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I wonder why for fastest human-powered they don't use more than one cyclist. I assume with eight humans like in rowing you could get up to a ridiculous speed. M

by drpgq 11y ago

I wonder why for fastest human-powered they don't use more than one cyclist. I assume with eight humans like in rowing you could get up to a ridiculous speed. Might be a little dangerous though.

darkstar999 11y ago
Would the multiplied power be offset by the multiplied weight and potential loss of aerodynamics?
- davidw 11y ago
  As someone wrote above, weight doesn't matter that much, and since the most likely configuration would be one behind the other, the aerodynamics wouldn't suffer that much.
- QuotedForTruth 11y ago
  Max speed has very little to do with weight as long as you have sufficient room to accelerate. Additional drag would be small if you put one rider in front of the other and both inside of a fairing. The frontal area and shape could stay the same. This is the major source of drag. There would be small amounts of additional drag from the air running along a longer fairing, but doubling the power would more than make up for it. However, the speed would nowhere near double. Power required to overcome drag force is related to velocity cubed. So if you double power, the velocity will increase by a factor of (2)^1/3 or the cube root of 2, 1.259. So if they added another rider of equal power and managed to keep drag the same (it would actually increase a little) they'd go around 25% faster or 107 mph. You may run into other problems like stability and bumpiness first though.
  - barrkel 11y ago
    Drag is approximately proportional to the square of the velocity, not cube.
    - Faint 11y ago
      Drag force is proportional to 2nd power of velocity, power lost to drag is force*speed, which is 3rd power of velocity.
QuotedForTruth 11y ago
Im sure the rules state 1 human. That is an interesting thought though. A second person behind the first would add very little extra drag while doubling the power.
Semiapies 11y ago
This isn't horribly safe, either. Wiping out at 85 MPH would suck. I'm curious what multi-cyclist vehicles could do, now that you suggest it. With the lightness of these vehicles, at what point would you have to add spoilers?
- irl_zebra 11y ago
  While I know it would suck to wipe out, I'm hoping with this thing it may be more of a "slide for 1000ft and off the flat road" type of suck than a "life altering injury" type of suck.
  - bronson 11y ago
    The video shows a wipeout around 4:30, just a long slide. The bike wasn't near 85mph though. Sadly, the video is pretty cheesy and content-free. It's hard to recommend.
- cubix 11y ago
  The video shows one crash last year. It didn't actually appear to be that bad. The shell would presumably spare you some nasty road rash at least.
- tracker1 11y ago
  I think the shape would change dramatically for such a thing... it would probably be pretty good at 3-4 cyclists and have a shape closer to the solar car challenges for a more optimum output... There would of course be additional weight to overcome. But it would be interesting.

by drpgq 11y ago

I wonder why for fastest human-powered they don't use more than one cyclist. I assume with eight humans like in rowing you could get up to a ridiculous speed. Might be a little dangerous though.

darkstar999 11y ago

Would the multiplied power be offset by the multiplied weight and potential loss of aerodynamics?

davidw 11y ago
As someone wrote above, weight doesn't matter that much, and since the most likely configuration would be one behind the other, the aerodynamics wouldn't suffer that much.
QuotedForTruth 11y ago
Max speed has very little to do with weight as long as you have sufficient room to accelerate. Additional drag would be small if you put one rider in front of the other and both inside of a fairing. The frontal area and shape could stay the same. This is the major source of drag. There would be small amounts of additional drag from the air running along a longer fairing, but doubling the power would more than make up for it. However, the speed would nowhere near double. Power required to overcome drag force is related to velocity cubed. So if you double power, the velocity will increase by a factor of (2)^1/3 or the cube root of 2, 1.259. So if they added another rider of equal power and managed to keep drag the same (it would actually increase a little) they'd go around 25% faster or 107 mph. You may run into other problems like stability and bumpiness first though.
- barrkel 11y ago
  Drag is approximately proportional to the square of the velocity, not cube.
  - Faint 11y ago
    Drag force is proportional to 2nd power of velocity, power lost to drag is force*speed, which is 3rd power of velocity.

QuotedForTruth 11y ago

Im sure the rules state 1 human. That is an interesting thought though. A second person behind the first would add very little extra drag while doubling the power.

Semiapies 11y ago

This isn't horribly safe, either. Wiping out at 85 MPH would suck. I'm curious what multi-cyclist vehicles could do, now that you suggest it. With the lightness of these vehicles, at what point would you have to add spoilers?

irl_zebra 11y ago
While I know it would suck to wipe out, I'm hoping with this thing it may be more of a "slide for 1000ft and off the flat road" type of suck than a "life altering injury" type of suck.
- bronson 11y ago
  The video shows a wipeout around 4:30, just a long slide. The bike wasn't near 85mph though. Sadly, the video is pretty cheesy and content-free. It's hard to recommend.
cubix 11y ago
The video shows one crash last year. It didn't actually appear to be that bad. The shell would presumably spare you some nasty road rash at least.
tracker1 11y ago
I think the shape would change dramatically for such a thing... it would probably be pretty good at 3-4 cyclists and have a shape closer to the solar car challenges for a more optimum output... There would of course be additional weight to overcome. But it would be interesting.