The heaviest bicycle in the world is 4800 lb | Hacker News Reader

The heaviest bicycle in the world is 4800 lb

driverscoops.com

48 pointssmartmic54 comments

Meanwhile the self proclaimed lightest bicycle in the world weighs 1/8th of a percent as much as this bicycle: https://antranik.org/worlds-lightest-road-bike-at-2-7kg/

TBH the lightest bicycle is also 800 times more exciting than the heaviest one.

I was thinking about how much money people spend on lightness in bikes, and then I was thinking about how much weight I've lost. I know that these ultra-light bikes are meant for people who have already optimized their body composition, but to put my weight loss in terms of bike lightness, I've got several thousand dollars of lightness. (I know that it's not really comparable, it's just something I thought was funny)

If I recall the old rule of thumb, a pound off the wheels is worth 2 off the frame is worth 10 off the rider.

The angular momentum makes lighter rims do much more for you than a lighter seat post (of course for most hobbyists the seat post is affordable and the wheels might not be).

Why would weight off the frame be so much different than weight off the rider?

When you ride, you use your body to move the pedals. You can move your body into a good position, but you can't move the frame.

Where would be a good position vs a bad position? You really can't move your body around _that_ much on a bike. At most you can lean forward vs not really, the rest is basically dictated by having to balance.

As the old saying goes "don't buy upgrades, ride up grades"

Wow! 2.7 kg is insane! I love the caption to the top image, too:

This road bike weighs in at 6lbs (2.7kg): Lighter than the laptop you’re probably using right now.

That is ... strange in more than one way. :)

I wouldn't want to see what happens if that hits a pothole.

It's a lot easier to bunny hop a light bike than a heavy one.

Both made by Germans too..

The embedded video didn't play for me for some reason; here are a few on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mWwOrIdjU (the embedded one)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lc72Uvq29U

You have to accept the sites cookies to play the embedded video

I noticed the same thing. I hope this behavior doesn’t start becoming common.

In case it's not obvious 'kleine' means 'little' or 'small'.

“I can even tow 15 tons with it without any problems,” Beutler said, adding that he is planning a trip to the Baltic Sea in the summer.

I have trouble envisioning this. How could a ~2.5 ton human powered device tow a 15 ton load safely? My rather elementary understanding of physics would suggest to me that it can't stop quickly, or maybe not at all, if it's on an incline

Towing large amounts of weight doesn't work the way you'd think. As long as we're talking about something on wheels that are on pavement a normal car can tow 30,000 lbs or so.

A Ford pickup towed a Boeing airplane a while back in some weird stunt.

In strongmen competitions just a person with a rope can pull a train car.

Towing something at high speed is a question of aerodynamics. Towing something offroad in mud is usually a question of getting enough traction without your tires just digging a hole.

A 35-speed transmission, with ridiculously low gearing, probably helps a lot. E.g. with a 1000:1 mechanical advantage, 15t becomes a very humanly manageable 0.015t (~33lb).

That said, it won't have a very high top speed, and will spend a lot of time accelerating through the gears to get to it.

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall lift the world” - Archimedes.

It’s like this guy took that idea and applied it to bicycle gears.

You are right- stopping on a very steep grade would be nearly impossible without brakes on the trailer also.

But realistically, how steep of a grade are you going to want to tow 15 tons up with pedal power? You're not going to be moving much at all. Towing that much on level ground would be a separate stunt from doing his trip to the baltic.

Given his top speeds are likely to be close to slug ground speed levels and on perfectly level ground, braking with just the tow vehicle would be fine still.

I've done some reading out of curiosity. My best theory is that there are trailer brakes that are actuated from the 'bicycle' - I think that would make this feasible. But I'm also reading things that make me think I just don't understand the physics of towing, so this might be much more feasible than I initially surmised

The easiest way would be to use a transmission without a freehub. Then you would brake by pushing against the moving spinning pedals.

As long as you are going slow, and you have a very low gear, it's not difficult.

Trucks only need huge engines because they want to go fast.

It's funny the way the physics works.

I'm imagining a normal bicycle, but with a 1000:1 gear ratio. You could pull 15,000 lbs as if it was only 15 lbs. But then if you start going downhill, even hydraulic disc brakes would not have the stopping power to prevent the trailer for just pushing you down the hill. You would HAVE to have trailer brakes.

But if your hub couldn't freewheel, then you could easily stop it with just one foot with the same amount of power it would take to pull the trailer up the hill.

One thing I forgot about is friction. If the trailer is too heavy then it's going to push the bike down if the grade is too steep. That's why train tracks are always very flat -- the wagons are much heavier than the locomotive.

I think when you tow loads that big the attached trailer has its own separate brakes, right? The bike does have an engine to power an electrical system

Braking quickly is only hard if you move quickly. If you don't, beaking quickly is trivial.

This article is timely if you happened to listen to 99% invisible's latest episode on Wilderness[0]. There was a whole tangent on why wheeled vehicles are not allowed, even wheelbarrows. Turns out it's because someone realized humans always want bigger things. :-)

[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-wilderness-tool/

Not all humans. This article was posted a few days ago:

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-myth-of-a-wilderness-...

Yes, you’re right. Good read

I feel like having wheels this wide is "cheating" and it's no longer using the same balancing principles as an actual bike.

R4 tires (which is what those are) are round enough they won't stand on their on when inflated. They will when flat though.

It's not immediately visible how that thing stays upright. I assume he has some sort of kickstand he can deploy without getting off the bike. It also looks like the frame might act as training wheels keeping you from going over if you stop.

The videos show it's a tricycle, with one wheel sticking out in the middle on the left. He got a "Fahrrad" award which is a German word for cycle making no mention of number of wheels.

If you watched the video[0], it has 2 extra tires on a left side mount. Calling this a bicycle isn't even accurate. Tricycle is more like it, though technically looks like a quadcycle.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mWwOrIdjU

This video doesn't seem to have the extra wheels. Not sure why! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lc72Uvq29U

The camera angle is such that you can't see behind the rear wheel, I wonder if it's been moved back there.

> Calling this a bicycle isn't even accurate. Tricycle is more like it

Tricycles have two wheels at the rear. This is more like having a sidecar on a motorbike (which we still call a motorbike - with sidecar), you can see the second seat on the outrider.

yeah, I can forgive the outriggers. I wouldn’t want to drop a 4800 lb. bicycle on my leg. It would be cool if he had the wheels tuck in when he reached a high enough speed.

You can see in the video that it has a third wheel...

But not this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lc72Uvq29U

This is a really cool project. It's neat to see adults do something weird just for fun.

> Please accept cookies to view this content.

Since when have embedded YT videos done this?

Anyway, I lost interest already and will move on. This is what happens with walls.

At which point is something like this not a bicycle but rather a motorbike?

>At which point is something like this not a bicycle but rather a motorbike?

When an engine is attached to the drivetrain.

>It also has an engine, “but it only drives the alternator and charges my cell phone,” says the inventor.

Although you could argue this is actually not technically a bicycle, since it sits on the tires and does not require momentum to balance.

The real coup de grâce of this whole thing is when he comes out and publicly admits the only reason he built this was to troll the internet into getting into huge arguments about what the definition of "bicycle" is.

Sophisticated Internet pedants have already moved on, though, and are currently arguing about whether or not the Kleine Johanna is a sandwich.

he cycles it, so it's a cycle.

though the addition of 2 stabilising wheels challenges the "bi" part of the bicycle.

Same concept doesn't effect calling a bike with training wheels a bike tho

So a training bicycle.

Most people call a cargo bike a bike even if it's often technically a trike.

Closer to a pedicab as far as definitions go.

It's heavy, but it's not a bicycle.

You can argue whether it has three or four wheels, but it's definitely not a BIcycle.

I'm sure it would still be the heaviest with the trainer wheels off. Is a bicycle a bicycle before it has been ridden?

It clearly has four wheels. How is that still a bi-cycle?

I just see two huge truck tires.

ETA Eh, my bad. I hadn't watched the video. Nice camera angle.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com