Bike blog: Experiments in Speed [video] | Hacker News Reader

Bike blog: Experiments in Speed [video]

theguardian.com

105 pointswyclif58 comments

Anyone who watches this and thinks "But why?" and "People have done this before with a bigger budget and gone faster!" are not looking at it right.

Tom is a one-man frame builder, and he took the resources he had available to him: His old car, his existing skills, his local area. And he's pulled them together to recreate the kind of pioneering that took place 50/60 years ago for setting these records.

He knew from the outset that he wasn't going to get the record, he didn't even get an athlete to ride the bike as he rode it himself.

What he did do was go on this incredible journey of exploring the limits of his own skills as a frame builder, of looking at what it takes to go so fast on a bike, and he did it with virtually nothing.

And he's not the only one. A lot of people I know in the cycling world, in the design world, and in the tech world seem to be shaking off their cynicism and pessimism, and throwing themselves into projects that help them push their own individual talents.

It's the hacker culture of taking something apart, and putting it back together, and sometimes the entire point is "Why the hell not?". It doesn't have corporate backing, or government nods, it's just a few guys doing something they love and letting no obstacle stand in their way.

It's easy to say "Why bother, it's not going to be the record", it can be harder just to recognise and applaud them for their individual effort. But that's what should be done.

This is the single most inspiring comment on HN is a looooong time!

I just love those moments in life when the absurdist in you, the one thinking of taking runs at windmills, convinces your otherwise cynical and pessimist self to STFU and "fuck it!". Do it. :-)

If nothing, it's the stories at the pub with your mates afterwards that it's all about.

Great video! Very inspirational!

Your comment is the perfect antidote to the pathetically pessimistic comments elsewhere on this thread. Thank you!

I think the problem is the title - it sets up high expectations. When it turns out that an ordinary store-bought racing bike would have worked just as well, and the high speed is reached not by the bike being special, but by drafting behind a car, then the disappointment sets in.

If the story had been "Guy builds racing bike from scratch, goes drafting with it just to see what it can do", then it would have been the cool inspiring story of the hacker spirit. But now it wasn't - it was framed.

It's not really possible for a human-powered bicycle to go 80mph. Air resistance tops you out at probably around 50-55mph and there's not much that can be done, the power output of human legs has a hard ceiling.

So inherent in a story about a bicycle going 80mph is some way around that limitation.

It is possible, the record is 82.33mph ( http://www.ihpva.org/land.htm ) and Graeme Obree is currently working to best that and aspires to go significantly beyond it:

http://www.gizmag.com/graeme-obree-beastie/28234/

It's actually happening this week and they're out there right now doing it:

http://obree.com/obree-news/297-ihpva-world-land-speed-recor...

Yeah, there's not that much difference between drafting behind a car and using an aerodynamic shell.

There's a huge difference. In one case, the car is displacing all of that air; in the other, you are. Now, sure, an aerodynamic shell helps with that, but you still have to be the one to displace that air mass, while with a car you have a powered source doing so.

The title of this is a little disingenuous, as there's an entire system to get to those speeds. You could have probably taken any track bike, put that large of a front ring, and do what he did. He talks about the frame construction made using the same materials and techniques he uses for all of his bikes.

The whole system includes a car that is used to draft behind - very close behind, much like what was done over 100 years ago, with a train[1]

[1] http://www.bikereader.com/contributors/woodland/murphy.html

The speed records for bikes being paced by vehicles are pretty crazy:

> Fred Rompelberg, using a dragster with a large shield as pacer, achieved 268.831 km/h (167.044 mph) on the Bonneville Salt Flats on 15 October 1995.

From the wikipedia link posted elsewhere here.

Rompelberg was towed up to speed by the vehicle (physically attached) and then unhooked and maintained the speed. That is different than pedaling the bike up to speed yourself.

The point, though, is not the novelty of the engineering. It's more about the builder mentality than the results. It's about a couple of guys doing something cool in their garage with limited resources.

The way the title is worded indicates there's something special, novel, or innovative about the bike when, in fact, there's not. The 80mph was achieved by drafting behind a vehicle.

The title actually implies no such thing; I didn't even use any adjectives wrt the bike. So in your opinion, I should have written "Englishman builds bike capable of 80mph on flat surfaces with the help of a drafting vehicle, a machine shop, and a landing strip." Right?

I have to agree with JungleGymSam - the title does imply that there is something special about the bike because people assume that it's a 'bike capable of 80mph' under normal conditions. I guess people do not expect that it was achieved with the help of a drafting vehicle because than there would be absolutely nothing newsworthy about it, at least to people who know something about cycling. Anyone who has the experience of riding in peloton at 50 km/h without even pedaling knows that aerodynamic drag is everything - any racing bike is capable of 80mph with the help of a drafting vehicle.

'Drafting allows bike to travel at mph' would have been more accurate and just as interesting. I liked the project and the people involved, but I was expecting a bike that could do 80mph by itself thanks to some bizarre engineering insight.

This is exactly why HN has guidelines for editing story titles. You can't win as a submitter. I should have left it unedited as "Bike blog: Experiments in Speed [video]" which doesn't tell HN readers much about what the story is about. Someone will always, always complain that the title wasn't descriptive enough or is somehow inaccurate, no matter how long it is. Lesson learned. This is probably the last time I try to edit for clarity.

You have 10k karma so you can do mod bribes from the secret menu now. That's been the key to my success.

There's no need to get upset. Writing clearly and coming up with good names are hard, and routinely take multiple iterations to get right.

I run into this all the time while coding. There are times when I get lazy and use a function or class name that I know deep down is not right, and a code review will catch it, and then we'll spend 15 minutes mulling over a better name. In this process though, we are forced to think deeply about the problem being solved, and often gain extra insights. All from a couple of words!

Not upset, just thinking out loud.

Maybe that's your problem: you're trying to "win".

Yes, but is it really cool when anyone can do it? You could use any store bought racing bike (with minor tweaks) to do this. The only reason that you can set 'records' like this is basically because real racers with real top bikes do not value speed achieved by being dragged behind some aerodynamic shield and therefore there is no competition.

I don't want to sound disrespectful but I have to admit that I was disappointed. I expected something innovative like what Graeme Obree did - that was what I call 'cool'.

But he didn't "use any store bought racing bike". He built one himself. I can't do that. Can you?

I understand that building racing bikes is his profession. I am not trying to be sarcastic here - I just really do not get what is cool about a bike builder building a bike which (to me) seems to be not so special (if the bike were able to do 80 mph without the car... then I would be smitten).

Obviously, I might be missing something. And apparently... many people admire that guy and I don't want to be a 'killjoy' - everybody doing their job well and with enthusiasm deserves admiration and I respect that.

real racers with real top bikes do not value speed achieved by being dragged behind some aerodynamic shield

I know you're trolling, but I wanted to point out that, except for time trials, this is the entire sport of cycling. The "aerodynamic shield" is your competitors.

> The "aerodynamic shield" is your competitors.

True. It would be interesting to see a careful analysis of the (probably small but nonzero) benefit of being at the front of a large pack of cyclists, on the basis that the negative air pressure wake behind the front cyclist is reduced by the other riders. I'll probably discover this has been fully analyzed.

On the negative side, a tightly packed group of cyclists sometimes crash spectacularly.

No, I am not 'trolling' at all, I am just expressing my opinion and trying to provide some feedback about newsworthiness of the article and related HN post. You might disagree with me but that does not make me a troll and I find the accusation highly offensive. And although aerodynamic drag is important part of cycling tactic, the goal of the sport of cycling (ideally) is to determine who is stronger, has more stamina etc. It is obvious that the speed could be increased by technical means like specially built cars serving as aerodynamic shields - but that is not what the sport is about, is it? That is also why this is not allowed in races and why I claim it is not valued by racers. You are comparing apples and oranges.

> the goal of the sport of cycling (ideally) is to determine who is stronger, has more stamina etc

An individual time trial works like that. Team events and races bring in more group dynamics, it isn't one man against the clock in most events.

This seems so obvious to me that I really do not understand how can anybody not see that. Is the difference between a man fighting with other men (where other men are obviously part of the race) and someone hiding behind the car not clear? Maybe it's because I used to race myself and I have been influenced by 'cycling ethics' - hiding behind the car was considered 'cowardly' and only tolerated under very special circumstances like when you had some technical difficulty so they had to give you reserve bike and now you are compensating your bad luck and getting back to the peloton drifting behind your team's car.

> newsworthiness of the article and related HN post.

This is far more worth of HN than you give it credit for. In fact, it's exactly the type of post that should be featured here.

Edit: This is far more worthwhile than yet another article on Snowden, that's for damn sure.

> that does not make me a troll and I find the accusation highly offensive.

Maybe you weren't trolling, but what did you think was going to happen when you posted what amounted to an anti-hacker comment on "Hacker News?"

From your previous post:

> is it really cool when anyone can do it

Yes. In fact, it's much cooler when anyone can do it. That is practically one of the central tenets of the hacker culture.

Thank you for your comment. It certainly made me think. I am not sure I see this the same way that you do. But I do realize now that my comments might seem negative and I do not want that - I think I have said enough and I should stop now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6194860

I do think that there is a substantial difference in how interesting it is to use a fast motorized vehicle as an aerodynamic shield, vs. using your competitors (and teammates) in a peleton. The first feels like "cheating" in a sense, as bicycling is supposed to take advantage only of human power, while the second adds a fascinating strategic dimension to racing.

That said, I do think the original video has merit. Yes, cycling in the aerodynamic wake of a car is substantially different than cycling entirely under your own power, but it is still a neat thing to try and see how far you can push it.

Big races are won in the time trials and mountain stages. In the former, there is no "shield". In the later, there are still tactics, but they tend to not be as important as raw climbing power unless someone makes a big mistake.

So if almost anyone can do anything if they really wanted to, then applying your logic - no one would do anything.

Hi, OP here. I try not to take liberties with story titles (and those get edited by the mods anyway), but I thought it was more descriptive than "Experiments in Speed."

I didn't think there was anything wrong with the title but had you chosen to title it: "Reaching the Fuck It point: Experiments in Speed" perhaps folks would have realised that the message was not really about attempting to break records on a bicycle but to answer to the audacity of whim on projects you're passionate about ... to "see it to completion". That's the lesson here ... for me.

This is a common gimmick called "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-paced_cycling".

looks like that page was deleted

Just a trailing quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-paced_cycling

Why "gimmick"? Obviously you can't compare paced and non paced speeds, but there's nothing wrong with motor pacing. Lots of pros pace behind a scooter to train for high speed racing.

The logical extension is a bicycle attached to a suction cup, with five microns of airspace between the suction cup and a van moving at 100mph.

Drafting in a record attempt is a test of the ability to draft; It doesn't have much to do with designing a vehicle, only with designing half of a vehicle.

> It doesn't have much to do with designing a vehicle

Err... most bicycles are not meant to reach anything at all like those speeds, so it's very much about designing a bicycle that's fit for the job.

I can promise you, that despite all of the drafting in the world, his legs would still be on fire. It's not a "free ride" despite being assisted!

A perfect draft is negligibly different from a free ride. A ruleset which allows drafting categorically without specifying precise forms will asymptotically approach a perfect draft. A ruleset which does specify precise forms is testing those forms, again, not much to do with cycling.

Does anyone remember a (French?) guy who did exactly the same in the late 80s? Except that he was wearing a simpler helmet and his bike used simple 3-gear fixed transmission, with extra gear mounted under the seat. His bike rolled 30 m with a single pedal rotation and he too was riding after the bus to piggyback on a slipstream. His ride was highly publicized and I think he made it into a Guinness book.

Maybe you're talking about José Meiffret:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Meiffret

He rode to 130mph / 200km/h back in 1962

Nope, not him. Googled a bit and I was thinking of John Howard in 1985. Apparently, it wasn't a bus, but a custom dragster and his helmet was a match too :)

And here's his bike - http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=8bqd1t1

Indeed, I could not remember the gearing you were talking about. This looks super cool :)

"We'll make you watch a 10 minute video before you find out what this is all about". Meh, no thanks.

I would say your loss. The film is about a guy who had an idea, used the resources around him to make that idea a reality while relying on his friends and people in the industry he works in to come to together and make it a reality. The only reason this happened is pretty much expressed in the film. He had immense respect of his peers and they supported him.

Yes he ended up, head down, doing 80mph right up against the bumper of a car inside a shed, but what an amazing journey to get there.

You have to respect somebody who achieves the crazy using the limited resources available to him with the help of his peers and friends.

I saw the bike at the Bristol Bespoke Cycle show earlier this year. I have to say until I saw this film I had no idea what had gone into it.

I thought this was go to be bat Graeme Obree, who is Scottish not Eglish, who is attempting to break the human powered vehicle speed record which is currently 82.4 mph on a bike he is building himself.

this is imo a much more interesting endevour - here's a video https://vimeo.com/69901706

really does not look at all promising right now and personally i think there's a good chance it could come to nothing.. but he has a pretty decent past record having developed a couple of bikes and riding positions that proved superior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Obree

This guys is a wannabe Graeme Obree - obree.com

http://obree.com/obree-news/297-ihpva-world-land-speed-recor...

While this is certainly a fantastic feat, it’s not always practical to have a car ride in front of you – which is why I’m still thinking of getting one of those ‘Velomobiles’[0], apparently with regular cruising speeds of ~45 km/h[1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velomobile

[1]: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/09/the-velomobile-high-t...

My favourite velomobile is the Quest: http://en.velomobiel.nl/quest/

I really want to try one for a long ride, perhaps the Dunwich Dynamo.

The only issue I have is that I live in a flat and have no garage, I have no way to store one of these otherwise I'd have made the jump a while ago.

If you're interested in the topic, check out ihpva.org (international human powered vehicle association). They have a regular speed test in battle mountain, nevada where the fastest speedbikes do time trials (without drafting). It's inspiring on both a physical and engineering level. Current record is around 80mph.

That's an incredibly inspiring video, well worth watching. Tinkering, finding and exceeding your own limits and then in the end succeeding at your goal. What else is there to wish for?

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