The Bicycle: Growing Popularity of the New Vehicle (1874) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

The Bicycle: Growing Popularity of the New Vehicle (1874) [pdf]

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113 pointsevilsimon60 comments

For a year now i drive my bike to and from work in Berlin, about 11km daily. I got a pretty cheap but decent quality single speed bike. It's light (aluminium) and fast, perfect daily driver. It's beautiful because of it's simplicity and efficiency. I am faster than either car or tram over the same route and on top of that it's healthy and fun. When i can't do it for a couple of days or even a week because of really bad weather, i start to feel really guilty and bad :)

As they say, there is no bad weather, only bad clothing (and bad tyres...)

They should go out and ride in heavy wind then. Wonder what kind of clothing is going to protect you from heavy sideways thrusts :P But yeah, in this season clothing is all-important.

A large part of the Netherlands rides in terrible wind. Something people further in the land and with hills or mountains don't know.

In cycle racing, they call the vicious coastal winds "Dutch mountains". Riders from the Netherlands, Belgium and Normandy are renowned for their skill and strength in windy conditions.

That is what I used to say when I was living in Madrid, with the lower temperatures in winter being 2-3 degrees under 0(celsius), but sun most of the year.

But living in Germany was a completely different story in winter going under 30 degrees under 0, 3-4 hours less daylight than in Spain or Portugal, and cloudy all day.

It is extremely disgusting to breath fast, like you need when in the bike when the air is so cold. Somebody should invent something for it.

On the other hand, in most of Spain you can't go around in summer with your bike, but it is great in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.

-30°C is an exaggeration. If you don't live in the mountains there are usually a couple of weeks with sub-zero temperatures here; I use a ski mask when it gets really cold. That helps a lot with the cold head winds. I absolutely always ride my bike to work (5km each way) in southern Germany, and I kinda agree with the GP ;)

>It is extremely disgusting to breath fast, like you >need when in the bike when the air is so cold. Somebody >should invent something for it.

Already invented, it is called shawl.

I did 20km at -10 this winter here in Berlin and that was already pushing of what i am comfortable with to the extreme. But -30 is very very rare, like once in 10 years and i would not ride the bike in that case.

That saying is so much better in Swedish where it actually rhymes.

Could you translate?

(Maybe something linking "to wear" and "weather" could work in English…)

Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder.

It literally means what adrianN said.

Tak!

I'm slowly learning Danish, so I envy Swedish for the nice pronunciation.

This is basically my old commute too, the only thing I miss now I work from home.

I used to leave the office stressed about a bad meeting or whatever and arrive home serene.

Exactly, it a great way to vent stress from work and results in some nice quads haha.

I ride 30km per day back and forth from home to college. I'm 43, I ride an old steel bike (ca. 20kg). I do this out of necessity, since it's the cheapest and most convenient way to travel around the city I live [1]; but I also do it out of love for the joy it provides me. Granted that the city's overall elevation helps a lot (it's almost plain here, but many people still think I'm crazy for this choice of transportation).

As others have pointed out, weather is only a bummer when you're not properly clothed (I'm over-generalizing here, but you get the picture). It also helps to live on a place where the average temperature never goes down below 24ºC [2]. On the down side, it rains a lot here. When I say a lot, a do mean a lot.

Bicycles are fun. I couldn't imagine myself living without one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recife

[2] http://en.climate-data.org/location/5069/

Bicycles are pretty amazing. They're the most efficient form of human transportation over a reasonable surface (road or trail that's not too rough). You can go 100 km on the energy in a plate of pasta that probably costs $2 -if that - in terms of the ingredients.

The two main commuter cyclists in my office have belt-drive bikes, so bicycle technology hasn't completely ossified. They also have disk brakes, and seeing how this is wintertime in New England, they're also rocking studded tires. I don't have this, but I'm a fair-weather cyclist. Its like electric cars--people don't notice how its been slowly moving forward.

Oh every 10 years you need a new bike, because there're no parts any more for your old one. It changes pretty fast!

As an avid cyclist, I have tried to convince my wife that I need a new type of bike every two years, or at least some ridiculously expensive and certainly unnecessary upgrade. Right now I can't take my eyes off of those SRAM Red eTAP.

n+1, after all

The real equation is s-1, where s is the number of bikes that will make your spouse kick you out. :)

Too general, this highly depends on what type/brand/price range of bicycle you buy. My first 'grown up' cycle is now 23 years old and I can get any parts I need to service it in the local bike shop.

Thinking of it, it seems that proven parts just keep existing while the crap gets sorted out during the years. In some subgenres this goes faster and the process is still heavily ongoing I have the impression - take bmx for instance: what you can get now for a similar amount of money is lighter but as strong or stronger and longer lasting.

Ok, so you can't get cost-effective parts. Cheaper to buy a new bike, than keep buying hard-to-find expensive parts.

Anyway, the subject was, how fast bikes change. That's unrelated to how clever we are at finding old parts - the fact is, new bike parts are invented every year.

No, you can get most parts for bikes since 1940 or so I think - I was looking at a 1945 bike recently and the shop had spare parts. Some stuff needs to be adapted a little, and more parts will stop being available soon alas.

That's absolutely not true. Parts can become somewhat harder to find, but it's very rare for them to go out of production entirely. Specialists like Harris Cyclery or SJS Cycles can easily find you a tire or freewheel for a 1950s bicycle.

More history and images of the bikes described: http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1999/JSH2603/JS...

The article cites a race where the bikes were ~50 and 36 pounds. That sounds like a lot. Even a cheapo bike from Walmart is half that. But over time, its going to be the bearings that suck the most energy. I wonder what those were like compared to today.

No. Cheapo adult bikes are typically 30 to 40 lbs. The difference is that these modern cheapies are built with thickwall aluminum or steel tubing to avoid lawsuits and are burdened with modern accoutrements like shifters and brakes. The 1874 race bikes are penny-farthings with very little framing and likely thinner tubes than cheap steel bikes of today.

In the late 1980s, early 1990s, sub-30 lbs was the reference for a high-quality off-road bike. That'd be aluminum alloy rims, steel frames (cro-mo alloy) and aluminum bars/stems/seat-posts. A principle that applies at all times (1800's, 1900's, 2000's), is that rotational mass is what kills you; Roughly, if you can save 1 lb on the wheels, or 1.5 lbs on the frame, save on the wheels. It's mass that has to be accelerated/decelerated, versus (eg) the frame, which is 'static'.

Edit: qualify "at all times", "late 80s, early 90s"

http://thisoldbridgestone.com/tag/mb-1/ - I had one of these from '92, I think, and it weighed 24 pounds, roughly. And that's a mass produced bike that was high end, but not top of the line by any means. Somehow I find it kind of sad that today, they weigh about the same because of all the stuff they've added to them.

Bridgestone was making highly regarded bikes, mass produced or not. Example, a state-of-the-art rig would be a Ritchey P-23 (c. ~1990), so named because it was a project to make a 23lb bike, which was a Big Enough Deal to name the bike after the project. I feel like the bikes[0] I[1] raced[2] at the time ($1800 - $2600, not adjusted) were in the 25-26lb range (19.5 - 20.5" frames). The very light bikes (like a P-23) were contraindicated for heavy, non-expert riding. Working at a high-end bike shop around that time, I saw them[3] come back in pieces.

[0] http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=35724

[1] http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=258229

[2] http://i41.tinypic.com/j9y5ug.jpg

[3] http://fcdn.mtbr.com/attachments/vintage-retro-classic/12540...

> they weigh about the same because of all the stuff they've added to them

Buy a decent frame and build your own bike. I have three bikes -- MTB, hybrid and one I made myself. The homemade one is easily my favourite, and I think it's the better bike. You get to decide what's important to you rather than the manufacturer. Road wheels with bullhorn bars and 3 cogs at the front? No problem, I can do what I like.

Can you explain the physics of rotating mass savings being more important? The top of the wheel moves twice as fast as the bike, but the bottom of the wheel doesn't move at all so don't they balance out? The frame isn't static - you still have to accelerate it frame along with the wheels when you're speeding up.

If your route has a lot of uphill, then I'd expect that 1.5:1 ratio to get closer to 1:1 where the work you do is more fighting gravity than inertia.

It takes energy to make things rotate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_energy

The wheels have a rather large diameter and go pretty quickly. Both diameter and angular velocity are quadratic terms. You could now do the math to see how much energy it takes to accelerate a bike to a given speed.

But you're right, going uphill or at steady speed completely changes the picture.

Here are some articles[0][1] -- and to be clear, the tone of the first (bicycle) article is appropriately "fussy". One person who gets groceries on their bike may not notice, but a competitive racer might notice. So whether it matters (enough) depends on the situation. With suspended bikes, wheels are also never part of the "sprung" weight; minimizing unsprung weight in suspension is always beneficial. I don't have metrics for how many grams deliver $x performance, though.

[0] http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/06/bikes-and-tech/techni...

[1] http://www.tuneruniversity.com/blog/2011/04/part-i-why-wheel...

Rotational mass is important if you're doing lots of accelerations, but for almost all riders the real killer is rolling resistance. The difference between good tyres and bad is light and day. And note, narrower+harder != better... tests have shown that wider tyres running low pressures but with supple side walls can be as fast or faster than narrower tyres, and are much more comfortable to boot.

> for almost all riders the real killer is rolling resistance

Aerodynamic resistance becomes greater than rolling resistance very early. See eg. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/aero/formulas.htm

You may argue that people riding upright on city ("dutch") bikes make up the majority of bike riders, but their possibly heavy-rolling tires are made up for their aerodynamically pessimal riding posture!

(Of course often it's easier to do something about rolling resistance than aerodynamics, despite being a smaller component)

Given that wheel diameters are given, these were likely penny-farthing models: direct drive, one large wheel, one small, no chain.

See the 1874 racing bike pictured in this PDF (p. 4): http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1999/JSH2603/JS...

Which might have weighted 36lb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny-farthing#Construction

Having a number of bikes, getting a bike sub 20b, you are hitting upper end even on road bikes.

My dual suspension carbon mountain bike is ~23-24lb w/ pedals.

My steel touring bike, well, it's a little hefty.

But does the sub 20 lb bike really gain you a lot? For reference, I weight 220 lbs -- so the difference between and 18 lb and a 30 lb bike really doesn't seem like a lot. I guess what I'm asking, does losing 5 lbs on a bike equal losing 5 lbs on the rider? Logically this would seem the case.

But there is probably one other factor to consider -- the lighter bike is more expensive, therefore probably has better components (chain/shifters/bearings/tires/gears), which makes it feel smoother. And if it feels better, you will get the perception of higher speed or less effort.

I've only ridden super-light bikes rarely. Still, among the ones that I've ridden, lighter bikes seem more responsive and fun to ride. Is it a big deal? Probably not. Will it win me a race? No, that would still require a much better motor.

And like you say, better components can make a difference, within reason.

The main reason I prefer a lighter bike is for when I need to carry it up some stairs or something like that. For most everyday riding I don't think weight matters much.

I feel the same about carrying the bikes up stairs :-)

However there is a noticeable difference in riding as well, unless you ride only on short distances.

You can simulate the difference on the same bicycle so the comparison is not tainted by different tires and mechanical components. You can add 5 kg (or 10 pounds) here and there or even in a backpack (but it will harm your performance in other ways). Maybe don't put weight on the steering/front wheel because that will make for a difficult handling. You can use water, so you can release it at any time and feel the difference.

You'll notice that with the extra weight you accelerate less and climb worse. All sort of disadvantages derive from that. If you do 100 km and you have a choice, you'll go for the lighter bicycle. Unfortunately that means a lighter purse as well, maybe much lighter.

For those of us who ride road bikes, yes sub 20lb makes a big difference. My Fiancee's road bike with Sora components is just under 19lbs and that's pretty basic as far as a road bike goes.

It gets a lot more expensive once you go sub 14lbs, and very very expensive sub 10.5lbs or so. (20k+)

It's mostly about the rider, but when you get to the elite guys, every little bit counts. You and I probably have 5 pounds to lose; they don't:

http://c.files.bbci.co.uk/16E6F/production/_84270839_froome....

It's interesting.

Cycling is unlike any human powered sport except iceskating in that aerodynamics play a huge role. That means packs are the default state of play, except in a few limited circumstances.

One of those cases is climbing, where speeds can be low enough that a few pounds makes a big difference.

Sort of.

When I was towing an empty 20+ lb trailer, and the bike +rider was in the 210lb range (so, 10% of the mass) I was about 10% slower than sans-trailer. Towing a trailer + 25lb kid was about another 10%.

A lighter bike _may_ feel different, but whether it's weight or something else, or even placebo is up for discussion. It's hard to tell frame weights. 20 years ago, I ran some blind testing where we put weighted waterbottles in a frame, one with lead, one with glass beads, and one empty. 5 trials, A/B, which one was heavier. IIRC, adding 5 lbs of lead was noticable to almost everyone, but the difference between 2.5 and 5 lbs was only noticeable to the frame builder.

Lighter bikes don't make you faster in steady speed riding on a perfectly flat surface. The hour record bikes are optimized for everything but weight.

But we are very bad at judging absolute speed without technical assistance, while being quite sensitive to acceleration. Therefore, a slight increase in acceleration for a given effort (or decrease in effort for a desired acceleration) is very noticeable, while an increase in absolute speed would not. So a lighter bike will feel noticeably faster (even though it isn't), while different aerodynamics (e.g. "faster" clothes that give a lot more improvement in absolute speed than a weight difference, even for weak riders) might give a clear advantage on the clock, but you won't be able to notice it while riding.

Light bikes just feel fast, very much so actually. It's a powerful illusion that only gets stronger because it is supported by those few specific situations (stop and go, races with tight corners, all that climbing road cyclists love) where the weight also matters objectively.

Does anybody who knows the history of cycling know if this is talking about "high wheel" (penny farthing) bikes or modern bikes with equal sized wheels? Changes the context rather if they mean high wheel bikes. The reference to bigger wheels and general suggestions of impracticality makes me think they might.

The illustration on this piece suggests 1874 is still high wheel bike territory: http://www.oldbike.eu/museum/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/1874...

You are correct, the end of the article mentions a driving wheel "fifty-eight inches in diameter". These are most certainly "high wheel" bikes.

As you suggest, "a driving wheel 58 inches in diameter" is a big clue here. The safety bicycle (basically what we tend to ride nowadays) was invented in 1876, at least the version which became most popular. The so-called "penny farthing" bikes were often called just "wheels" by their owners, hence "riding a wheel" and "wheelers". Some modern clubs are still called "Something Wheelers", e.g. "Bolton Wheelers", presumably because they have a history going back to the 19th C.

There is a surprising evolution to the bicycle, leading not least to the invention of the first automobiles. See Carlton Reid's book "Roads Were Not Made for Cars" for a history of this from both a UK and US perspective.

I wonder what was the technical limitation that prevented bikes being invented much earlier...unless it was simply that no-one did it. Steel piping? Lightweight wheels? Affordability?

pneumatic tire.

Wikipedia seems to have modern steelmaking start in 1855 with the Bessemer process. I suspect that a decent quality of steel is needed for spokes, if nothing else. The safety bicycle seems like just a spontaneous invention, but was a huge boost to a already popular activity.

> I suspect that a decent quality of steel is needed for spokes,

That's a good guess, as "Wire Wheels" were first successfully used commercially for bicycles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wheel#On_bicycles

Not much has really changed since then. All my bikes have spoked wheels. Works great, light, relatively inexpensive.

> That's a good guess, as "Wire Wheels" were first successfully used commercially for bicycles.

We did have 'wagon' style wheels[0] before that, though, with spokes in compression, rather than tension.

[0] http://www.oldbike.eu/museum/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1891...

Edit: A picture!

Steel for spokes.

Rubber pneumatic tires.

Ball bearings.

Then if you want to get a safety bicycle rather than a penny farthing, you need a cheap process for bike chains.

Belts work for bike chains. Using those on steam engines.

I have a perfect bike commute from my house to the train station.

however I've found that the bike ride is 1hr longer than driving my car round trip, each day. That 1hr is time I don't want to loose being at home with family.

I can ride faster, but I'll by very sweaty when I get to the office.

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