5 ms·

Bicycles are pretty amazing, although there's no way you could 'build one yourself'.

by davidw 7y ago

miguelmota 7y ago
Bicycles may seem simple but took many decades to get it right. Your comment also reminded me of this gallery of drawings from people attempting to create a bicycle from memory which is pretty funny https://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to-draw-bicycle-from-memory-and-renders-results/ https://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to-draw...
- notatoad 7y ago
  The most astounding thing about bicycles is that we did actually get it right. looking at the first ~100 years of iteration, you'd kind of assume that it was one of those things that would just keep evolving forever. But then they found the classic diamond frame design, and bikes have been fundamentally the same since then.
  - davidw 7y ago
    Feels kind of asymptotic to me: they got most of the basics right 100 years ago, but things like derailleurs are a pretty big improvement in terms of allowing an ordinary person to ride over varied terrain. Quick release skewers (grazie a Tullio Campagnolo), lighter materials, clipless pedals (for racers)... have all been incremental improvements. More recently, tubeless tires on mountain bikes are a big improvement in my enjoyment of riding off road.
  - madhadron 7y ago
    You could also argue that the political necessity in competitive cycling to maintain its status quo (thus not allowing recumbents and the like) has forced us into a local maximum that we cannot easily exit.
  - dharmab 7y ago
    You can absolutely make arguments that bicycle design is unoptimized. Why use front forks when they have so many problems? https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/why-are-there-no-alternatives-to-the-telescopic-fork-front-suspension https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/why-are-there-no-alter... Why haven't recumbent bicycles taken over the road bike market despite many advantages (hint: It has to do with what kinds of traffic we prioritize in cities) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#Compared_to_uprights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#Compared_to_...
    - notatoad 7y ago
      people have been trying to make linkage forks a thing since forever ago, and it never pans out. For all the claims that telescoping suspension isn't very good, there's still nothing better.
    - Grustaf 7y ago
      I don’t get it, front forks seem very optimal to me. Could hardly be any simpler.
      - dharmab 7y ago
        They're simple, but from the article: > The main problem with conventional forks is that they can’t separate bump forces from braking forces. > As a result, a conventional fork dives under hard braking. As weight’s transferred to the front wheel, the fork springs compress. This uses up fork travel that would otherwise be available for bumps, which is bad enough. But wait, it gets worse... > Brake dive also shortens the wheelbase and changes the rake angle. In a perfect world, engineers would certainly rather not change those parameters in mid-corner! This makes braking mid-corner a risky proposition, which leads to accidents when riders encounter surprises mid-corner. In the motorcycling world this is being worked around by computers, so we're not likely to see an alternate front suspension, unfortunately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHRWg91hv-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHRWg91hv-M
        Grustaf 7y ago
  - m463 7y ago
    What's kind of fascinating is that sport motorcycles have all reached a similar design too, except they were all influenced by a racing rule that said the fairings couldn't extend forward of the front axle. Before that, motorcyles were tending towards football-shaped.
- plopz 7y ago
  What a frustrating article, they say its missing a key component but doesn't say what.
  - arpfaust 7y ago
    A bar between the axes of the pedals and the rear wheel ;)
  - Jarwain 7y ago
    Even the artist just says "an important part of its frame". If I had to guess, it's a bar connecting the back wheel's harness-thing with the gear to maintain a consistent distance. If someone sat on that, I think the wheels would flex out, the chain come loose, etc.
  - davidw 7y ago
    The chainstays are missing in the first image.
  - ogre_codes 7y ago
    It's the Chainstays. You need two bars connecting the bottom bracket to the rear hub or the rear wheel is extremely unstable. Most modern bikes are fundamentally 2 triangles joined at the base.
  - InitialLastName 7y ago
    There's no chain stay, to complete the rear triangle.
- blackearl 7y ago
  I'd love to see some of these built out and tested. I'm assuming most would snap in half when riding over the first curb. Thanks for sharing!
blacksmith_tb 7y ago
Well, you can certainly assemble a bike from a pile of components, a pair of wheels, and a frame (try and do that with a sedan...) And it's not beyond most people to learn how to weld or braze a frame together from tubing (or even glue up carbon fiber or bamboo into a frame, at room temp). But smelting the steel and aluminum at home to make the parts is admittedly not practical.
- dcuthbertson 7y ago
  > try to do that with a sedan... Well, it can be done. There's a guy who rebuilt a Tesla Model S from a pair of junked Teslas. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA
- kqr 7y ago
  Not only not practical -- essentially requires a highly refined metal industry to begin with, as I understand it. It's no surprise the first mass producers of bicycles were weapons manufacturers -- they were the ones with the high quality steel supplies and equipment that allowed for tight tolerances.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    There are people on youtube who refine their own ores. They are lucky enough to live in a place where ore is close to the surface - not high quality ore, but with enough that for a youtube video you can get a small quantity of pure metal out. (high quality ore is either deep in the ground or already mined). For iron the process is actually simple, knowledge of iron refining likely predated the bronze age, but quality iron ores were too hard to come by to make it useful. (bronze is in much less quantity overall, but where there was was easy to find) Edit: I won't discount the advances in iron refining though. the methods known thousands of years ago were not suitable to large scale production. It is hard to say if they would have made those advances if ore was available or not.

Bicycles are pretty amazing, although there's no way you could 'build one yourself'.

by davidw 7y ago

Bicycles are pretty amazing, although there's no way you could 'build one yourself'.

Bicycles may seem simple but took many decades to get it right. Your comment also reminded me of this gallery of drawings from people attempting to create a bicycle from memory which is pretty funny https://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to-draw-bicycle-from-memory-and-renders-results/ https://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to-draw...

notatoad 7y ago
The most astounding thing about bicycles is that we did actually get it right. looking at the first ~100 years of iteration, you'd kind of assume that it was one of those things that would just keep evolving forever. But then they found the classic diamond frame design, and bikes have been fundamentally the same since then.
- davidw 7y ago
  Feels kind of asymptotic to me: they got most of the basics right 100 years ago, but things like derailleurs are a pretty big improvement in terms of allowing an ordinary person to ride over varied terrain. Quick release skewers (grazie a Tullio Campagnolo), lighter materials, clipless pedals (for racers)... have all been incremental improvements. More recently, tubeless tires on mountain bikes are a big improvement in my enjoyment of riding off road.
- madhadron 7y ago
  You could also argue that the political necessity in competitive cycling to maintain its status quo (thus not allowing recumbents and the like) has forced us into a local maximum that we cannot easily exit.
- dharmab 7y ago
  You can absolutely make arguments that bicycle design is unoptimized. Why use front forks when they have so many problems? https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/why-are-there-no-alternatives-to-the-telescopic-fork-front-suspension https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/why-are-there-no-alter... Why haven't recumbent bicycles taken over the road bike market despite many advantages (hint: It has to do with what kinds of traffic we prioritize in cities) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#Compared_to_uprights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#Compared_to_...
  - notatoad 7y ago
    people have been trying to make linkage forks a thing since forever ago, and it never pans out. For all the claims that telescoping suspension isn't very good, there's still nothing better.
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    I don’t get it, front forks seem very optimal to me. Could hardly be any simpler.
    - dharmab 7y ago
      They're simple, but from the article: > The main problem with conventional forks is that they can’t separate bump forces from braking forces. > As a result, a conventional fork dives under hard braking. As weight’s transferred to the front wheel, the fork springs compress. This uses up fork travel that would otherwise be available for bumps, which is bad enough. But wait, it gets worse... > Brake dive also shortens the wheelbase and changes the rake angle. In a perfect world, engineers would certainly rather not change those parameters in mid-corner! This makes braking mid-corner a risky proposition, which leads to accidents when riders encounter surprises mid-corner. In the motorcycling world this is being worked around by computers, so we're not likely to see an alternate front suspension, unfortunately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHRWg91hv-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHRWg91hv-M
      - Grustaf 7y ago
- m463 7y ago
  What's kind of fascinating is that sport motorcycles have all reached a similar design too, except they were all influenced by a racing rule that said the fairings couldn't extend forward of the front axle. Before that, motorcyles were tending towards football-shaped.
plopz 7y ago
What a frustrating article, they say its missing a key component but doesn't say what.
- arpfaust 7y ago
  A bar between the axes of the pedals and the rear wheel ;)
- Jarwain 7y ago
  Even the artist just says "an important part of its frame". If I had to guess, it's a bar connecting the back wheel's harness-thing with the gear to maintain a consistent distance. If someone sat on that, I think the wheels would flex out, the chain come loose, etc.
- davidw 7y ago
  The chainstays are missing in the first image.
- ogre_codes 7y ago
  It's the Chainstays. You need two bars connecting the bottom bracket to the rear hub or the rear wheel is extremely unstable. Most modern bikes are fundamentally 2 triangles joined at the base.
- InitialLastName 7y ago
  There's no chain stay, to complete the rear triangle.
blackearl 7y ago
I'd love to see some of these built out and tested. I'm assuming most would snap in half when riding over the first curb. Thanks for sharing!

blacksmith_tb 7y ago

Well, you can certainly assemble a bike from a pile of components, a pair of wheels, and a frame (try and do that with a sedan...) And it's not beyond most people to learn how to weld or braze a frame together from tubing (or even glue up carbon fiber or bamboo into a frame, at room temp). But smelting the steel and aluminum at home to make the parts is admittedly not practical.

dcuthbertson 7y ago
> try to do that with a sedan... Well, it can be done. There's a guy who rebuilt a Tesla Model S from a pair of junked Teslas. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA
kqr 7y ago
Not only not practical -- essentially requires a highly refined metal industry to begin with, as I understand it. It's no surprise the first mass producers of bicycles were weapons manufacturers -- they were the ones with the high quality steel supplies and equipment that allowed for tight tolerances.
- bluGill 7y ago
  There are people on youtube who refine their own ores. They are lucky enough to live in a place where ore is close to the surface - not high quality ore, but with enough that for a youtube video you can get a small quantity of pure metal out. (high quality ore is either deep in the ground or already mined). For iron the process is actually simple, knowledge of iron refining likely predated the bronze age, but quality iron ores were too hard to come by to make it useful. (bronze is in much less quantity overall, but where there was was easy to find) Edit: I won't discount the advances in iron refining though. the methods known thousands of years ago were not suitable to large scale production. It is hard to say if they would have made those advances if ore was available or not.