The bicymple. The bicycle, simplified. | Hacker News Reader

The bicymple. The bicycle, simplified.

bicymple.com

49 pointsGarbage55 comments

I don't understand why you'd "simplify" out the most important part of the bicycle - the gears. A bicycle (even a fixie/single) is the most amazing, important human-powered machine because of the mechanical efficiency introduced by the gears.

Without gears, it's just a unicycle with two wheels. While interesting, and probably a nice novelty to ride, I wouldn't call this a triumph of "Design" by any means.

I hate shitting on people's inventions on HN (way too easy to potshot and armchair QB) but the way they sell this as a "design" product sort of irked me. It looks fun but good design it ain't.

EDIT: Maybe the headline should have been "the unicycle, made slightly more complicated"

A 27" gear from direct drive is utterly impractical. Direct drive is only 8mph at 100rpm. You go at a nice cruising/commuting speed of 20mph you'd need to spin out 250rpm. I can only maintain 200rpm for short bursts!

It needs something akin to a the Schlumpf "mountain drive" cranks (to lengthen the gears rather than shorten them) to give a gear up in to at leas the 60"-70" gear inches range that's more suitable for road use.

They say this in the comment section:

> "To address the problem you bring up, we have designed an overdrive hub system that will make the gearing comparable to that of the average singlespeed bike."

Of course, there goes the "simplicity"...

Aha, thanks, missed that.

Without gears, it's just a unicycle with two wheels.

...so, a bicycle?

No. A unicycle with an added front wheel to lean on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXmBrD4b4EI&sns=em

Nothing really got simplified here. There's now twice as many steering columns, the rear hub became more complicated, and so did its dropout because now there's pedals there. We've lost gear ratios other than 1:1. And I didn't see braking of any sort.

It's basically a swing bike (fun, but taxing on the core muscles and not very stable at high speed) with the rear axle aft of the saddle (so I'm guessing it's a nutbuster).

Freakbikes are great, but this reeks of concept fluff.

I hate the concept and I agree that they complicated the bike, if anything, but it does have brakes.

Honestly, I expected the rear hub to lock with backpedaling reminiscent of training bikes. Looks like I join the negativity train here in that it looks less comfortable and certainly is less stable than your normal bicycle. And it doesn't solve size issues well compared to folding commuter bikes.

Looks like a novel take on the bicycle (perhaps for an industrial design course/exercise?) but the weight savings don't cut it.

As for brakes, I noticed a front disc for braking - but front only? That would make an already unstable bike a disaster.

Watching the video the bike looks to be inherently unstable even when rolling forward. The rider is using his body to control the direction of the rear wheel and corners look pretty shaky if you don't keep the alignment right. It may have fewer parts but to my eye it looks like it has more ways this could go very wrong. Sort of like when you are pushing one of those rolling dolly's where all 4 wheels rotate independently.

For what it's worth, the specs say the rear steering has a lockout.

Yeah, as well, if you locked the rear wheel then you would probably be in a lot of trouble. I guess maybe they don't even have rear brakes (which is another problem of its own)

It looks both uncomfortable and impractical for day to day commuting. There seems to be a constant pressure on the leg muscles because the back wheel also pivots. No luggage rack and shortly wheelbase makes the breaking more dangerous.

I think I'll stick to my classic Dutch Gazelle: http://www.gazellebikes.com/Collection%20bikes/Urban_bicycle...

Although what I really want is one of these: http://www.gazellebikes.com/Collection%20bikes/Urban_bicycle...

Looks more like a 2 wheeled Unicycle, than a "simplified" bicycle.

"In geometry, there's nothing as strong as a triangle. Diamond-frame bikes consist basically of two triangles. The elegance and simplicity of this design is very hard to improve upon. Billions of diamond-frame bikes have been made from tubing for over a century, and during that time, hundreds of thousands of very smart people have spent billions of hours riding along and thinking about ways to fine-tune the performance of their bikes. The tubular diamond frame has been fine-tuned by an evolutionary process to the point where it is very close to perfection, given the basic design and materials. " - Sheldon Brown

So they effectively reinvented the boneshaker[1] while forgetting why the highwheelers evolved (you're not going to go very fast on this thing).

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boneshaker_(bicycle)#section_...

See http://vanmoof.com for a nicer, better, more practical and more stylish bike from Dutch designers. Quote from their site:

  We stripped the traditional Dutch bike from redundant hoo-ha [...]
  and added sensibility instead. The result? Simplistic striking
  bikes so smooth that they fit your style demands, yet so functional
  they make you go to work whistling. The no-nonsense VANMOOF bike
  is the ultimate urban commuter tool, anywhere around the globe.

In many places, you don't want a cool, visually striking bike for commuting, because it's a lot likelier to be the target of thieves.

True. Especially in The Netherlands, when you buy a second-hand bike (for example for commuting to the train station) it is very common to invest the same amount of money in a quality lock.

At bigger train stations in NL, often there are guarded parking areas for bicycles. Smaller stations are likely to have 'bike lockers' for rent.

Sometimes people throw out hundreds of years of engineering and are lauded as geniuses.

I don't think this is going to be one of those times.

Dynamic has been selling drive-shaft bicycles for a long time: http://www.dynamicbicycles.com/

This looks like it could be good to ride for fun, not so much for everyday transportation.

I'd be worried about the stability of such a short bicycle, and the speed of such small wheels and wide tires.

From an ergonomics standpoint, having your hands and butt at the exact same level has always been bad for your body. On competitive racing bikes this made some sense where one was trying to reduce the last bit of drag, but in all other cycling contexts it would make more sense not to be doing this. Here we see the same layout, this time apparently only to preserve artistic symmetry of the frame design since this bike without gears is certainly not suitable for competitive racing.

This is an oversimplification - good cycling form has many benefits beyond aerodynamics and power.

For example, your typical commuter bike allows the rider to sit in a standard upright position. While many new to bikes find this more comfortable, each bump in the road sends a jolt up through the seat post that continues unimpeded vertically up the rider's spine, compressing each disc in the vertebrae. Sore butt and an aching back at the end of the ride.

Adopting road cycling form, aside from strengthening your core, allows your torso to act as a shock absorber, harmlessly waggling away the energy.

Or you could just ride a recumbent.

The only reason they ride uprights at races is regulations.

There is no shortage of vehicles to ride :)

As this thread started with a commuter bike, I'll stick to commuting. The low visibility of recumbents in traffic (both of the rider and what the rider can see) is a bigger issue than ergonomics.

Each rider determines their own level of acceptable risk, etc etc, but regulation has nothing to do with their lacking adoption for commuters.

You could stick a neon flag on top.

> Each rider determines their own level of acceptable risk, etc etc, but regulation has nothing to do with their lacking adoption for commuters.

That's true. The greatest drawback of my recumbent is the inability to use backpack at the same time. (Sure there are saddlebags, but that's less convenient.)

Otherwise known as "The Faceplant".

A head tube angle of 74 degrees would make a normal bicycle a pretty sketchy ride, IIRC, to say nothing of a 31" wheel base.

73 degrees is standard road bike, 74 is NBD

Put your average person on a road bike, and they're going to freak out just a little bit. They're not real stable, comfortable or natural, especially at slow speeds.

They're actually very stable once you're moving, more so than some other bike geometries and at low speed I can't tell much of a difference. If someone else was used to a different bike design then I can see it might take a bit of adjustment. Once you're used to them they handle better and are more comfortable on long rides than most other bike designs.

> Once you're used to them they handle better and are more comfortable on long rides than most other bike designs.

Well, yeah, that's what they're made for: the best possible experience for people who know what they're doing. Commuter type bicycles are generally meant to be reasonably comfortable for the less bicycle-oriented.

Reminds me of this from South Park https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUNEm6DWsU8

The claim that the moving parts are less than a regular bike is just... It not only has more moving parts, it also has movement on two new axis too!

But I dont see the problem with the regular bikes that this solves. Even if it were true that regular bikes required a few maintenance more, the cost to buy a new chain and oil it up now and then is close to nothing

I don't see how you can say it has more moving parts.

Sure, the back wheel pivots.

But...no rear brakes no chain no sprockets... no freewheel...

Not to mention that the biggest design problem with current bikes is that they are simultaneously fairly expensive (multiple hundreds of dollars, except for the lowest of the low end) and extremely easy to steal.

If someone could make a reasonably reliable bike that's so cheap you wouldn't care if it got stolen, or an expensive bike that was extremely hard to steal, that would be a design improvement of the first magnitude.

If you actually want to go minimalist, get a unicycle.

Ah, Portland. Where the fixie just isn't hipster enough.

It's a tough world. (Though, I'm actually based in the old world.)

There used to be a chap who commuted through central Edinburgh on a unicycle - over Dean Bridge through the New Town and up the Mound towards the Old Town.

I used to commute to university on a 24" unicycle. But that was in Germany, not Edinburgh.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ryno+unicycle&tbm=isch

I rode the STP (Seattle to Portland) a few years ago. 2 days, 206 miles over "rolling hills" and country roads. (Rolling hills = description they give so that more than just hard-core bikers will do it.) It was strenuous for all but the most seasoned and hard-core distance riders.

And I see the stereo-typical Portlandia dude riding the route on his unicycle! Not one of the chain-driven ones, but non-geared. He had to pedal the entire distance, up hills and down others. Amazing he rode that far on that bike.

Everyone here has pointed out why this bike is not simple or usable and the designer has sort of justified this argument by not even mentioning why this is a simplified bike on the website. It marketing 101, if you are making a better product – tell people why it's better!

is jobst brandt still around? would love to see what he says about this, if it's printable.

+1 - I recall reading that guy's commentary in rec.bicycles.racing:

http://luddo.freehostia.com/Climbs/Climbs5.htm

Is this for real? I would like to see a video where it's not a parking lot or an empty square. The guy seems to be visibly trampling around corners in the park. I can't imagine what could happen in a sharp corner at anything above 2 km/h

Can someone explain the point of having a freely rotating rear wheel? It makes no sense to me. I can see myself constantly worrying I'll turn too much and burn my inner calf on the tire.

Site needs some UX work... http://i.imgur.com/Gm2jO.png

Honestly, this did not look simple to me.

I wonder if anyone will bother stealing this. And will the thief ride it for a quick getaway?

dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4635505

This looks more complicated than a chain driven bike.

In regards to bikes in general, the formfactor is nearly perfected and there are designs to accommodate almost anyone. I think the innovations need to be in the public's perception and increased usage of them (and not cars).

Yes. And you can learn much about that, by looking at bike usage in different countries.

Looks a lot like the things a mate of mine keeps welding up. He has loads of 2 wheel steering bikes now, and he's pretty good on them.

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