joint and allows for better recruitment of the hips.
3) COMFORT & STABILITY – The more balanced foot position achieved from this pedal design will result in a more balanced application of force into the pedals.

However, he contradicts Obree by saying:

The hips have also been shown to be the major muscles used when pedaling, not your quads (ELMER, S. J., P. R. BARRATT, T. KORFF, and J. C. MARTIN. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 2011). The mid-foot position has also been shown to shift the stress from the ankles to the hips (J.R. Van Sickle Jr, M.L Hull/ Journal of Biomechanics 2007). This means the mid-foot position allows your body to better recruit the main muscles powering the pedal stroke.

Anyway, it just looks a bit but ordinary pedal to me.
http://pedalinginnovations.com

And I've never seen a KALQ keyboard!

[LMT]

It falls down when starting to talk about riding up hills - because once riders get out of the saddle, they are back in the biomechanically-efficient stair-climbing posture that was described earlier.

Apart from that, it is very enjoyable.

Maybe, but the CV load the body is put under is greater watt for watt than when you are in the saddle.

[sojournermike]

When running, the heel doesn't really come into it from a power perspective. Some people heel strike, some mind or forefoot, but launch/propulsion comes from the toes, with power from the upper leg and glutes (hence the focus on glute activation and strengthening in running circles). The calf and foot act like a spring, at least until your proper tired.

Hence the pedal may help, but I suspect it's more about poorly conditioned calves in people who don't walk much. Cycling is radically different from running in that power is produced through concentric contraction rather than eccentric as in running.

Interestingly, to me at least, there was a paper published a year or two back that suggested that running is more efficient (42%) than cycling (25%) in term of how energy is used, largely because of the eccentric contraction. Bikes just require less energy or power to make them go.

I do wonder about a recumbent for commuting though.

Mike

[sojournermike]

Another thought, I consistently climb faster (VAM measured by training Peaks) running rather than cycling, amd not by a little bit... Plus my running VO2 max is massively better than cycling. I think I ride around at about 15% of potential output on the bike:(

Mike

[Mr Larrington]

The faired upright record is about the same as Obree's.

Jim Glover, 51.19 mph, Vancouver 1986:



Only photo I could find, I'm afraid.

Graeme Obree, 56.62 mph, Battle Mountain 2013:



Todd Reichert, 89.59 mph, Battle Mountain 2016:

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Given the aero advantage of Obree's supine machine, he must have lost a lot to friction and bad biomechanics. The Moulton's small tyres and sprockets (vs. 700C and >13t cogs) somewhat increase rolling resistance and mechanical friction.

[LEE]

I missed the part where the author covered:

- Seeing where the f**k you are going
- Climbing inside a fairing to nip to the shops
- Carrying the bike upstairs and onto trains
- Going up and down kerbs

The diamond upright frame is a Swiss Army Knife of a contraption.

I can guarantee that I can pop to Tesco Metro, buy a couple of bottles of wine and some crisps, transport them back home and be enjoying them far quicker than anyone using a "Battle Mountain machine".  O'Bree has a history of designing bikes that I'd probably fall off trying to go around a sharp corner.

Efficiency is linked so much to wind-resistance that it's worth focusing on that alone. I'd estimate that, for 99% of all cyclists, world-wide, "aero-position" is of no consideration, especially when you are transporting 20 chickens to a Vietnam market place, or riding at 8mph to a Shanghai factory.

There's a reason it hasn't changed much in over 100 years, they got it right.  All other designs are "niche".

Something like this is perhaps the optimum design for most of the World's cyclists.

[mrcharly-YHT]

The author is also missing out all the other attempts at bicycle design. It's quite enlightening going to somewhere like the Coventry motor museum, which has a vast collection of vintage bikes, and seeing all the weird contraptions people tried before settling on the 'diamond frame' design (and its slight variations).

The classic frame proportions are the product of a few decades of absolutely frenzied design and innovation when bikes were incredibly popular and very very important as a means of transport.

[Samuel D]

I agree with LEE and mrcharly’s latest post. The article combines that smugness and real-world ignorance typical of pop writing by academics whose views are seldom robustly challenged. Even though it’s a fun topic, that sours the article for me. The diamond frame was not arrived at by chance but by both disruptive and iterative design by scores of outright geniuses. It was found to be essentially perfect and remains so. The UCI has nothing to do with that except its persistence in racing, and in racing you need rules or sport becomes farcical. (I believe the UCI hasn’t been restrictive enough in racing.)

The bicycles found in Amsterdam, China, Paris, my home, etc., have very little to do with the UCI.

[hubner]

Good points in the last 3 posts.

There's a difference between practical cycling for transport and cycling as a sport and pastime.

For the former, lying flat on the ground feet first doesn't really have any advantages over an upright position

All sports have arbitrary rules, change them and one sport becomes a different sport. Eg, you're only allowed to kick and head the ball in football, that seems restrictive... why not allow holding and throwing the ball, that would be more exciting! Why not put bigger and more power engines in Formula 1 cars?

I agree the UCI should be more restrictive, disc wheels and tri-bars should have been banned from the start.

[Karla]

You've really got a bee in your bonnet about those, haven't you.  What's wrong with discs/tribars that doesn't apply to any other technological advance since ~1880?

[hubner]

I've started a thread on tribars and disc wheels:
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=100546

[Kim]

Given the aero advantage of Obree's supine machine

I don't think that's clear cut.

Sure, it's got a fairing, but it's a shed-fettle fairing that was sculpted by eye using facilities at the local art college, and then beaten up in various attempts to keep the bike upright.  You can safely assume it's going to have a lower drag coefficient than an unfaired bike, but that's about all.

Quite distinct from the SCIENCE that went into the Aerovelo effort, though probably comparable to Jim Glover's.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I was comparing the Moulton using a modified classic road position with a large frontal area (about hip high CORRECTION waist high) to the Beastie (about thigh high) with the riding position that supposedly has power advantages. It obviously doesn't have that power advantage.

[Kim]

I missed the part where the author covered:

- Seeing where the f**k you are going
- Carrying the bike upstairs and onto trains
- Going up and down kerbs

To be fair, most of these are achievable on more normal recumbents.

- Climbing inside a fairing to nip to the shops

See Auntie Helen's blog (or almost every motor car on the road) for an example of a fairing that's practical to climb into to nip to the shops - yes, it's more faffy than throwing your leg over a bike, but that's more than cancelled out by it acting as a container for the shopping, so you don't have to strap things on with special bags.   And you wouldn't do your shopping on a TT bike either.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Aerobars support your bag of shopping.