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A Cuban man trying to build the world's tallest bike
- hippich 10y agohow one gets on top of it, how to stop on the light, how to hop off?
- bullfightonmars 10y agoGetting up and down? With something this tall, it's a rolling ladder, you stop against a building, or have someone supporting your stop. Stopping at a light? Ideally you don't, you time the light, ride in circles, or hope oncoming traffic stops for you. I wouldn't recommend the latter.
- fuckemem 10y agoI've seen riders with cleats who can stop without putting their feet down. This is even without a fixed gear.
- cooper12 10y agoI think you're talking about a track stand.
- schoen 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_stand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_stand A common skill for expert cyclists, but maybe not a good idea to rely on if you're going to fall 4 meters or more to the ground if you lose control of the track stand.
- davidw 10y agoNot to mention it'd be a lot tougher from that high up in the first place. I can do that on a mountain bike pretty easily for a minute or so, but at broken-bone height? No way.
- CydeWeys 10y agoWhy do you say it'd be tougher from that high up? I suspect it'd be easier. Inverse pendulums are more stable the longer they are.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- soyiuz 10y agoI vote for less rectangles and more triangles (like the smaller bike in the picture). It is more structurally sound that way.
- theoh 10y agoMaybe someone who knows more about structures can comment, but I guess the big issue is how rigid the joints are. A triangulated structure is good because the joints don't need to be fixed--they can be hinged pin-joints and the frame is still rigid + easier to calculate structurally. But if the joints are very rigid, you can go with slightly less efficient option of rectangular framing if that's more convenient. In architecture it's sometimes called a Vierendeel truss, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vierendeel_bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vierendeel_bridge and it's very handy for avoiding inconvenient diagonal columns. (There are some high-profile buildings that use it, e.g. the Salk Institute in La Jolla, the HSBC building in Hong Kong.)
- soyiuz 10y agoA triangle structure is significantly more rigid than a rectangular one. Vierendeel truss needs to be super rigid to resist flex. Not good for a bicycle.
- swimfar 10y agoTo put that into perspective, here's a cool video of a guy riding through LA on a 14.5' (4.4m) bike. https://vimeo.com/64653759 https://vimeo.com/64653759
- tomjakubowski 10y agoThis is my go-to tall bike video too. What's especially great is the way he dismounts :-)
- Fezzik 10y agoAND it's a fixie?? Is that the norm for tall-bikes? We have a bunch here in Portland (Ore.) and I always figured they had breaks but never really looked closely... but I see none in the video. That seems 10x as terrifying.
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoNo, it's a coaster brake single speed. Back pressure on the chain engages the hub brake. You can see him coast at 2:20.
- Tiktaalik 10y agoA fixie for a tall bike makes sense because one can (presumably?) track stand to keep the bike upright while stopped. Otherwise you gotta hope there's a stop sign you can lean up against or just never stop...
- codingdave 10y agoWell, his technique of having a crowd of cops and fellow riders to block traffic for you seems to work for getting around without having to stop. Maybe not practical for everyday riding, though...
- jacquesm 10y agoI'm amazed it works as it is, he's going pretty slow at times. All it takes is one person not noticing and it's done.
- grizzles 10y agoWe must seem like ants to them.
- bullfightonmars 10y agoTall bikes are intentionally absurd but so fun to ride, it's hard not to smile from ear to ear while rolling down the road perched high above the world.
- rbreve 10y agowhat happen if he falls?
- loeg 10y agoHopefully he lands on his feet.
- Florin_Andrei 10y agoAt 10 meters you're likely to break something even if you land on your feet.
- jandrese 10y agoIf you know how to fall it isn't impossible to avoid injury from 10m. You're right at the limit of where you need to be really fit and avoid doing it too many times though. There is the added complication of needing to fall away from the bike as well, landing on it would be very bad news.
- jacquesm 10y agoThat's really rolling the dice. 10m is (more than) enough for a fatality, if you get away without injury you're just lucky, especially trying to dis-entangle yourself from a falling bicycle.
- monk_e_boy 10y agoAs the bike starts to topple, I wonder if you could climb down it quickly enough to avoid jumping. Kinda like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvOKyFmiUFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvOKyFmiUFA
- jacquesm 10y agoThat ladder is supported on both ends. Just to reach over while it is falling requires you to shift to the side it is falling away from accelerating the fall even further. It would be like being astride that ladder rather than clinging to the side of it and then going over the top and then sliding down on the side furthest from the ground. Not something I'd like to try.
- jacquesm 10y agoUgh. I had a bit of an unfortunate accident last summer with a recumbent and just looking at this hurts, that's a very bad height to fall from, I had plenty of damage being 8" off the ground.
- sevensor 10y agoMy thoughts exactly -- I fell off an ordinary bicycle at moderate speed last year, and suffered three cracked ribs and a concussion as a result. This fellow is courting disaster!
- gerdesj 10y ago"We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com." British Broadcasting Service branded site is unavailable in the UK. Weird.
- flukus 10y agoYou just saved yourself 2.5MB of bandwidth and a 10 second page load. Is anyone talking about changing the funding model of the BBC though? It doesn't seem cut out for the online world.
- throwaway91111 10y agoMy british vpn gives me free BBC.... I'd say it's pretty sweet!
- Neliquat 10y agoYou well illustrated his point.
- monk_e_boy 10y agoThey do bring it up every so often, but any politician that is interviewed about it is generally interviewed on the BBC. Also, the public love the BBC and don't mind paying. The BBC is really good online for us in the UK. I know a few people who work there and they are using cutting edge tech on a shoe string budget. They really do a brilliant job. Personally I don't mind paying for the Beeb and some other people in the world get it for free.
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y agoWow, I thought I was the only one! I don't get the anti-license fee brigade. If you don't want to pay just don't watch the BBC TV channels. The BBC won't even stop you reading their websites and listening to their radio stations commercial-free if you don't pay. Seems like a good deal to me.
- hathawsh 10y agoDoes anyone know what the rules are for breaking this record? If I attached a small hot air balloon to the top of the bike, I could conceivably make a ridiculously tall bike that's safe to operate. In fact, to keep within the rules, I could keep the balloon at equilibrium most of the time (so it doesn't lift the bike at all) until an emergency. Would the balloon invalidate my attempt to break the record?
- monk_e_boy 10y agoWould you want to break the record like that? No one would respect you or the record. Sometimes these things come down to how you want to feel about yourself.
- danielvf 10y agoThe records are by the distance from ground to the top of the seat where the rider sits. This would preclude the balloon trick. :)
- jacquesm 10y agoNot really, the balloon would be attached to the top of the bike at let's say 15 meters high and would itself go maybe another 5 or 10 meters up trailing the wire to the bike. So the rider would still be at the right distance from the ground, it's just that the bike can't fall over anymore because the balloon will help to catch it. You could sit still all day long on that thing (or until the wind caught the balloon...). The downside of the scheme is the negative feedback loop in the bike once it did became unbalanced. When it's almost balanced it would not take much upwards force to keep it that way but once it starts to become unbalanced the force required will very quickly overpower the balloon. Or you'd have to make the balloon so large that it would be just incapable of lifting bike + rider off the ground.
- CydeWeys 10y agoThe balloon isn't necessary. Inverted pendulums become more stable the taller they get. Think of trying to balance a short pencil on your palm (difficult) versus balancing a broomstick (much easier). Tall bicycles are inherently very stable, and don't need any help with balancing. The difficulty is in climbing that high up to the seat.
- xrange 10y ago> After more than half a century of living under a trade embargo, many Cubans have grown accustomed to shortages of basic household goods Are there countries other than the U.S. with an embargo against Cuba? What's stopping them from trading with China or Mexico or Canada or the E.U. countries for basic household goods?
- CydeWeys 10y agoThey aren't a rich country, and so don't have a lot of money to buy imports with. Not having access to the main large nearby trading partner doesn't help.
- donquichotte 10y agoHah, splendid! One of my favourite Makers on youtube, Laura Kampf from Köln, also built her own "tallbike". It's smaller than Cepero's, but there's a video of her actually building it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWZnGQiSbtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWZnGQiSbtQ
- zoner 10y agoI will pay the bbc tax only if I can read articles from bbc in the UK. (I'm not watching live TV though at all)
- vertex-four 10y agoThis isn't an article by the BBC "proper", it's by a separate organisation which is owned by the BBC, but is solely funded by the BBC's overseas operations.
- LostWanderer 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-XS4aueDUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-XS4aueDUg How Cuba DIY's its existence Quite bunch of interesting hackers
- pvaldes 10y agoThis is innecessarily dangerous. It only would take a stroke of wind or an accidental kick to kill the biker. If this guy accept some ideas; such bike should be designed as a tumbler doll and add a seat belt for the biker. If you can mechanically raise the heavy piece to balance (lower) the upper part could even have a supercool mechanism to dismount or save low obstacles.
- bitslayer 10y agoHere in Asheville, NC we had a fellow who built and attempted to ride a 44 ft. (13.4m) tall bike at a festival. He did not ride far enough to make it in the record books. But it was exciting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WgBeW4LXcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WgBeW4LXcU
- teh_klev 10y agoArchive.is copy for those of us inside the UK: http://archive.is/EXWhb http://archive.is/EXWhb