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Comment by justinator | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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.

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

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'.

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.

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.

> 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

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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