Is my "half bicycle" design working?

  • Thread starter Thread starter iwico
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iwico

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Hi

I designed a new bicycle, I called "Half Bicycle", which can cut friction in half. but I am not sure it is a good working idea or not. Could someone tell me why? details on http://www.freelights.co.uk/bike.html

Thanks
 
If it only takes 1 mm of movement to transfer from whole bike to half bike, does it require more sustained effort to keep yourself in just the right position (so that neither wheel A nor C touch the ground) than the effort used in a regular bike?

You also have a serious logic flaw in your answer to the first question, one which makes your design assumptions incorrect. Friction is based on the contact force between surfaces. For a normal bike, the weight of the rider (W) is split between the 2 wheels. This means you have W/2 on each area of tire, A, for a traditional bike. So the total friction is

F = (W/2 * A) * 2 = W * A

For a half bike, all of the weight is on one tire, so the friction is

F = W * A

So your assumption is wrong, in theory the friction force is the same! Now lets look at reality - the weight on a tire affects the amount of tire that touches the ground. The tire will have a tendency to "squish" down under more weight, making more tire contact the ground with more weight. So in a normal bike, only half of the weight squishes each tire. Your half bike puts all of the squish on one tire, so in actuallity your half bike causes MORE friction between the tire and the road.

Also, did you do this website? You should check your spelling and grammar.
 
Well, it really doesn't seem practical. How do you steer it? With a unicycle, you can steer by twisting your body, but a unicycle has a very small inertial moment of rotation; a bike does not.

Also, although you only have 1 wheel on the ground, you now have twice the weight on that wheel, which is likely to make your friction loss worse, if it changes at all. You can reduce friction much more effectively by using tires with smoother tread, and filling them with very high pressure.

On a decent racing bike, wind resistance is a much much larger issue than the rolling friction, so I really think you're solving the wrong part of the problem. Eliminating friction entirely would only result in a very minor performance improvement.

Sorry!
 
i am sorry but you dont understand friction. you have also increased both the weight and complexity which will make it less efficient...
 
i am sorry but you dont understand friction. you have also increased both the weight and complexity which will make it less efficient...
 
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