Biofueled Transportation Device Achieves 98.7% efficiency.

[NNadir]

Don't laugh: This device is one of the most efficient transportation devices ever invented. As someone who once used this device as a sole source of transport, I can tell you there is a lot to recommend it, including but not limited to good health.

http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et1199/et1199s13.html

That's what Johns Hopkins University engineers learned when they aimed an infrared camera at a computer-controlled bicycle drive train in a campus lab. The camera detected heat generated by friction as the chain moved through the sprockets under varying conditions. This heat represented wasted energy, and by measuring it, the engineers were able to identify sources of inefficiency.

In the best test, the chain drive posted an energy efficiency score of 98.6 percent, meaning less than 2 percent of the power used to turn the front sprocket was lost while being transmitted to the rear one. Even the worst test turned in a respectable 81 percent efficiency score.

The results surprised faculty member James B. Spicer, who supervised the studies. "This was amazing to me, especially when you realize the essential construction of this chain drive hasn't changed in more than 100 years," says Spicer, an associate professor of materials science and engineering. "The modern safety bicycle with fixed front and rear gears came about in the 1880s. There have been modifications to make the chain work better and last longer, but essentially, it's the same type of drive."

Employers could encourage this sort of thing by providing company showers and changing rooms in places of employment. By the way, it beats the shit out of driving your SUV to the health club.

[skids]

1. Well, there's a simple explanation...

...back when the bicycle chain drive was invented, people who made machines spent a lot of time honing and perfecting them.

Today, when we build a machine, we spend all our time a) suing other people to keep them from making the same machine, b) finding ways to shave mere pennies of the unit cost and c) advertising, advertising, public relations, investor relations, employee "relations" (read "shafting"), and advertising.

Times sure have changed. Of course that's to be expected when hardly anyone fully owns their own home at an early age and can afford to spend their entire life tinkering and doing a few odd sidejobs.

[NNadir]

2. You inspired me to look up the wikipedia reference on the invention

of the bicycle, which is rather fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle

I honestly believe that the bicycle is a very serious transportation option that deserves serious encouragement.

It is unfortunate, very unfortunate, that China chose to mimic us and abandon the bicycle for the internal combustion engine, rather than the other way around.

It is infuriating, when you think about it, that people drive their cars to health clubs to ride on stationary bicycles. Do these people think at all?

[phantom power]

3. Furthermore, we drive on parkways and park on driveways.

I think what people are giving precedence to is:

1) Climate control (for instance, riding my bike outside at this time of year is unattractive to me, at 108F)

2) Safety. A stationary bike doesn't contend with traffic. Of course, if more people rode bikes instead of driving, it would be safer.

On balance, you're still right. Widespread use of bikes would benefit people in all sorts of ways.

[NNadir]

4. I would agree that one would need another option in 108F weather.

One would need another option in the snow, although snow is not as common as it once was.

Still, we can do many things to encourage bicycle use as a commuting strategy.

Actually one does see more and more bike pathways. Back in the '70's when I was conducting a one man revolt against the internal combustion engine, bike paths were relatively rare, although there was an excellent ocean front path in LA's South Bay running from Santa Monica to Redondo Beach. (It was still there last time I looked.) I used that path for commuting, although I had lots of run-ins with cars when I was forced to leave the bike path.

[Vogon_Glory]

5. Bike Racks Badly Needed

What is particuarly needed are bike racks. I'd be tempted to do a lot more pedalling around town if I had soemplace where I could lock my bike up while I took care of shopping and errants. Most commercial real estate owners and operators don't bother with such basic amenities.

There's no excuse for such omissions. If I were dictator of Texas, I'd tell retail and office operators to provide easily-accessible bike racks or they'd have to pay double in property taxes and kiss any notion of special tax breaks goodbye.

[NNadir]

6. Good point.

One should get one of those healthy U shaped alloy locks as well.

As I found out as a bicycle commuter, the cable kinds are easy to cut with bolt cutters.

By ordinance they could make bike racks a requirement like handicapped spaces.

[Kolesar]

11. Bike racks at the transit & bus stations might be the best we can do

Development in the US is so spread out that it is impractical to walk to mass transit stations. This all puts people who are elderly or disabled at a big disadvantage.

[NNadir]

12. Well, we may have to make accommodations for the elderly and disabled.

This doesn't mean that we can't encourage bicycling for every one else.

[Kolesar]

14. Actually, local transit has special vehicles for such people

They make pickups for people who cannot operate an automobile (or for that matter don't have the money). So the problem I mention is at least addressed.

For me, I am exploring an electrically-assisted bicycle to make my commute faster. 1:20 is just a bit too much time.

[NNadir]

15. It's 1:20 by car or by bicycle?

I believe I have seen something about hybrid bicycles, but I'm not totally sure.

[Kolesar]

16. 1:20 by bicycle

Each way. More time than I can fit into my budget. There is an electric bicycle thread in the DU Bicycling forum that addresses it. My hunch is that my commute is a bit beyond what current electric bicycles can do--13.5 miles and too many hills.

[NNadir]

17. Fully crediting what you say, do you also exercise?

Some people, of course, have no time even to exercise. On the other hand, as I noted earlier, there are people who drive to health clubs.

Suppose that you did find the time, 2 hrs and 40 minutes, to ride your bicycle. Would it be possible for you to clean up at work? Would there be a place to park your bicycle?

I used to spend three or four hours a day on a bicycle, but I was single and had no kids. I worked and I went to school. My one way to commute, which I just Mapquested (I couldn't do that back then) was about 12 miles. It would have been nice to have been able to have bicycled to mass transit, but there was no mass transit in LA in those days.

The loneliness of my existence in those days notwithstanding, I really miss that time. I was in splendid shape, alert, even good looking in an interesting way, and given that I am especially ugly, that was a remarkable achievement.

[Kolesar]

18. I used to drive to the health club

They were open until late every night so I could actually get in work outs at unusual hours, like Sunday evening on my way back from somewhere for the weekend. I joined the health club because I was a renter without a weight bench. Even with weights, I wanted the health club for the leg curl and leg extension machines that I just could not do without a machine. In the last few years I discovered that I could just do lunges or squats with dumbbells on my shoulders. Then I discovered that cycling was all the exercise that legs need if you cycle a lot.

The health club also has a social quality to it, but the only conversations would be about the football team. No nerd culture there to talk about current events.

Later, the company added a health club with showers so I have somewhere to shower after a hot morning ride to work. I seldom do it. It's been a rainy spring and summer and I cannot seem to find the time. I am too old to be putting in 27 miles of riding with hills. That's for 20-somethings.

Didn't Chris Rock say that America is the only country where people leave to go hunting -- on a full stomach?

[NNadir]

20. Without being a nudge - but I am a nudge - may I suggest that if you

still exercise, riding the bicycle one day a week will make you younger?

It's worth a try, or at least an effort to build up to it. One doesn't have to do it every day, but once in a while might make you feel absolutely magnificient. An added benefit would be to come on to DU and to lecture all of us about how noble you are. We would all be compelled to agree.

Currently I own a start up company, and our lab space, on which we have a great deal, is kind of far away. But when the ship comes in - as I hope it will - I want to put the lab where we can I can drive the car only when I need, for some reason, to wear a suit. In fact, maybe I can store a suit at the lab in a closet and ride the bike anyway.

I'm an old, ugly, fat fart, but man, the bike is the best part of the dream. I never again felt quite so ethical and quite so healthy as I did during my revolution against the internal combustion engine.

[IDemo]

8. My 20 minute bike commute is doable at 100F

Though the EROI must be somewhat diminished by the shower..

[NNadir]

10. People have been dying from walking in the Netherlands heat.

http://news.excite.co.uk/international/europe/10394

Meanwhile, a heatwave in the Netherlands caused the deaths of two people at a large walking event and 300 others became sick. The country's national broadcaster NOS said 30 of those who became ill at the Nijmegen 4-Day March were admitted to hospital.

Temperatures in the Netherlands have soared up to 35C (95F) in recent days.

The march, billed as the world's largest walking event, attracts people from the around the globe. The nationalities of the people who died were not immediately available. Each day, participants can walk a route of up to 30 miles. There are shorter routes.

The deaths occurred on the second day of the event. Organisers have cancelled the final two days of the walk following the deaths

I guess this is another way in which the use of cars has made it more difficult for human powered means of transport: No walking, no biking.

[phantom power]

19. Yeah, I've biked in 100F+. I just don't enjoy it much :-)

[Kolesar]

13. More heat -> More atmospheric H2O -> More precipitation in big storms

The gross amount of precipitation will be about the same, but it will be in infrequent thunderstorms. That's what I took away from a climate conference here. It will also mean more lake effect snow. We have had several near-record-setting winters of 100" of snow here in Cleveland.

[Ready4Change]

7. Just a single point on the energy loss formula

Looking at the energy loss of a bicycle chain is like looking at the energy loss on a cars drive shaft. I wonder those two compare?

[IDemo]

9. Chains must rank fairly high

Virtually all modern high-performance motorcycles still use chain final drive, versus belt or shaft.

Chains stretch, gather road grime, and break under severe stress. They require frequent cleaning, lubing, and adjustment. But they still deliver horsepower to the rear wheel very efficiently.

[NNadir]

21. NYT LTTE.

To the Editor:

A July 19 letter writer says that bicycle riders have “no requirements, age or otherwise.” Cyclists are, however, subject to certain regulations. In New York State, they must have brakes, a bell, lights if riding after dusk and a helmet if under 14. In return, they may use public roadways in a lawful fashion.

The right of cyclists to use the road is not conceded by all drivers. In my six years of cycle commuting, I have been threatened, harassed, squeezed out of the lane and hit by a car. No driver is told to “get on the sidewalk,” as we cyclists frequently are (although riding on the sidewalk is illegal in New York City).

I have often been complimented by pedestrians, other cyclists and even drivers on my clear signaling and road position. And I ride every day I possibly can.

Bicycles are not toys, but transportation, and cyclists have responsibilities, but also rights.

Jeanette Sperhac
Buffalo, July 19, 2006


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/opinion/l22bike.html