6 A Boy and a Bicycle

This was published recently in the NYT Op-Ed section written by none other than Nicholas Kristof. He's a 2 time Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist, whose columns I like to read from time to time because of his tremendously insightful accounts of poverty, social and human rights issues in some of the poorest places in Africa.

This latest column is about the efforts of World Bicycle Relief in fulfilling the needs for a practical mode of transportation for poor kids in Zimbabwe, many of whom have to walk several miles to get to school. Some of the background operations of the organization has been broken down for us and some light is shed on the nature of challenges they face in successfully running a bicycle equip program in these poor villages. Come discuss the article after you have read it. Have you been involved in any such programs here or abroad?

"Early this year I wrote a column from Zimbabwe that focused on five orphans who moved in together and survive alone in a hut.

The eldest, Abel, a scrawny and malnourished 17-year-old, would rise at 4 o’clock each morning and set off barefoot on a three-hour hike to high school. At nightfall, Abel would return to function as surrogate father: cajoling the younger orphans to finish their homework by firelight, comforting them when sick and spanking them when naughty.

When I asked Abel what he dreamed of, he said “a bicycle” — so that he could cut the six hours he spent walking to and from school and, thus, take better care of the younger orphans. Last week, Abel got his wish. A Chicago-based aid organization, World Bicycle Relief, distributed 200 bicycles to students in Abel’s area who need them to get to school. One went to Abel.

The initiative is a pilot. If it succeeds and finds financing, tens of thousands of other children in Zimbabwe could also get bicycles to help them attend school.

“I’m happy,” Abel told me shyly — his voice beaming through the phone line — when I spoke to him after he got his hands on his bicycle.

Before, he said, he wasn’t sure that he would pass high school graduation exams because he had no time to study. Now he is confident that he will pass.

The bicycle project is the brainchild of a Chicago businessman, Frederick K.W. Day, who read about Abel and decided to make him and his classmates a test of a large-scale bicycles-for-education program in Zimbabwe.

Mr. Day is a senior executive of the SRAM Corporation, the largest bicycle parts company in the United States. He formed World Bicycle Relief in 2005 in the belief that bicycles could help provide cheap transportation for students and health workers in poor countries.

At first, his plan was to ship used bicycles from the United States, but after visits to the field he decided that they would break down. “When we got out there, it was clear that no bike made in the U.S. would survive in that environment,” he said.

After consulting with local people and looking at the spare parts available in remote areas, Mr. Day’s engineering staff designed a 55-pound one-speed bicycle that needed little pampering. One notorious problem with aid groups is that they introduce new technologies that can’t always be sustained; the developing world is full of expensive wells that don’t work because the pumps have broken and there is no one to repair them.

So World Bicycle Relief trains one mechanic — equipped with basic spare parts and tools — for every 50 bicycles distributed, thus nurturing small businesses as well. Abel was one of those trained as a mechanic this time.

In the world of aid, nothing goes quite as planned, and it’s far too early to know whether this program will succeed. World Bicycle Relief tried to get around potential problems by spending months recruiting village elders to oversee the program (it helps that the elders receive bicycles, which they get to keep after two years if they provide solid oversight). Elders will ensure that fathers and older brothers do not confiscate bicycles from girls on the grounds that females are too insignificant to merit something so valuable.

Parents sometimes try to save daughters the risk of walking several hours each way to school by lodging them in town. But the result is sometimes sexual extortion; if a girl wishes to continue her education by staying in cheap lodgings, the price is repeated rape. With bicycles, those girls will now be able to stay at home.

World Bicycle Relief has given out more than 70,000 bicycles so far, nearly 70 percent to women and girls. It expects to hand out 20,000 bicycles this year. And if all goes well, Abel may be the first of tens of thousands of Zimbabwean students to get a bike.

So, for Abel, this is something of a fairy-tale ending. But one of my challenges as a journalist is that many donors want to help any specific individual I write about, while few want to support countless others in the same position.

One obstacle is donor fatigue and weariness with African corruption and repeated aid failures. Those are legitimate concerns. But this column isn’t just a story about a boy and a bike. Rather, it’s an example of an aid intervention that puts a system in place, one that is sustainable and has local buy-in, in hopes of promoting education, jobs and a virtuous cycle out of poverty. It’s a reminder that there are ways to help people help themselves, and that problems can have solutions — but we need to multiply them. Just ask Abel."

6 Electric Bike Issue One

I discovered through velovision.co.uk that the first issue of the "Electric Bike" magazine is out and ready for viewing online. The publication goes a bit indepth into e-bikes for starters, what they comprise of, the models available in the market and supplier locations. Enjoy the read.

Open publication - Free publishing - More pedelec

42 Modern Bicycles and Cycling Speeds : Any Measurable Relation?

Its not about the bike. Or is it?

Without a shadow of doubt, most of us will say that today's Grand Tours are faster than those of the past. True. For instance, since its inception in 1903 to the 1990's, the Tour de France had seen its winner's average speed increase some 50-55%  as this site will show.

But here's the big question - how much of that speed increase came from bicycle improvements alone? If you don't factor in the contributions from all other things- temperature, course, race tactics, improved training methods, nutrition and doping - what role does bicycle technology alone have to play in higher speeds? Is it significant to be appreciated?

This most entertaining problem is one that maybe analyzed with a technique called multiple regression. This method, a staple in any statistician's arsenal of tools, allows one to estimate the effects of many factors on a single dependent variable, in our case - cycling performance.

For starters, there are a number of independent variables that factor into a favorable cycling performance. I have shown these factors diagrammatically below.

In my opinion, these independent or explanatory variables can be broadly termed into 4 categories :

1. Human Performance Related - Physiology, training, nutrition, medicine and doping
2. Technology Related - Bicycles, fancy apparel etc. We'll disregard other things and consider just bicycles.
3. Race Specific - Course, weather, tactics employed, rules, etc.
4. Random Events (Noise) - Example - a freak crash 2 km from the finish line that injured many riders, a neutralized stage due to the death of an athlete, any day to day variation that cannot be predicted but is present. 

In 100 years of cycling history, innovations have come and gone. Some have stuck through to Grand Tour racing, the list of which is mandated by the final word of the UCI.

To consider the effect of just bicycle technology alone on cycling speeds, a multiple regression analysis has to be performed. You would require lots of data for many years and a handy computer to make some meaning out of it. Unless someone gives me serious money, I won't be diving into such an endeavor.

But recently, Ph.D's Jan Heine and Mark Vande Kamp who write for the magazine Bicycle Quarterly sought to answer this question in their article titled "Are Modern Bicycles Faster? An Analysis of Tour de France Speed". To me, the article appeared to be a logical investigation of why speeds increased in the Tour and whether they could be explained by the latest racing bikes. 


The article had ignited controversy in cycling circles about its apparently "flawed" analysis. I think it will be to everyone's benefit if the strategy of the article's investigations are clarified first and foremost. We'll then explore its conclusions.

Here's the strategy behind the article's investigation :

1. Fundamental assumption : The fundamental assumption that the authors imply, but which is not stated explicitly in the article, is that all modern bicycles and related technology are introduced into the market to strictly increase cycling speeds. With this assumption, they proceed to quantify how much that speed increase is.

2. Eliminate day to day performance variations : They selected the Tour de France as the main race of interest with this notion that multiple stages and over 150 riders will eliminate the influence of day-to-day variations in fitness, weather and other factors on individual performance.

3. Eliminate course specific variations : With the view that courses change "somewhat" in the Tour de France, they selected the Milan-San Remo as a supplement in the analysis as the race has been run on the same course for over a 100 years without change. The race's difficulty has also been consistent since smooth speed curves have been displayed for over a century.

4. Separate human performance improvements from bicycling technology improvements :  This one is tricky so pay attention. The authors wanted another race as a control to compare cycling with. They thought of a race from another branch of endurance sports that had little to do with technology or inconsistent conditions and where performance was mostly limited by the "human factor".

They selected medium distance running, specifically the 5 and 10 km running race from all events worldwide and studied trends in running speeds. The logic? If bicycles have truly become faster, the trend line for cycling speeds in the Tour would deviate from that of human speeds in running by showing step increases. If bicycles have not become faster, the trend lines should closely match each other due to the "human factor" common to both endurance sports.

5. Regression Analysis : Using the data of speeds, a regression analysis was performed on the Tour de France and running speeds for the last 100 years. The "athletic performance" regression lines would show the long term speed trends for both races. This was made into a "Chart 1". "Chart 2" was also made where the authors smoothed TdF and 10 Km running speeds for many years by taking a 5-year running average. These curves were compared to each other and to the long term "athletic performance" regression line in Chart 1.


Summary Of Results :

1.  Co-relation between actual TdF speeds and speeds predicted by the runner's trend line was 0.94. Strong.

2.  Co-relation between actual running speeds and the long term running speed trend line was 0.95. Also strong.

3.  88% of increases in TdF speeds over the last 100 years can be explained by improved athletic performance.

4.  For both running and cycling, there appears to be an unexplained 9-12% that are simply random occurrences seen when athletes compete.

5.  The regression curve (or line fit) for TdF speeds have a shallower slope than that of running indicating that cycling speeds increased at a slower rate. The authors propose that this is due to wind resistance factor in cycling as power demand increases by the cube of velocity. But the non-linearity of aerodynamic resistance is not much, it is instead minimized in the Tour de France and spread over a large group of riders.

6.  Over the last 20 years, TdF speed increase trends parallel that of runners' speeds. Technology has had minor roles to play in these achievements according to the logic in the analyses (no step increases were observed).

7.  There were steeper speed increases in the TdF in between 1926-1940 than running speeds during that time. The early 1920's saw periods of low performance and the authors propose that World War I had depleted the pool of cycling champions taking part.

The late 1920's, however, showed a marked speed increase was not observed in the Milan San Remo which got the authors to conclude that something particular to the TdF caused these increases. They propose the radical shortening of stage distances as a possible reason.

There were pronounced speed increases in the 1930's that corresponded well with the significant, revolutionary and long term changes introduced on racing bikes such as lightweight steel frames with thinwall tubing. The authors state that of all advances, lightweight steel frames had the most pronounced effect on Tour speeds. These speed increases were also observed in the Milan San Remo in the 30's as well, indicating that this was a sport-wide phenomena.

8.  Since 1947, speed increases in cycling, relative to runner's speeds, came during times when cycling technology did not even change. The late 1950's saw a jump in cycling speeds but nothing significant was invented or innovated in bicycles during that time, since the introduction of Compagnolo's rear derailleur in 1951. Since speed increase came at a time when technology was stagnant, the logical conclusion is that speed increase cannot be explained by technology. The authors state that other reasons, like the paving of roads, may have been primarily responsible.

9.  In the early 1980's, TdF speeds increased between 1981-1982 without a rational reason and then dipped down without an explainable reason as well. Between 1985-1990, time trial bikes, such as those used by Greg Lemond in his 1989 Time Trial did increase stage speeds but the time trial stages were too short to influence overall speed of the entire Tour. Moreover, the bikes used in mass-start races "evolved little" during this period, wrote the authors.

10.  From 1999-2009, lots of things in bicycles evolved - from index shifting, to rear cassettes, increased gearing, aerodynamic wheels and ceramic bearings. Sure, the speeds of the Tour de France saw an almost linear increase as well. But what the authors found was that the long term trend of running speeds tracked this increase in cycling speeds very closely indicating that almost all these improvements can be tracked to physiological factors common to both running and cycling.

Since 2005, speeds started to drop below the predicted trends, possibly indicating that strict doping controls are responsible for the lower speeds. Speeds decreased 3.5% from their peak, while running speeds decreased only 1.8%. This shows that something not common to both sports have influenced the speeds in cycling.

By now, you must be tired with all this information overload. So let's take the justifications provided by the authors for speed fluctuations and plot it on a chart for the last 100 years. I did it below for you :

Conclusions :

The authors wrote that there is no evidence that advances in cycling technology since WWII led to faster racing speeds. There is no systematic co-relation between the two.  Some speed increases came during times when athletic performance as a whole were increasing. Others came at times when bicycle technology and innovation were stagnant.  The only period where bicycling technology led to a pronounced speed increase was during the 1930's with the introduction of lightweight steel frames. Bottom-line of this whole affair is as follows, quoted from the article :

"It is tempting to look over the Tour de France speed curve and pick [technology] factors that appear to have caused increases or decreases in speeds. [...] However, when taken in the context of all the data, these specific examples don't add up to a compelling case that bicycle technology increased Tour de France speeds. Neither of them stand up to close scrutiny.  [...] Across the whole timeframe of the last 100 years, even radical changes like the introduction of the derailleurs did not alter the trend of Tour de France speeds. Clearly, the larger pattern suggests that bicycle technology has had little, if any, effect on racing speeds, especially in recent decades."

Critique & Suggestions :

1. Choice of control : Why was medium distance running chosen as a control and not ...say, the marathon? I don't know. The authors don't provide an explanation for this deliberation, although they suggest that the medium distance races do not see much "influence of technology". So does the marathon see influence of technology then? I don't know. You would think not. Long distance running, to me, is the purest form of endurance sports. It would be interesting to see if marathon running speeds closely followed all the trends of cycling speeds for the past 100 years.

2. Choice of race : One will agree that are simply too many variables in the Tour de France to make a valid relation between one aspect, such as cycling technology, and another aspect, cycling speeds. Why not extend the research to a solo performance such as the hour record where variability is reduced even further? Or a time trial? Or a sprint? In a past post, I revealed details of a study that found that between 1980 and 1990 before UCI regulations came about, 60% of cycling hour records in the discipline were solely due to engineering. The authors may want to catch up with that.

3. What to investigate : The authors start off the article by asking the question - how much faster are the lastest racing bikes compared to classic machines? But it seems that throughout the article, they tend to look at small innovations across years such as the rear derailleur, or increased gearing, or thin walled tubing to see if they made an effect on the "overall" speeds of each year's Tour. How could does a tiny component translate to anything appreciable in the overall speeds across successive years? Rear derailleurs or improved front brakes alone don't make any appreciable change to Tour de France speeds across successive years.

4. Details of each stage : The exact details of each stage were not investigated by the authors. It would be interesting to see how many flat stages and how many mountain stages each Tour so far consisted of and how gravity would play a role in changing outcomes. Data may be tricky to find. Now keep in mind that we do have data for the speeds, distances, number of entrants and number of finishers in each of the Tours. Perhaps blending all this information into one graph for different eras of cycling may lend some insight.

For illustration, lets take the Hinault Era (1978-1985). I plotted speed (kph), % of entrants who finished the race, and number of stages with respect to the years and the distances involved. Check this out :

You may be able to come to some kind of understanding about what was going on in those 7 years. For instance, during 1980-1982, speeds increased drastically. It is also interesting to see that between 1980-1981, the number of participants who finished the race had also risen and the distance in Km of the race had fallen, although the number of stages were increased from 22 to 24. It would be interesting to superimpose the percentage of km in uphill roads and downhill roads on this graph for those years. It would also be interesting to see how the "Badger's" temperamental tactics and pace control influenced the speeds in those years.

5. Successive yearly investigations vs leaping : Based on the initial question posed, it would be more meaningful to take a vintage racing bike and a modern racing bike and compare the two.  Hypothetically, a 1903 racer traveling across a period of 100 years into the future to ride the Tour de France on a 2010 race bike with a lighter frame and aerodynamic wheels should be faster. Similarly, a group of 1903 racers climbing a 2 hour long Alpine climb on 40 pound steel bikes would be slower than the same group of racers riding on flyweight machines of similar sizes in similar terrain. It is basic physics.

Investigating this issue year by year, where all riders would have access to the same bikes and the same technology won't show you clearly how cycling technology is improving overall Tour speeds, if they do at all. Besides, some modern equipment and technical wear don't always serve to increase speed solely. Some of them have intangible benefits as comfort and so on. That is an advantage when you stay seated in the saddle for 90 hours of racing.


Overall, I don't think this is as bad of a study as many people think. Besides, it was published in a popular magazine to open up a forum for discussion. It is not a rigorous scientific white paper.

I do agree with one thing that studies like this discover time and time again - that majority of racing performance is related to the human body.

Racing is never a level playing field, no matter what race it is or how much you want to complain - be it the Berlin Marathon, or the Tour de France, the 24 Hours of Le Mans or the Baja 1000. There's always those few individuals genetically gifted or blessed with the finances and talent needed to win.

Then there are those who cheat to win. They may have the talent, but they want to boost it with some extra energy from extraneous sources, illegal by all rules.

Kamp's and Heine's study corresponds with several people's observations that cycling speeds have been coming down since 2005 due to doping regulations. In July during Tour time, I had done my own analysis of this Stage 17 power to weight ratios and my approximate figure of 6 W/kg agreed with other people's observations, among them the Science of Sport bloggers (see their article).

In the end, we may never know exactly what portion of those early TdF speed increases were "fabricated" through cheating. How much came from Amphetamine use, or alcohol, or narcotics, steroids, growth hormones, EPO and blood transfusions or using mechanical devices? Food for thought?

What do you think? Come discuss this article and its implications!

*  *  *

3 Credit To The Bicycle

The following article was written for the July edition of ASME Magazine by Frank Wicks, a mechanical engineering professor at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. He is a cyclist and an ASME Fellow. Enjoy over a cup of tea or coffee.

 Credit To The Bicycle

This descendant of the hobby horse put the world in the driver's seat.

Since it can’t go as fast as a car or carry as much freight as a truck, a bicycle often doesn’t get the credit it deserves.

After all, it is a highly efficient vehicle. A cyclist can travel 12 miles per hour with an effort comparable to walking. The body converts the energy of food into muscle power. You can ride about 1,000 miles at 15 miles per hour using the amount of energy comparable to a gallon of gasoline.

Today an estimated billion bicycles are used throughout the world for travel, recreation, and exercise.

Perhaps more important, though, are the world-changing engineering achievements that the bicycle made possible. Design improvements during the first 90 years of the bicycle’s history provided much of the initial technology that was extended to modern motorized forms of transportation.

It was no accident, for instance, that Henry Ford called his first internal combustion powered vehicle a quadricycle. To keep its weight down, it ran on bicycle wheels. In a very real sense, the bicycle was the ancestor of the Model T, and we all know where that led.

The Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss used bicycle shops as bases for pursuing their pioneering work in human flight. William Harley built bicycles before teaming up with Arthur Davidson to make motorcycles. Paul MacCready and others have used bicycle-type drive systems to achieve human-powered flight.

The first steerable two-wheel vehicle was an attempt to create a mode of transportation during a period of worldwide disaster. The invention is usually attributed to German inventor Karl Drais, who introduced it in 1817.

The incentive has been traced to a massive volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. The solar reflectivity of the ash in the atmosphere caused drastic global cooling. The year 1816 has been called “The Year Without a Summer.” Crops failed. Starving horses were slaughtered for food. A new form of transportation was needed.

The Drais machine, made mostly of wood, was called a hobby horse, dandy horse, or draisine. Propulsion was by walking or running while the rider sat on the frame, not far different from the Flintstones’ family car. As people used the hobby horse, though, they discovered that it could remain upright while moving forward even with both of the rider’s feet off the ground.

This was a surprising and important discovery that demonstrated the potential of alternative propulsion with the feet not touching the ground, an innovation implemented in 1840 by Kirkpatrick Macmillan in Scotland. He developed a back-wheel drive using connecting rods and treadle pedals.

The popular conception of the antique bicycle, propelled with pedals on a large front wheel, was introduced around 1865. Variously called a high wheel or velocipede, it was also dubbed a bone shaker. The English version was called a penny-farthing because the size ratio of the two wheels was reminiscent of the two coins. Falling forward, a common accident, was called “taking a header.”

Wheel design was one of the key enabling technologies for bicycles. Spoke wheels go back to antiquity, and for most of history, they were made of wood and operated in compression, with the bottom spokes taking the load. Eugene Meyer of France invented the adjustable tension wire spoke in 1866. The load is taken by the upper spokes while all of the spokes work to retain the circular shape of the rim.

It can be noted that wooden spokes in compression support the load like an arch bridge, while wire tension spokes support the bicycle and rider like a suspension bridge. Wire spokes significantly reduced the weight of the wheel.

In 1877 an American Civil War veteran known as Colonel Albert Pope started making high wheelers under the brand name Columbia in a sewing machine factory. The bicycles cost $125 while sewing machines sold for $13, so the change promised greater profit on each sale.

But the bicycle in the 1870s was not for everyone. Cycling continued to be an activity for the rare individuals who had skill and patience. It was a challenge to mount and dismount as well as to ride and stop.

It was not until 1885 that John Starley in England introduced the “safety bicycle,” which virtually anyone could learn to ride with relative ease and safety. It allowed the rider to start and stop with both feet on the ground. It used two wheels of the same size. The back wheel was powered by chain and sprocket. The big sprocket on the pedal crank and smaller sprocket on the back allowed the wheel to turn faster than the rider pedaled. It also allowed the cyclist to pedal at the rate at which he could produce the most power.

The safety bicycle was the result of several new enabling technologies. These included better materials and fabrication methods, low-friction ball bearings, chains with bushings that rolled easier over the sprocket teeth, pneumatic tires for better traction and comfort, and hollow tubing made of stronger steel.

The safety bicycle was disruptive technology. It created a new idea in transportation-the personal vehicle. It did not require the cost and complications of maintaining and harnessing a horse. A rider could travel from place to place without conforming to the schedule of public transportation.

It was a dramatic new form of freedom. Susan B. Anthony proclaimed that bicycling had done more to emancipate women than anything else.

The bicycle became a symbol of the closing decade of the 19th century, called the Gay ’90s. It was the first Golden Age of the Bicycle. The Wheelmen, an organization dedicated to keeping the heritage of early cycling alive, has identified more than 3,000 brands of bicycles that were made between 1890 and 1918. Even so, ownership continued to be limited to the relatively affluent.

But more important than the bicycle’s effect on the close of the 19th century was its influence on the 20th. The techniques and technology refined for the bicycle enabled the developments that reshaped the world.


More Bike Than Bird

The brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright in Dayton, Ohio, had built a printing press in 1889, and had started a newspaper, but it was losing money. In 1892 Orville paid $160 for a new Columbia safety bicycle and Wilbur bought a used one for $80. They soon opened a business to sell bicycles and parts, and to perform repairs.

In 1896 they introduced their own bicycles, hand-made for each customer. Options included the type of handlebars, metal or wooden rims, and single or double tube tires. They invented a self lubricating hub that protected the bearings on dirt roads.

This was also the year the German glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal died when his bird-like flying machine stalled in flight. This tragedy inspired the Wrights to pursue their own aviation experiments. They would become the first to achieve controllable and powered flight just seven years later.

An observer noted that the Wright Flyer looked more like a bicycle than like a bird. The remark was appropriate because the bicycle was a vital link to the first successful airplane in several ways.

Experimenting with flying machines required time and money. The Wrights’ bicycle business made a good profit of $3,000 in 1897. The business was also seasonal, which gave them free time in the fall and winter. They used a bicycle to compare and measure the lift and drag forces of different wing shapes, and from this information they also designed remarkably efficient propellers.

Piloting required developing a new set of skills. The Wrights studied the similarities between steering a bicycle and controlling a flying machine. Each requires the ability to bank for coordinated turns. Controlling the bank angle on a bicycle requires a steerable front wheel. After encountering stability problems with their first gliders, the brothers achieved controllable flight by introducing a vertical rudder.

The Wrights had also hired an excellent craftsman and machinist named Charlie Taylor to help in their bicycle shop, who was crucial for their success in powered flight. Taylor was able to follow rough drawings and build the brothers a four-cylinder gasoline-fueled engine with an aluminum crankcase.

The Wrights use of bicycle type chains and sprockets was also vital. It allowed for two propellers to be driven by a single engine with the best ratio between engine and propeller speed. This ability to match the best engine and propeller speeds enabled a 700-pound flying machine to get off the ground with only 14 hp.

Glenn Curtiss also started with bicycles before becoming a fierce rival of the Wrights in aviation. Curtiss was 15 years old and working for Eastman Kodak in 1893 when he bought a bicycle for $125. He raced through the streets of Rochester and the rolling hills of his birth village of Hammondsport 70 miles to the south. He competed on race tracks in New York and other cities.

Curtiss next expanded from bicycles to engines and motorcycles. He installed a V-8 engine on a motorcycle in 1907 and traveled at 136 mph on a one-mile course. He became known as the Fastest Man on Earth. The relatively light and powerful Curtiss motorcycle engines provided his entry to aviation. Calling on the experience he had gained from bicycles, engines, and motorcycles, he soon showed a talent for designing flying machines.

Curtiss used his cycle shops to build a skid-mounted aircraft that he flew off a frozen lake in the winter of 1908. He used bicycle wheels on his next machine, which he flew for a Fourth of July celebration in Hammonds-port. He was awarded a Scientific American prize for the first observed flight of one kilometer. It is noted that the Wrights had already flown much longer distances, but their flights were not recognized for lack of witnesses.

The next year Curtiss traveled to France and set an air speed record of 47 mph around a triangular course. He later explained how his bicycle experience translated into air racing. He retained full power through the turns by climbing to slow while entering a turn and then diving to recover speed while entering the straightaway. This is an energy conservation technique. Kinetic energy is converted to potential and then back to kinetic. It is a technique that Curtiss had mastered while racing bicycles on banked tracks.

By 1910 the excitement and new freedom of the bicycle was being replaced by the automobile. It was led by the mass-produced and affordable Model T introduced by Henry Ford. Motorcycles and airplanes provided excitement for the more venturesome. The high energy density of gasoline combined with the light and powerful spark-ignition internal combustion engine was quite literally driving a transformation of entire societies and economies.

The introduction of electric power for factories, standardization, and mass production decreased the price of a bicycle. In the United States a bicycle became mostly a child’s toy that would be abandoned once one was old enough to drive a car. Adults in Europe continued to rely upon bicycles for transportation and recreation. Bicycle use was promoted in China, which now leads the world in the number of cyclists.

With a few exceptions, such as wider tires and an optional three-speed gear in the hub, there were few changes in the appearance of bicycles for half a century. The revival of the bicycle in the United States started in the early 1970s. Cultural changes, physical fitness programs, the oil embargo, recognition that fossil fuels are limited, the advent of Earth Day, new environmental agencies, and bicycle paths and lanes all came together to revive the bicycle as a vehicle for adults.

The racing bicycle with 10 speeds achieved by multiple sprockets and a derailleur for shifting came to market around 1970. A decade later the mountain bicycle with front and back spring suspensions was introduced. Improved machining and shifting precision has allowed options for 15, 18, 21, or 24 speed ratios.


Beyond Bells and Whistles

New bicycle features are often old ideas that become realities because of better materials, new capabilities, and increasing numbers of passionate cyclists. Options in production or under development include electric solenoid-assisted shifting that is controlled by the rider, automatic shifting that is controlled by computer, and various types of continually variable transmissions. Another feature is a computer-controlled suspension that is adjusted according to the conditions of the road or terrain.

It is generally expected that the fossil fuels that have powered our vehicles for the 20th century will be mostly depleted over the 21st. The alternatives such as biomass and hydrogen will be much more expensive and limited. Electric vehicles have the potential to be powered by hydro, wind, or solar energy. However, demand will probably exceed the capability to sustain increasing fleets of large, high-speed vehicles.

Thus, the best hope of sustaining personal transportation for future generations may be with electric vehicles that are much lighter and slower. While they are still rare in the United States, there are now an estimated 120 million electric bicycles in China, and the numbers of these vehicles is rapidly increasing in India and European countries.

The most common hybrid vehicle of the future may not be the now familiar four-wheel automobile combining an internal combustion engine and electric motor, but the electric bicycle that can be powered either by a rider’s muscles or energy stored in a battery. A development like that would be almost full circle. The only difference between that future and the first safety bicycle would be that electric power was harnessed along the way.


Balancing Act
 
While modern cyclists know by experience that a moving bicycle will stay upright, the explanations remain complicated and controversial. Mechanical engineering professor David Gordon Wilson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides some insights in his classic book Bicycling Science. According to Wilson, the rider keeps upright by continually making small steering corrections with the front wheel.

Design parameters like the fork angle and the trail, which is the distance between the point where the fork axis is pointed at the road and the point of tire contact with the road, contribute to stability.

Experimenters have been mostly unsuccessful in attempts to build a bicycle that cannot be ridden. Most riders, however, are incapable of balancing a bicycle rolling backwards.


Well-Matched for Competition
 
A rider and a bicycle are a remarkably well matched system that has inspired many forms of competition requiring endurance, speed, and athletic skill.

The most famous endurance event is probably the Tour de France. It is now a 21-day and 2,200-mile event that encircles France and includes stages in neighboring countries. It was conceived in 1903 to sell newspapers.

Cyclists are professionals who compete in teams backed by sponsors that have included banks, telephone companies, the French national lottery, and the United States Postal Service. The event has been dominated by European riders with the exception of Americans Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong.

BMX, which stands for Bicycle Motor Cross, can be traced to California youths, who invented it as an exciting pastime in the late 1960s. It too has made the big time.

Youngsters started to use bicycles to imitate the popular MotoCross motorcycle competitions that were performed off the road and across open country. The terrain required sharp turns, jumps, and other maneuvers to avoid obstacles, and the young bicycle riders copied those moves. A specialized BMX bicycle was eventually developed for the challenges. The popularity of BMX cycling became international, and the sport was introduced as a competition in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Obtaining the maximum speed is another challenge. While a bicycle has a very low rolling resistance the irregular shape results in a relatively large aerodynamic drag force that increases with the square of the speed. The best rider can produce about 1,000 watts or 1.34 hp for a short time, which yields a speed of about 40 mph. Achieving 80 mph would require either about eight times more human power, or alternatively a significant reduction in aerodynamic drag.

The reduced drag solution was demonstrated by Canadian bicycle racer and designer Sam Whittingham. In 2009 he achieved a speed of 82 mph over 200 meters with a running start while enclosed in a bullet shaped module racer and recumbent position to further decrease frontal area.

Streamlining and drag reduction are concepts pursued by student teams in an annual ASME competition, the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge.


To Read More

The year 1903 saw the Wright brothers’ initial powered flight, and the founding of Ford Motor Co. and of Harley-Davidson Motor Co. All the developments had been made possible by the internal combustion engine.

Marking the centennial of those events in 2003, Frank Wicks contributed three articles to Mechanical Engineering. "The Remarkable Henry Ford" was published in May 2003 and "Between the Horse and Car," about Harley-Davidson, in July.

His article about the Wright Brothers and their early competitors appeared in December 2003 in a special supplement to Mechanical Engineering, "100 Years of Flight".

All the articles can be found on Mechanical Engineering Magazine Online, at memagazine.asme.org.

David Gordon Wilson’s Bicycling Science, published by MIT Press and now in its third edition, is currently available in a paperback edition.

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10 Composites Case Study : IsoTruss Frame For Tubing

This article appeared earlier in the year on Composites World. I do like to collect such articles as they go into interesting depth. Should you need more reading material, I have covered a few design specifics of the IsoTruss here and here.

I still feel that the cost and application of IsoTruss to bicycles is simply overkill. Analyzing how this structure will behave is a nightmare from the designer's point of view. Making it is time consuming and proprietary black magic. Imagine taking a space frame and triangulating it to absurd proportions. That is what you get, a structure as complex as the Infinite Isosceles Triangle. Engineers have made this mistake before. You should look up the absurd complexity of the 1960 Maserati Type 60/61 race car, famously known as the "Birdcage" (see right). The Italian designer Rodolfo Maserati probably thought that such redundancy would really give him the ultimate structure. The fact is that failures were common and their repair an absolute nightmare. For a one off car, economics probably wasn't an issue.

So I find the IsoTruss much suitable for large structural work and race car applications because those guys have plenty of money to spill.

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New Twist In Cycling: A Truss Bikers Can Trust

Design Results:

• -A tubular, open-truss-structured bike-frame tube that requires less material than conventional solid carbon tubes, reducing material cost.
• -A finished bike frame as stiff as that possible with aluminum alloys, but lighter, stronger and stiffer than solid tubes of carbon composite or other materials.
• -A tube structure that isolates crash impact damage, minimizing the risk to frame integrity.

Tubular composite truss structures made their debut early this decade. Designed and built at Brigham Young University (BYU, Provo, Utah) and trademarked as IsoTruss, this “open-tube” concept starts with the benefits of two-dimensional isogrid structures — made up of the engineer’s most efficient structural shape, the isosceles triangle — and takes it, literally, to the next dimension.

“Isogrid structures were so named because of their quasi-isotropic nature [in-plane],” explains Dr. David Jensen, director of BYU’s Center for Advanced Structural Composites. Jensen coined the term IsoTruss to differentiate the BYU structures from the more traditional isogrid designs. IsoTruss structures feature repeating triangles, similar to the (two-dimensional) triangles in traditional isogrid structures, but arranged in a radial or tube-like configuration in which the triangles form a truss of pyramids that exhibit multiple radial symmetries. The result, says Jensen, is an orthotropic material, which by definition has at least two orthogonal planes of symmetry (with right angle intersections), where material properties are independent of direction within each plane, giving the design performance advantages over conventional solid tubular structures.

Although any fiber and resin combination can be used to make an IsoTruss structure, the concept is attracting attention in the cycling community, where carbon fiber composites have proven their worth as weight savers. The IsoTruss geometry forms what is at once a supremely functional and visually striking feature of custom carbon-composite bike frames built by Delta 7 Sports (Payson, Utah).

BYU licensed IsoTruss technology to Advanced Composite Solutions (ACS, Payson, Utah), which set up Delta 7 as its manufacturing arm for IsoTruss bicycle frames. Delta 7 began production of its Arantix mountain bikes and Ascend road bikes early in 2009, both types incorporating IsoTruss frames in all sizes.

The frame for the road bike weighs in at just over 1,000g/2.2 lb, and the mountain bike frame at about 1,247g/2.75 lb. For comparison, the OCLV 55 tubular carbon composite frame developed by Trek (Waterloo, Wis.) for Lance Armstrong’s 2004 Tour de France Stage 16 uphill time trial, which set the stage for his first-place victory, was 907g/2 lb (see “Editor's Picks”). Finished bike weights are a scant 6,350g/14 lb and 9,525g/21 lb, respectively.

Challenging Forces

Delta 7 composites engineer Ed Packer identifies the biggest challenge in designing and building a bicycle as “knowing what forces are applied on each part and how to properly assemble all the parts together to meet those force requirements.” For example, the top tube must have the strength to manage high bending forces, and the down tubes must maintain strength integrity under torsion loads. Packer explains, “The forces put into the frame are from pedaling the bike, and the more energy that goes straight through the chain to the spinning wheels, the better. A flimsy frame wastes that energy, but high stiffness transfers energy very effectively.”

Force requirements are established for bicycle frames in standards set by The European Committee for Standardization (CEN, Brussels, Belgium). “We also learn about forces in feedback from riders,” Packer says. “A rider might tell us the bike could be a little more stiff in the rear triangle, or other area, and we reinforce that area to meet the need.” While its ability to damp road shock is similar to other carbon bikes, “we’ve had a  lot of feedback from professional riders mentioning our bikes are not as hard on their bodies as other bikes they’ve ridden,” Packer says, “even after a 24-hour race.”

Knowing how these forces will interact when connected through the lugs is a critical design factor. Lugs are the cylindrical sleeves that receive the frame tubes at their joints, strengthening the joints and serving to distribute the stresses over their entire area. Delta 7 designs and compression molds its own carbon composite lugs, which connect the frame elements to each other, and to standard sizes of seat posts and other bike parts. The lug slides over the frame truss tube and over the connecting part in conventional fashion. Delta 7 road bike frames have three IsoTruss tubes and five lugs, while mountain bikes have seven IsoTruss tubes and four lugs.

The frame design is based on data from two stress-analysis programs developed by BYU. Packer explains, “One is a spreadsheet set up with equations for compression, bending, torsion and tension. We enter the strengths we need to handle the forces and the program defines the amount of material and the thickness of the IsoTruss members required to meet those strength requirements.” The other is finite element analysis (FEA) software designed by BYU specifically for IsoTruss analysis. The FEA assesses failure modes in axial, torsion, bending, shear and local and global buckling. Control variables include fiber type, resin system, fiber architecture in longitudinal members and helical members, geometry of the truss triangle, and diameter and overall length of the frame member.

Less Material, More Strength

The open-truss design uses less material than a solid tube — an important consideration when calculating costs — but offers greater strength and stiffness. “The geometry of the IsoTruss turns out higher strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios than a solid carbon tube or a solid tube of any other material,” Packer claims. Delta 7 uses 12K unidirectional prepreg from TCR Composites (Ogden, Utah), made using TCR epoxy resin and T700 aerospace-grade carbon tow (from Toray Carbon Fibers America, Flower Mound, Texas). Fiber architecture is typically longitudinal (0°) for tension and compression force, and helical. The helical angles can be customized to optimize strength and weight requirements but, as Jensen points out, the highest torsional stiffness and strength generally will be achieved when the diagonal (helical) members are oriented at ±45°. Packer adds that the IsoTruss is an adaptable concept: “If the bike frame will be subjected to significant torque or other complex out-of-plane loads, we can open up the 45° angle, making a wider angle, and increase the diameter of the helical members to support the complex local bending and torsion forces. Or, if the forces in the members are primarily compression and tension, the helical members are used only to stabilize the longitudinal members, so a simpler ±45° configuration, without additional reinforcement, is sufficient.”

The helical fibers spiral around the edge of the straight, longitudinal fibers in a special filament winder built in-house by Delta 7. It manufactures one truss tube at a time, building up individual rods that range from 2.54 to 3.175 mm (~0.100 to 0.125 inch) in diameter to construct truss tubes that can be 38 to 102 mm (1.5 to 4 inches) in diameter and 152.4 to 508 mm (6 to 20 inches) in length, depending on bike size.

Spider-web Geometry

Packer says that during the winding process, the spider web-like geometry must be maintained precisely until cure is complete. This requires tooling with tolerances of 0.127 mm/0.005 inch. “The longitudinal members need to be held straight and the helical members must be held straight between the peaks,” he notes. (Peaks are the pyramid-shaped sections that extend out of the truss.) “To achieve that, each peak needs to be suspended at the proper distance from the center of the mandrel tooling.” The mandrel, then, must be shaped in such a way that it will hold each node (the peak intersection) securely in position.

At one time, a soluble mandrel was used, which allowed pressure to be applied during cure yet was easily removed afterwards. But that tactic required Delta 7 to cast a new mandrel for each structure. To save time and cost, Delta 7 developed a proprietary collapsible mandrel concept.

While the current winding technique is complex and labor-intensive — and therefore expensive — the company has applied an innovative method of consolidating the fibers during cure that Packer says has taken “probably 60 percent of the labor out of the manufacturing process.” Wound trusses are oven-cured at 127°C/260°F for two hours. Finished frames are physically tested by an independent laboratory for compression, fatigue, impact, bending and torsion to ensure compliance with CEN standards.

Delta 7 sells complete bikes, combining the frame with other bike components selected by the customer, but also offers the frame alone, for those who want to assemble a custom bike on their own. The IsoTruss frame requires minimal maintenance and has a lifecycle comparable to that of other carbon-fiber frames on high-end retail bikes and considerably longer than a metal frame because the composite is not susceptible to rust or other corrosion. Delta 7, in fact, offers a lifetime warranty on the frame. Moreover, the redundant lattice structure reportedly gives the frame greater structural integrity during impact or crash scenarios because, unlike with conventional carbon tube frames, local damage is geometrically isolated, avoiding catastrophic frame breakage.

Down The Road

ACS already is moving forward with its next application for the truss technology: an IsoTruss structure that could be used as a tower for cell phone or other types of communications, or metrology. However, Jensen and Packer agree that there is a need to reduce the remaining 40 percent of the labor-intensive process with a cost-effective automated winding process, the lack of which has been a barrier to rapid commercialization of the IsoTruss and other composite grid structures. BYU and Delta 7 are investigating a process described by Jensen as “an innovative form of 3-D braiding which can continuously fabricate composite grid structures with 3-D surfaces directly from computer models, without geometry-specific internal tooling or molds.”

If its promise is fulfilled, the method could save enough in time, reduced labor and elimination of tooling cost to open up a wide variety of future applications in aerospace, marine and energy markets where, if the price is right, these strong, stiff, lightweight structural trusses could open new roads for composites.

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20 An Open Letter To The UCI President Pat McQuaid

Note : A gentleman on Cycling News' forums wrote the following, but it does not represent the views of CN itself. I'm helping to spread the word to other cycling fans, as I told him. The letter comes in direct response to McQuaid's statements today, denying using the money Armstrong "donated" in 2005 as bribe to cover up the latter's positive test in 2001. You guys must read this, as we're going through one of the biggest scandals in sports. NYT reports today that the investigations are going to broaden. Two unnamed individuals have already been contacted by investigators to exchange vital information in return for leniency.


Dear Pat,

As the cycling community is quite small, I have had the opportunity to meet with you over the years. I always admired your enthusiasm for the sport and your extensive knowledge of the sport in general.

Since the revelations made this week by Floyd Landis, the sport of cycling and the UCI of which you are President has come under immense scrutiny. The accusations that a positive drug test by Lance Armstrong was ignored in return for a financial settlement is deeply disturbing and a serious charge against the UCI.

In a radio interview on Friday you mentioned that Lance Armstrong had ‘donated’ $100,000 in 2005. You repeated those comments again today at the Giro d'Italia.

It seriously harms the reputation of this great sport that there still remains major discrepancies in your version of events.

At the Play The Game conference in October 2007 you said the $100,000 ‘cash’ came in to our account "in actual fact, about 15 months ago". (Audio here- second clip) This would be approximately July 2006 - which contradicts today's statements from you.

More alarmingly - July 2006 is only one month after the publication of the Vrijman report which cleared Mr Armstrong of facing sanction for having EPO in 6 urine samples that were retested in 2005.

With so many discrepancies I believe it is prudent that the UCI subject itself to a full independent financial audit.

I realize that this is a costly and time consuming process but it is one that the UCI must bare if it is to restore its faith in its members and the sporting community.

In a separate interview today former UCI member Sylvia Schenk said "the UCI was always very proud of its accounts".

This should mean that the UCI should be able to immediately release details of the transaction, UCI booking and machine purchased, before an audit gets underway.

I also believe that you need to consider your position at this point. In the interest of the sport of cycling, I respectfully suggest you stand down or stand aside while any investigation takes place – as I believe it would effect your ability to carry out the day to day duties of President.

If you feel that you should not stand down or stand aside then it is imperative that you clearly articulate the reasons for not doing so.

It is time to move along and begin the process of rebuilding the trust and credibility of this great sport.

Signed,
- (Name and address with CyclingNews)

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A little about Pat McQuaid : Before his election, Irishman Pat McQuaid (a former racing cyclist from 1966-1982) fell out with Sylvia Schenk, a member of the UCI's management committee, who believed McQuaid was living off an expense account sanctioned by Verbruggen. [Source]

McQuaid joined the UCI's management committee in 1997 and six years later was nominated to take over from Verbruggen.

At the UCI Congress in Madrid on Sept. 23, 2005, 42 voting delegates gave him a 31-11 majority over challengers Darshan Singh and Gregorio Moreno.

McQuaid heads a 14-man committee that meets each January, June and September. For legal decisions, he depends on a team of five lawyers.

"In my 2 years on the board, there has never been a vote, everybody's agreed by consensus," McQuaid said once. "When it gets down to legal decisions it's the lawyers here that would advise me."

He sums up his role as being the "executive" who presides over the running of day-to-day business.

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26 CVT's Are Impractical For Bicycles

Jobst Brandt, a highly respected mechanical engineer with many accomplishments under his belt, wrote the following back in 2003. It was part of a series of FAQ's hosted on Sheldon Brown's website but borrowed from Rec.Bicycles.Tech. Take a few minutes to read this and let me know how your mode of thinking differs or agrees.

The reason I bring this up is because one or two folks, who as usual withhold their identities, discussed with me the inadequacy of the chain drive and derailleur in a previous post on spokeless wheels and how a simple infinitely variable chain less drive is the definite solution to its ills. Will this truly revolutionize the bicycle?

"The Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) is the holy grail of many inventors who are not convinced that it is an impossibility. That is to say, the positive engagement, continuously variable transmission, that does not rely on friction, electrical, or hydraulic ratios but uses mechanical gearing, is not possible. By definition, continuously variable is analog while gears and chains are digital.

The CVT does not exist, and I am convinced it will not. If it were possible, railway locomotives, trucks, buses, and cars would long ago have used them. Strangely, it is in bicycling that the strongest believers of the concept reside... as if there were more money to be made in bicycles. In fact, the bicycle, with its enormously adaptable human motor, doesn't need a CVT. In addition, its low input speed and extremely high torque, make the bicycle an especially difficult gearing challenge. For this reason high performance bicycles use derailleur chain drive that is found practically nowhere else.

Non-gear CVT's, currently used elsewhere, have poorer efficiency than both planetary gears and derailleur chains. More importantly though, the low-speed high torque of bicycling would require transmissions that would weigh more than the bicycle, which makes them impractical."

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5 cancellara

A reader sent me an interesting page on the energy requirements involved in unicycling. Quite simply put, two riders, one skilled and one less skilled, show different efficiencies operating the cycle.

Skilled unicyclists devote more energy to going straight than they do trying to stay in balance through precise timing of corrective energy provision, while less skilled riders show the opposite scenario, which is why most of us lose out quickly and fall.

To keep a unicycle in balance, a correcting energy has to be supplied at some frequency for proper dynamics of the system. As far as steering is concerned, the main aim of balancing comes from steering in the direction to counteract a lean.

It will be interesting to study at what frequency skilled riders supply corrective energy to stay in balance. This is apparently done so that the small angular displacements lead to small energy expenditures. The estimation by the author is that 100 calories of energy is supplied by the rider per hour to aid in the balancing act.

Energy output per hour of various means of movement - bicycling, unicycling, walking etc.

The trick seems to be in finding the right balance between ranges for the angle of tilt the rider and his bike makes with the vertical. Too much an angle means you may go faster because of the squared relationship with gravity but it'll take more energy to raise your center of gravity up to the balance point. Too less an angle might mean you're perfectly in balance but you're moving slow.

I haven't ridden a unicycle but I'm wondering what you guys think. How do you balance yourself?

RELATED RESOURCES :

Four Part Series : Dynamic Stability Of Bicycle Design
Efficiency In Inefficiency : Walk Or Pedal Up A Steep Hill?

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18 Science Of Cadel Evans From Dr. David Martin

I happened to read an article in the Ride Cycling Review publication titled "A Study Of Champions : Cadel & Lance". This is an Australian magazine and I wouldn't have had the chance to read it were it not for partner in blogging crime, Wade over at Cycling Tips, sending me a fine copy from beautiful Down Under. Thank you!

Written by David T. Martin, a senior physiologist at Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra, the article is a good reminder to all of us that some of the less talked about riders in the peloton also show remarkable physiological characteristics. Yet, few fancy documentaries are made on them.

Anyway, here's the basic information you need to know if you're ready to bust some myths among your cycling friends. Here goes :

1. Highlight : Cadel Evans posted brilliant fitness parameters at an age when he was developing as a cyclist. He boasts high VO2max and power to weight ratios, some of the highest ever recorded at AIS. His physiology, based on traditional measurements of aerobic capacity, reigns supreme over most cyclists, even Lance Armstrong. The article notes that while Cadel's aerobic capacity is higher than Armstrong's, no one has considered other top riders like Alberto Contador. Good point, Dr. Martin.

2. Sample Set : From a sports science perspective, a number of "fitness indicators" were established on Cadel Evans. He was tested more than 15 times at AIS between the ages of18 and 24 and the article focused on 7 tests at a time of the year when he was considered fit (between January and June)

3. How He Was Tested : Cadel was put on something called an electromagnetically braked ergometer to carry out the Australia national cycling team protocol. The procedure calls for 5 minutes of constant power output stages with a self selected cadence, where the initial power output was 100W and it was increased by 50W every stage until volitional exhaustion. The peak power output achieved during the test is calculated by adding 10W to the test score for every minute achieved in the final stage. Oxygen uptake, heart rate and blood lactate were measured throughout the test.

4. Results :Between 18 and 24, the best result achieved by Evans were :

Maximum Aerobic Power Output : 455 W (7.3 W/kg)
Threshold Power Estimation : 370W (6.0 W/kg)
VO2 Max Associated With Max Power Output : 5.65 L/min or 87 ml/kg/min

In those crucial years, Evans was characterized by Dr. Martin as :

62-68kg, 172-173cm; 380-455 W and 6.1-7.3 W·kg-1 at VO2pk; 4.59-5.65 L·min-1 and 73-87 ml·kg-1·min-1 VO2pk.
Economy (mean±SD; range) was 80.2±1.9; 77.5-82.5 W·(VO2 L·min-1)-1 or 401±10; 387-413W at 5 L·min-1 VO2.
GE was 22.6 ±0.6; 21.8-23.4% and DE was 23.6±1.1; 21.9-25.4%.

Now for you starters, power to weight ratio is the key variable for uphill cycling speed and threshold power output is an exercise intensity that represents a distinct transition from aerobic to anaerobic energy production.

Bottomline : Both Armstrong and Evans posted their best fitness values in their early 20's. At his best, Evans posted a power to weight ratio almost 8% higher than the 6.8 W/kg produced by Armstrong when he was 22. His highest VO2max was 7.4% higher than Lance's highest recorded value. Compare this, if you'd like, with Indurain's 6 W/kg at threshold and 7 W/kg at VO2 max.

4. A Word On Inaccuracies : Dr. Martin feels there were enough similarities in testing protocols and equipment employed to allow for an interesting comparison between the two athletes. Most interestingly, he has it in a paper on Evans that the data from his testing procedures did not reflect any improvements in cycling efficiency with maturation.

Recall that Armstrong's values stemmed from studies done by Dr.Coyle at the University of Texas, some of which, especially on the improvements in his cycling efficiency, came under fire from his peers for gross inaccuracies. Dr. Martin maintains that cycling efficiency calculations are very sensitive to equipment and are prone to inaccuracies. He did estimate Evans' cycling efficiency at 22 as 21-24%, similar to Armstrong's calculated 21-23 %, although he doesn't seem to put much faith nor emphasis on it.

5. Ending Quote From Dr. Martin :

"The data doesn't support the argument that Lance Armstrong wins because he was born with some god-given gift, some unique physiological capacity that makes his success as a professional road cyclist easy. There's a lot involved in winning..... Based on physiological traits, it is just a bit too simplistic - and a bit naive - to think that all of Lance's achievements can be explained by superior build."


So there you go. Just physical traits alone does not make you a winner. Moreover, years of training doesn't transform you into a freak of nature. Let's put folklore away and discuss just the facts.

Next, the Science of Alberto Contador. Does anyone want to volunteer from the Spanish Institute Of Sport or likewise? I suppose we'll have to keep the record books handy.

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24 Nanotechnology Application In Bicycles : How Good?

Readers may know that last year, I addressed how carbon nanotube technology had been seeping into the bicycling scene. While by themselves, the properties are very remarkable, the issue we all want to sort out is, how much is the end product we care about - the bicycle frame - improved by using such tech?

Some readers in that article held the view that this technology is an "April Fool's joke" on the consumer, that the change in finished properties in the frame with nanotube reinforcement is extremely small and not worth it considering the increases in cost. Is this just a "feel good" marketing ploy from the cycling industry? Should it have prevented failures such as this one?

Today's article below is borrowed from one of the writings of Dexter Johnson, who is an IEEE technical blogger writing for Nanoclast. Here, he's posing the question of what nanotube reinforced bicycle frames really have to offer in terms of cost-benefit and also explores the different buzz words seen in bicycle marketing literature. Do they mean anything at all?

Enjoy the read and let me know what you think.

Nanotechnology And The Bicycle

Dexter Johnson, IEEE
September 9, 2009

At a conference that I had put the program together for a few years back, a speaker during his presentation suggested that maybe he would supply some carbon nanotubes to a bicycle manufacturer and have Lance Armstrong ride the bike in the Tour de France. What a great marketing idea, he thought out loud.

Being an avid cyclist and an even more avid fan of cycling, I explained to him that the professional cycling federation had put a weight limit on bicycles and that maybe there was not much to be gained in pursuing this marketing avenue.

How wrong I was. Since then, which I believe was around 2005, I have become aware of at least three high-end bicycles that employ some kind of nanoparticle in the frame.

The three that I know of are Spanish-based BH Bicycles, Swiss-based BMC and most recently I’ve discovered Italian-based Pinarello has gotten on the nano bandwagon.

What does the nanotech actually do for these bikes other than to raise their asking price slightly north of a new economy car? Well, it’s hard to say except by taking a look at their marketing copy.

Let’s start with the BH G4 bike. Here the marketing copy reads: “BH achieves this magical blend of low-weight, great ride and toughness using Nanotechnology resins.”

“Nanotechnology resins”? After reading the rest it appears what they mean is that they are using carbon nanotubes as a filler material between the carbon fibers. Despite the rather breathless description of how carbon nanotubes “have a strength-to-weight ratio orders of magnitude greater than steel”, they never quite get around to saying whether the CNT-enabled resins make the carbon fiber bicycle any stronger or lighter than any other run-of-the-mill resin.

BMC it turns out is using carbon nanotubes in exactly the same way as BH (not really a surprise to be honest). But BMC does manage to say that the material matrix that is developed using these carbon nanotubes is 20% stronger for practically the same weight. I am a little concerned with the usage of the phrase “practically the same weight”. And for that matter what does “stronger” mean?

Pinarello appears to be much more discrete about their foray into nanomaterials, but they do manage to say the following: “the exclusive 60HM1K carbon by Torayca® with Nanoalloy™ that prevents sudden breakage.”

Wow, now we’ve got a nanoalloy (and it’s trademarked)! From what I have been able to piece together about the “Nanoalloy™” from the bicycle trade press is that:

“Nanoalloy… disperses nanoscale elastomers between the carbon fibers. These elastomers have the ability to absorb impacts and prevent the propagation of cracks as they occur.” The result: Pinarello claims the Dogma frame weighs about 860 grams, 40 grams less than the Prince but is 23 percent more resistant to impacts."

Could this resistance to impacts that Pinarello describes be the same “stronger” that BMC offers up?

Is there anything to all of this nano talk in bicycles other than a cool marketing angle? Impossible to say outside of conducting some real experiments, and it’s hard to imagine anyone being that interested to bother.

Now if we can develop a material that would be perfect for the rigors of a bicycle frame by using a material by design method and then build the material and the frame atom-by-atom then I might pay a premium price for it. Will I still be able to ride a bike by then? Stay tuned.

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