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Humans did not evolve to ride bicycles (2017)
- Finnucane 5y agoIn the same sense that we didn't evolve to ride around in cars, sit at desks, wear glasses, or a million other things that we do.
- sombremesa 5y agoBetter title might be “the average bicycle isn’t designed to maximally leverage human anatomy.” To which the answer is: so what? The market doesn’t care about efficiency that much, else clip-in pedals wouldn’t be optional.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoClip-in pedals are optional because dangerous they are. My only serious accident on a bike was when I weared SPD pedals. Unlike a helmet, clip-in pedals trade security for efficiency.
- Thlom 5y agoThey’re not even that efficient.
- exeldapp 5y agoI’m curious why you say that. I put clip ins on my bike and it made a world of a difference being able to pull and push while pedaling. Are there better options?
- selectodude 5y agoThere’s no better option, it just didn’t make as much of a difference as you think it did. They add about 10 percent more power but more at the high end. If you’re pushing 500-600 watts that’s where the difference is clear.
- mariusor 5y agoI think the difference is worth it for amateur riders also, stability on the pedals and being able to both push and pull on your stroke should give you at least 15-20% more power. It might not benefit you in your 5Km commute to work, but it will in that 50Km weekend ride.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- stevenpetryk 5y agoI don't really see it as a matter of efficiency. It's more that I never have to really think about where my feet are on the pedals. They're just always in the right spot and no extra work has to go into keeping them there.
- mrfusion 5y agoHas anyone considered using a mag-safe like design so they would break away safely under extreme forces? Skis do this.
- InitialLastName 5y agoLots of styles of clip do release if the force is too great or if there is any force outside of the normal (no pun intended) vector.
- Grustaf 5y agoMechanical efficiency is not that important when most people only ride a few miles a day, at a slow pace, dictated by traffic conditions. If you take a broader view and consider vantage point, ease of mounting, mechanical efficiency, aesthetics, convenience, weight etc, bikes are pretty damn optimal.
- barefeg 5y agoHumans didn’t evolve to be humans
- ilamont 5y agoA vegan roommate used to get really worked up about drinking cow's milk, pointing out that humans were not evolved to do so in nature. He would say, "Can you imagine crawling under a cow to drink milk directly from the udder?" The idea seemed to frustrate him more than the concept of humans eating meat or wearing leather shoes.
- Finnucane 5y agoDid you say, we evolved to do that after we started domesticating cows?
- throwawaycities 5y agoOver 50% of people are lactose intolerant, and assuming the current timeline for agriculture is correct evolution doesn’t work that fast.
- imtringued 5y agoI'm not going to pretend to be an expert but lactose intolerance depends on gut microbes which doesn't require evolution to change. You can alleviate symptoms of lactose intolerance with probiotics/kefir.
- throwawaycities 5y ago> lactose intolerance depends on gut microbes which doesn't require evolution to change. I was responding to a comment that expressly said we evolved to consume milk after domesticating cows.
- twobitshifter 5y agoFrom what I’ve read the evolution of adult lactase was almost instant. Humans naturally produce lactase as babies, but what had to happen was to extend that production into adulthood. This is really a straightforward mutation then, what had changed was the non silencing of the gene that is already active at birth.
- buro9 5y agoWell I didn't expect to see Cycle Fit mentioned on HN. They've designed and built several bicycles I've raced competitively on and factor in health issues, individual power output, style of riding, etc. They were one of the first to really push bike fitting to where it is now. It's a very science driven shop. My first experience was when racing as a lowly cat 4 cyclist on a Cannondale off-the-peg bicycle. I experienced lower back pain and was pretty sure my position was wrong but my tweaking wasn't improving things. Phil put me on a Serotta cycle fit machine which looks like this: https://www.cyclefit.co.uk/fitting https://www.cyclefit.co.uk/fitting . It allows every aspect of the position to be adjusted until the best position for you is found... best with regards to whatever you prioritise. For me it was pain-avoidance first, then endurance and hill climbs power/stamina second. Once they found the best position, we dialled-in the Cannondale to as close as the stock frame allowed (changing steam, seat post, saddle, bars)... and I went from DFL (dead effing last) in races to top 10%. I didn't really enjoy racing criteriums so didn't stick with that, but I did love the difference the bike fitting made to my enjoyment of riding and had changed to doing distance social rides instead (100+ mile on a weekend... London > Brighton > London for example). And it made me think, if Cycle Fit can do this to a stock bike, what could they do with a fully bespoke bike? The answer is a lot. I've owned a Serotta, Robin Mather, and a Seven, all made for me after geometry designed by Phil at Cycle Fit. Each bike was for a different purpose, and each one is subtly different. It's amazing, I no longer experience any back pain when cycling, not even for ultracycling and endurance events that last a few days. Riding these bikes feels like being roadrunner in the cartoon, floating through air and legs spinning effortlessly. Everything about them is superlative, but it's the fit that makes it so. The bikes I test rode were good, but not as good as the bikes made for me. I lost the Serotta due to a hit and run incident in London, but the other two remain my prized bikes. As for Phil, he's become an essential tool for a lot of professional cyclists. His obsession with understanding the science behind how the human body performs on a bicycle has led to some major wins for a lot of professional athletes. He's also extremely humble and very approachable. If you're ever in the market for a ridiculously good bicycle made specifically for you... then Phil is your man.
- hprotagonist 5y agoand yet the double diamond safety bicycle is a minor miracle of efficient design.
- atorodius 5y agoLooks like we are trading a crooked back for a crooked neck :)
- jpm_sd 5y agoI rode a recumbent for years. It actually ended up giving me back problems and I switched back to a diamond frame. Also recumbents are bigger, heavier, and way more expensive. Critical to my enjoyment of longer rides on a "normal" bike: - upper and lower body strengthening (lifting moderate weights) - suspending my body weight with my arms and legs, don't rest on the saddle - yoga regularly I'm intrigued by some of the modern cruiser-style ebikes, e.g. RAD. Seems to me that these are pretty darn comfortable. Perhaps this problem is finally solved!? https://www.radpowerbikes.com/ https://www.radpowerbikes.com/
- metadat 5y agoAnd with recumbents being so low to the ground, it's dangerous to mix with cars as cars can struggle to even see you, even with that little reflective flag.
- subpixel 5y ago> I'm intrigued by some of the modern cruiser-style ebikes I can see e-bikes for utility, but for travel etc. once you're on a big fast e-bile why not be on a motorcycle? You can even get an electric one.
- Rebelgecko 5y agoYou can't legally take motorcycles to some of the places you can take an ebike, at least in my jurisdiction. I imagine motorcycles also have more overhead (in terms of both time and money) when it comes to registration, licensing, insurance, maintenance, etc.
- subpixel 5y agoIsn’t that probably as it should be? Hikers shouldn’t be asked to share trails with powered vehicles that can be tweaked to go very, very fast.
- Zak 5y agoE-bikes can also be tweaked to go very fast. In many jurisdictions, they're restricted to performance well below that which a competitive cyclist can achieve on a purely human-powered bike, but enforcement is difficult.
- tetsusaiga 5y agoI get what they're getting at here, but isn't cycling still wildly more efficient than walking/running? Maybe they haven't changed because they are already reasonably optimal.
- Someone 5y agoFTA: It has survived, largely unchanged in dimension, philosophy and architecture, since the time of The Boer War, precisely because it is not that bad. It is actually reasonably good at low to moderate power outputs.
- Grustaf 5y agoWhat makes you say "reasonably good"? It's excellent. Ten kilograms of metal makes you three times faster at a quarter the energy spend, I'd say it's amazing.
- Robotbeat 5y agoBiking is wildly more efficient than running. Heck, if you’re on the large side (250-300pounds), you burn as much energy (~0.25kWh or ~200Calories in terms of human food, which—unless you’re eating almost entirely bulk staples like corn meal—has a really high footprint, especially fruit and meat) to run a mile as it takes to drive a Model 3 for that same mile. Biking is a quarter that. (Walking is a bit more efficient than running, but not much.)
- mrob 5y ago>Why has the bicycle design survived if it is so bad? The standard upright bicycle has one major advantage over more efficient designs: better situational awareness. The rider's head is free to turn without obstruction and high enough to see over cars. I choose to ride an upright for this reason. If I lived in a country with good cycling infrastructure I might have made a different decision.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
- mrfusion 5y agoWould you consider using a periscope?
- mrob 5y agoNo. I need to look at many different angles, so it would have to be attached to my head, which would be hazardous in a crash, and would negate some of the recumbent's comfort advantage. Additionally, the field of view would be smaller than looking directly.
- WelcomeShorty 5y agoBetter situational awareness: The exact reason why I choose a particular kind of motorcycle over the "fast ones" that make you lean forwards. These bikes I ride get very little respect in my circles but I will not trade "better situational awareness" for peer respect. I live in a country with good motorcycling infrastructure, still I prioritise the situational awareness.
- thot_experiment 5y agoImagine thinking that the only thing that matters to riding a bike is the efficiency with which you can extract power from your legs. Normal bikes are way safer because you can actually see around you and you're also much easier to see. That's not even taking into account how much agility you lose on a recumbent, or how easy it is to get off of regular bike while it's in motion and let it do the crashing while you walk away.
- L_Rahman 5y agoThe piece is based on a talk given a conference on cycling optimization. The author is not in any way recommending that day-to-day cyclists change to a different form factor. It seems entirely to be an intellectual exercise asking "what is the theoretically optimal form for transferring human energy to a bicycle".
- lolc 5y agoMax power output indeed is not the most important consideration for most riders. However I do feel the need to point out how recumbents optimize for other things too. On most recumbents, the gaze is naturally forward with no bending the neck. And legs forward with low center of gravity feels like a good position when headed for a crash.
- mrfusion 5y agoI’d love to get away from the chain drive. It might be cool to make a hybrid drive and transfer peddle power to an electric motor.
- rhinoceraptor 5y agoIt just doesn't make sense to replace the chain. They are incredibly efficient, cheap and reliable. Most of the issues with chain drives are due to improper maintenance on sport bikes. Modern bikes have 10 or more gears in their cassette, which means the chain has to be very skinny and shifting needs to be very precise. On the other hand, a dutch style bike with a wide 1/8" chain and an internally geared hub instead of a derailleur is much more reliable and requires very little maintenance. Even an older derailleur bike with friction shifters and fewer gears will be very reliable.
- stevenpetryk 5y agoIn case you didn't know, they make bikes with carbon+rubber belt drives now, rather than chains. It's kind of nice for commuter bikes because there's no grease to get on your pants.
- ncmncm 5y agoMuch of the unpleasantness of biking on a diamond frame can be corrected just by mounting a mirror under the handlebars, slanted so you can look down at it to see ahead. It takes a remarkably short time to get used to. Just sayin'.
- cranky908canuck 5y ago+1 to this. I got a mirror on my e-bike, and it did two things: - way more comfort with 'situational awareness' - more preference for the e-bike ... ... until I got my regular ("analog" vs "digital") bike kitted out with a mirror too.
- egypturnash 5y agoThis article seems to be pointing to, but never quite saying, that the most perfectly-evolved bike is a recumbent. Or maybe even the crazy one at the bottom of the page that puts the rider on a weird frame that has them lying down on their front with their chin a half an inch above a fenderless front wheel. And, yeah, maybe that thing goes faster than my shitty $300 Retrospec, and is much more efficient at converting muscle energy into forwards motion. But there is no way I would want to get on that contraption and ride it around the pothole-strewn streets of New Orleans. Never mind issues like only being eye-to-eye with dogs people are walking down the trails, being completely invisible to people driving cars, stopping at a light being super-awkward, and having absolutely nowhere to put my laptop bag or my groceries. I am quite happy to sacrifice speed and efficiency for all of those. I spend a lot of my riding sitting straight up because it makes my back happier; I don't give a shit if it increases wind resistance and decreases my maximum speed. This is not to say there could potentially be a better design for a two-wheeled device powered by its rider's muscles. But there's a lot more to consider than just "how fast can it go on a racing track". (But apparently Cyclefit is a business focused solely on racing bikes, so for them, I guess that's the only measure.)
- SeanLuke 5y agoYou seem to be mixing up recumbents with low-racer recumbents or trikes. There are are also high-racer recumbents where the rider is as high as on a standard bike. And by potholes, I think you seem to think that recumbents must have small wheels? Finally, recumbents have tons of places to put shopping and laptops. The #1 benefit of recumbents [especially trikes!] isn't speed. It's that they are far more comfortable than uprights.
- egypturnash 5y agoWith regards to potholes and lack of carrying capacity and whatnot, I am specifically throwing shade at this thing featured in this article: https://www.cyclefit.co.uk/uploads/obree1.jpg https://www.cyclefit.co.uk/uploads/obree1.jpg This article ends with a list of bullet points; the final one is "[the guy who made that bike] is a genius".
- Grustaf 5y ago> Fitting cave-dwellers to a Victorian contraption. Is this the best we can do? Yes it is. Like crocodiles or sharks, the reason they haven't changed much is because they are basically perfect. Deal with it.
- atorodius 5y agoCan you give some pointers on why crocodiles/sharks are near perfect? Sounds intriguing but I have never heard of it :)
- Grustaf 5y agoAs I understand it, crocodiles and sharks have looked basically the same for tens of millions of years, unlike humans that were basically pre-chimpanzees 6 million years ago, even 1 million years age we were quite different from today. https://theconversation.com/crocodiles-today-look-the-same-as-they-did-200-million-years-ago-our-study-explains-why-152635 https://theconversation.com/crocodiles-today-look-the-same-a...
- kaba0 5y agoWell, it’s not that hard to believe that crocodiles are at a local-maxima of the niche (but effective) category of sneak attack from under the water. But evolution can’t really create absolute-maximums, e.g. going all the way to pig-like mammals (so descending from a different point) you get orcas that absolutely murder sharks in both meanings (where smartness is a huge huge advantage)
- Grustaf 5y agoWhat does global maximum even mean? The best animal of all? Evolution did at least create the most powerful animal, us.
- light_hue_1 5y agoYou could say this about anything. Humans didn't evolve to drive cars and look cars are the same now as they were in 1895! They still have wheels, seats, engines, and a control device. It's silly to say that a modern car is the same as an 1895 car (that's 10 years before the Model T even). Bicycles have changed just as much as cars. Disk breaks, lights, carbon and aluminium frames, clipless and magnetic pedals, handlebars are totally different as shifters and breaks, saddles are far more comfortable (made not just out of different materials, modern saddles are fundamentally different from old-style saddles), wheels are much lighter, tires are much more durable, we have far better shifters and even have electronic shifting. And much more. We wear helmets now! All of that is before get into how different lights are, things like GPS and tracking, or even radar to alert you about cars! Obree's achievements are very cool. But saying that we should be more like him is crazy! He was mechanically efficient on those bikes, but he was not comfortable. You wouldn't want to ride his bikes for fun. Even his latest bike where he is laying prone. Hard pass. That can't feel good on your neck! It looks super dangerous in cities with potholes (you will end up face planting). You have a very low profile and are much more likely to get hit by cars. And you will see far less around you because you're so low. This is not some UCI conspiracy to prevent progress. The reason why the basic layout of the modern bike is the same (just like the basic layout of a car is the same) is because it's great at what it does. It's not some dumb compromise. 99% of cyclists don't care about power output to the exclusion of comfort and safety!
- SeanLuke 5y ago> This is not some UCI conspiracy to prevent progress. Actually, it is a UCI conspiracy to prevent progress, full stop. The UCI didn't just ban recumbents, thus dooming them to the nerd crowd. They also banned small-wheel bikes. You might be aware that the primary speed records not held by recumbents are held by Moultons, which have a wheel diameter about half that of the standard wheels, plus a tight suspension. Why don't people ride small wheels? Because racers don't, making it hard to market them. And racers don't because UCI banned them expressly to keep Moultons out of races. The UCI tried (and failed due to safety uproar) to ban disc brakes. It banned the superman position. It banned fairings. It has a long history of banning solid, well considered and superior designs and technologies, and as a result effectively eliminating them from the mainstream market. I hate conspiracy theories: but this one is entirely with merit.
- hyperpallium2 5y agotangent/ It only clicked for me how dangerous penny-farthings really were when I absorbed that the modern bicycle design was marketed and known as the safety bicycle.
- lolc 5y agoAs the owner of three different recumbents, I don't care about max power output. I care about the relaxed pose. And the low drag in that pose.
- ajb 5y agoVery thought provoking - maybe someone reading it today will design a better layout! Something really odd going on with the layout on mobile, I got the impression I was reading the article in the wrong order, or that a bunch of the paragraphs were really supposed to be footnotes to the illustrations.
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoWhat we need are not better bikes, but better bike lanes. I mean what I want from my bike is cycle paths, car free paved areas that travel from my house to my kids school and local amenities so my kids have some degree of freedom with a constant fear of death. I honestly don't care how fast a bike can go - the limits to the speed are basically risk aversion by the rider. Years ago I upgraded my commuter cycle from a fat tyred mountain bike to a decent road bike and the very next day I added 5mph to my time on a flat stretch in North London. My total commute time barely budged because although I convert power to speed, I was unwilling to weave through traffic to take advantage of it. Hence, what we need are not better bikes, but better bike lanes.
- kaba0 5y ago> with a constant fear of death. It will be a reddit-level comment but I chuckled at this typo
- grayrest 5y agoI think it's interesting that the online recumbent community as I've encountered it is in general agreement that most styles of recumbent climb worse than a diamond frame. I say most styles because recumbent bicycle design covers a much wider range of options than upright bicycles. The consensus is that a good climbing recumbent loses 5-10% power on the climbs but is generally faster over a course due to aerodynamic advantage (lower frontal area, better CdA due to the body not being shaped like a parachute). You can, of course, have a recumbent that doesn't climb well. I have one (my casual recumbent) where my hip angle is really bad at producing power for some reason so I get like 2/3 the climbing speed at full perceived power but my other (my fast recumbent) doesn't have an issue. I like recumbents in general from a tech perspective because there's no obvious correct way to design them. The most efficient chain line for a rear wheel drive bike runs through the rider's body for lowracer through highracer designs which usually means idlers. Long wheelbase (LWB) design moves the cranks down to below the rider's seat which works for some people and not for others. Driving the front wheel works but creates traction problems going uphill and requires deciding whether the bottom bracket moves as part of the steering (Moving Bottom Bracket, MBB) or the chain twists (not consistently named, I've seen 3-4 designs). There's also weird designs like the python where the pivot is in the frame itself below the rider. It's a fun thing to explore and think about.
- jpm_sd 5y agoI always wanted to design a shaft drive SWB recumbent, with the shaft through the main tube. Seems like a natural fit. But complicated!
- m0llusk 5y agoHaving been using bicycles since the early 1970s I would say they have evolved a huge amount. Modern bicycles have more variety of forms now and are much lighter and with more easy to shift gear systems.
- tedunangst 5y ago> Hence the most powerful thing we can do is a 2-legged take-off into a vertical jump, where we can produce 32 watts/KG. Would this mean the best bicycle is actually more like a rowing machine on wheels?
- egypturnash 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowing_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowing_cycle
- MarkusWandel 5y agoHowever, bicycles evolved to be ridden by humans. Even on a personal level. My old steel road bike, modified extensively, now has a very short handlebar stem and compact handlebar. This happens to bring the modern brake/shift levers into a position where I can keep my hands on "the hoods" for many hours without having to switch hand positions to elsewhere on the handelbar for relief. Looks a bit weird, but works for me. There's a reason the classic diamond frame bike has survived for 130+ years. People constantly invent better bikes but none of them ever seem to go anywhere, except of course recumbents and folding bikes, which really are better for a tiny fraction of cyclists. I'll bet they, too, have reached a pinnacle of evolution.
- iJohnDoe 5y agoAs someone that did long endurance bike races for many years, I would have to agree with the title alone. It never felt natural to be peddling a contraption for any length of time. I think if you got down to it, it’s really competitors striving to be as fast as possible on something that was invented, but not necessarily something that was invented to be the best or most efficient. At the lowest level, it’s really someone getting on a thing and seeing how much they can make the best of it. Getting on a bike and pedaling a few blocks and getting there faster than walking, absolutely. Bikes have a lot of rolling resistance, so human effort hits a calorie intake threshold where now a fuel source need to be considered with longer distances vs. time.
- leecarraher 5y agoultra low profile sedans and rotary engines are the most evolved cars, so why do we have trucks? or more on point, road bikes are more efficient than mountain bikes. The monolithic view that a bike is about putting energy in and getting forward motion on a flat road out, misses the multirole requirement of a bike. Just as saying humans are unevolved because we aren't the fastest animals in the animal kingdom. Bikes, like humans have many challenges other than just getting from point a to point b. sometimes we have to stop for short periods following traffic patterns. I suspect rolling onto the pavement each time will get old fast. More on that surface, bumps and jars from imperfect road conditions being solely absorbed by my laying down bits seems pretty awful. Being able to see those upcoming obstacles and potentially avoiding the more significant ones, is likely important.