The Toughest Test in Cycling | Hacker News Reader

The Toughest Test in Cycling

wsj.com

45 pointsMaxQuentero28 comments

Right at the beginning of my obsession with cycling, I read about this record and it's most fascinating challenger: Graeme Obree.

Nicknamed "The Flying Scotsman", he made his own bicycles out of washing machine parts and invented a few new riding positions before being banned by the UCI.

Pretty interesting cat. http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/sportscotland/asportingnation/...

> he made his own bicycles out of washing machine parts

Wasn't it just the bottom bracket that he reused from a washing machine?

Nice:

'Obree himself said: "My biggest regret of my career is mentioning to a journalist that there was a bit from a washing machine in my bike.

"Now forever I will be remembered as the washing machine guy."'

You may enjoy the film based on his life.

The Flying Scotsman

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472268/

Before watching the film, one should add that what Graham never revealed until recently is that many of his problems stemmed from the fact that he was repressing his homosexuality, much to his mental distress.

> It led to attempts like Chris Boardman’s successful one in 2000. He rode ... so far forward that his style was called the Superman position.

This sentence made my blood boil

Why?

Obree pioneered the position. Boardman and his team thought he was a joke.

The fastest bikes in the world aren't uprights, they're recumbents with streamlined fairings. The world-record holder is this one (although for a distance of 200 meters rather than a time of 1 hour): http://www.gizmag.com/human-powered-speed-record-2013/29103/

The UCI bans recumbents in all racing competitions however: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle

I suppose that really depends on what your definition of "fastest bike" is.

Recumbents have gotten to 80mph - maybe topping out at 100mph.

Eric Barone took his mountain bike to 130 by riding down a mountain.

Matt Hoffman got a bit faster than that by jumping out of an airplane with his.

François Gissy got a bit faster than that by strapping a few rockets on – 207mph.

The UCI didn't bother to recognize this records either.

For reference sprinters like Mark Cavendish often reach speeds of 70 to 80kph (43mph to 49mph) in the final 200 metres of a road race.

http://www.stuff.tv/features/tour-de-france-contender-mark-c...

i applaud you for your open mindedness.

as a lover of bikes, and of recumbents, i kind of get annoyed at the very predictable 'recumbents are the fastest most aerodynamic bikes' thing that you get alot from folks.

there might be many reasons the uci banned recumbents. but there is one primary reason recumbents never have and never will sell well; they are invisible in urban riding environment due to low seat height.

that and their problems with long chains, heavier weights, and poor climbing are all very good reasons to accept the generic superiority of the 20th century generic bicycle.

some things are so perfect, they cannot really be improved upon.

If that's the case then why don't we see more faired uprights? It should be possible to greatly improve aerodynamics without much harm to weight or safety. I think it's because most R&D is spent on bikes at the top end of the market, where most customers are pros or want the same bikes as the pros. Even partial fairings could make a big difference, but we don't see them because they're banned by the UCI.

Generally, adding fairings and other modifications to improve aerodynamics also increases the side-on area susceptible to crosswinds.

For uprights the rider is seated such that the centre or mass is relatively high compared to the faired/aerodynamic frame/wheels. If the bike has fairings or wheels covers that increase the side-on profile then a strong wind gust can push the bike out from under the rider. For this reason front wheel disks are banned from time trials and triathlons. There is too much risk that a crosswind gust can destablise the bike and rider.

For recumbents the rider's mass sits much lower to the ground, more centrally within this faired frame/wheels, so they are inherently more stable to the effect of crosswinds.

While I don't agree with all the UCI rulings, some of them regarding aerodynamic modifications are made with safety in mind. For example, triathlon style aerobars are banned from the peleton. This is primarily because the rider has less control over the steering and braking performance while in the aero position.

I'd suggest that it's pretty simple to separate into "on [net] level ground [with no more than a trivial amount of slope at any point], powered only by a single human" vs others...

My lighthearted point above was to illustrate these records fall on a spectrum of perceived legitimateness. There is no "real" top speed - there are only qualifications of one sort or another. But I'll rise to the challenge.

On your above conditions the fasted record was set by Bruce Bursford who reached a top speed of 207.9mph on a treadmill (which I should note, tops out Mr. Gissy's record above.)

That's amazing. I never get anywhere on a treadmill.

I would be interested in seeing recumbents used in individual time trials perhaps. However, they seem to be significantly less nimble which is flat out dangerous in the peloton. Their wheel base is longer, so I wonder if a peloton might actually be slowed by being spread farther apart. Also they are absolute trash for climbing.

How about small-wheeled bikes? The Moulton AM, a heavy, steel, fully suspended bike with 17" wheels, set the flying 200m faired world record in 1986, and it still stands.

My understanding is that the current UCI rule which bans small-wheeled bikes (1.3.018) is a descendant of a rule specifically enacted to ban the Moulton. And not for safety reasons.

Do you have a link for the Moulton record? The Moulton site has a weird phrasing about top speed and doesn't provide the time. If there really is a design advantage to small wheels, I wonder what the physics there are. Large wheels are good on road where you will encounter potholes etc.

Anyhow, those small wheels are too ugly to be seen riding.

> If there really is a design advantage to small wheels, I wonder what the physics there are. Large wheels are good on road where you will encounter potholes etc.

Meh. 17" wheels do great on the road.

So the physics is basically this.

DISADVANTAGES. Small wheels have a steeper angle of attack, so they're somewhat bumpier on tough surfaces. That's easily dealt with using a small full suspension to glue wheels to the road, just like it's done on motorcycles. Small wheels are more difficult to gear high. There are lots of common approaches to that. And small wheels often have more squirrely steering, because it's harder (not impossible) to give them a lot of mechanical trail. This in turn presents a problem for going downhill fast where steering stability matters. Last, of course, the tires wear out faster.

ADVANTAGES. Numerous. Small wheels are far more aerodynamic. They can be much lighter. They are far, far stronger and require fewer spokes. And they have much smaller rotational inertia, translating into faster acceleration and deceleration. Last, they allow for a much wider range of design options, including fairings. Large wheels are quite cumbersome in that regard.

> Do you have a link for the Moulton record?

Sure. http://www.ihpva.org/hpvarec3.htm [Also http://www.whpva.org/land.html ]

Search for "Moulton". Also has a few other records as well. In fact, IIRC, there is no upright bike with an IHPVA speed record on that page that is not a Moulton.

> Anyhow, those small wheels are too ugly to be seen riding.

That's what penny-farthing people used to say about your bike.

Though small-wheeled bikes have their own disadvantages (gearing challenges, mechanical trail), all other things equal, large-wheeled bikes are slow. UCI's restrictions have basically held back the industry. :-(

I'm not really interested in tech that can't be transferred out of the event, so it always bothers me that these events throw the baby out with the bath-water when they demand either pure traditionalism or alternately allow insanely impractical things like fairings.

I'd love to see some kind of event that accomodates the challenges of real-life like wind and traffic, but still allows experimentation with bleeding-edge tech.

What would really improve consumer bicycle technology is a standardized testing schedule like the EPA's "city test"[1]. You can standardize a course, but how to standardize the rider to be similar to an average person? Perhaps a special pedal that measures or constrains the rider's power output.

[1] http://epa.gov/nvfel/testing/dynamometer.htm

Here's the short video of Merckx's record breaking attempt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqjEvDlFqdM

For me, any record will need Fabian Cancellara's participation to be legit.

Wiggo's not legit? Big Swiss, especially a couple seasons back, seemed well designed for this record but he's not the time trialist he used to be. Wiggo won the world championship last year over a fiendish Tony Martin. Wiggins will set the record and then in a year or a few Martin, on a track bike fitted with a 58x11, will crush it.

Cancellara was recently injured, and doesn't seem interested in trying for the record anyway. http://velonews.competitor.com/2015/02/news/cancellara-lost-...

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