IanSmithCSE
Guru
- Location
- Worcester, Worcestershire
Morning,
Although unconvinced as if it genuinely worked a 10 mile TT would take around 25 minutes and would be repeatable proof.
But it is also easy to become over cynical, after all it is known that the full circle pedal motion we use is not perfect. There is an energy cost in moving the leg up from the bottom of the stroke to the top of the stroke and varying degrees of efficiency and power delivery in the movement of the leg from the top of the stroke to the bottom.
So it would seem credible that a system where the leg motion is restricted to the most efficient movements could yield some improvements to cycling.
Clearly the recovery period afforded by the current full cycle may be reduced and over any non trivial time period reduced to such an extent that these advantages, if they exist at all, would be removed partially or completely.
I am often struck by the number of research projects that conclude that a cadence of around 60rpm is the most efficient (work performed for a given oxygen consumption) but is unstainable for even elite level athletes. Although this is contrary to what most enthusiastic cyclists practice experimentation by triathletes who need to retain the capacity for the run tend to be strong mass experimental evidence to support the lower cadence idea.
It also seems very like the people who put 10kg weights onto the rear wheel and "prove" that this makes the bike use less energy by ignoring the acceleration energy cost.
However I also have a Di2 equipped bike and it faster uphill than my D/T shifter bike, changing from a hand to a motor to shift gears should make no difference so this is clearly nonsense. Except this dismissal fails to measure the fact that the Di2 system allows for a gear change at points in the climb where the D/T system doesn't which shows that it is easy to forget a critical measurement.
So despite the nonsense demos it is still possible that a treadle is better than a fully rotating movement, however this should be so easily demonstrable that when it is not I loss faith and start thinking of cold fusion.
For those who don't follow cold fusion and think that it is all a con, which is it, there is also something very similar, muon-catalyzed fusion which is real and accepted by conventional science. Nobody seems to have any idea on now to make it a useful though as it requires a greater energy input to make it occur than it yields.
My understanding is that with just turning a crank around, not connected to a wheel or anything, just bearing resistance and lifting the legs requires between 1 and 2 watts per 10rpm, so there is not a lot of wasted energy to be saved.
Bye
Ian
Although unconvinced as if it genuinely worked a 10 mile TT would take around 25 minutes and would be repeatable proof.
But it is also easy to become over cynical, after all it is known that the full circle pedal motion we use is not perfect. There is an energy cost in moving the leg up from the bottom of the stroke to the top of the stroke and varying degrees of efficiency and power delivery in the movement of the leg from the top of the stroke to the bottom.
So it would seem credible that a system where the leg motion is restricted to the most efficient movements could yield some improvements to cycling.
Clearly the recovery period afforded by the current full cycle may be reduced and over any non trivial time period reduced to such an extent that these advantages, if they exist at all, would be removed partially or completely.
I am often struck by the number of research projects that conclude that a cadence of around 60rpm is the most efficient (work performed for a given oxygen consumption) but is unstainable for even elite level athletes. Although this is contrary to what most enthusiastic cyclists practice experimentation by triathletes who need to retain the capacity for the run tend to be strong mass experimental evidence to support the lower cadence idea.
It also seems very like the people who put 10kg weights onto the rear wheel and "prove" that this makes the bike use less energy by ignoring the acceleration energy cost.
However I also have a Di2 equipped bike and it faster uphill than my D/T shifter bike, changing from a hand to a motor to shift gears should make no difference so this is clearly nonsense. Except this dismissal fails to measure the fact that the Di2 system allows for a gear change at points in the climb where the D/T system doesn't which shows that it is easy to forget a critical measurement.
So despite the nonsense demos it is still possible that a treadle is better than a fully rotating movement, however this should be so easily demonstrable that when it is not I loss faith and start thinking of cold fusion.
For those who don't follow cold fusion and think that it is all a con, which is it, there is also something very similar, muon-catalyzed fusion which is real and accepted by conventional science. Nobody seems to have any idea on now to make it a useful though as it requires a greater energy input to make it occur than it yields.
My understanding is that with just turning a crank around, not connected to a wheel or anything, just bearing resistance and lifting the legs requires between 1 and 2 watts per 10rpm, so there is not a lot of wasted energy to be saved.
Bye
Ian
Last edited:
