3 posts tagged

bicycle

Bicycling

Thanks to my friend Lele who can always lend me a bike.

I love riding a bike. Bicycles are great – they are fast, faster than public transport. It is 20 minutes by bike to my University, rather than 40 minutes by bus and underground. Moreover, it is healthy to ride a bike, and I can keep fit and get to my destination. I can even take a bicycle to train or travel on a plane with the bike. Even though the bicycle emits carbon when being produced, it is still nature-friendly transport.

I make hundred-kilometer rides. I love traveling by bike. There are four variants of traveling – short trips, full-day trips, weekend trips, and long journeys. Long journeys last one, two weeks, or even a month – friends from Moscow state university bicyclist club have done it. They traveled by train to Karelia – a northern Russian region with picturesque forests, sixty thousand lakes, and beautiful Finnish architecture. They have been riding in Karelia for two weeks. Later, some participants of the journey went to St. Petersburg. They spend some days there, and then they have ridden to Moscow. The way from Moscow to St. Petersburg is at least 700km. In total, they made nearly 2000km.

I prefer rides from 80 to 150 km per day and 2-day rides. It is an excellent way to explore new places and not be exhausted. For example, we can go to Bratislava from Vienna or ride through Donau and observe hundreds of vineyards and apricot gardens, symbols of lower Austria. It is also great to go to Hallstatt, the most beautiful lake and an old town surrounded by old mountains. You may spend one day in the city, swimming on a lake with a SUP board and riding in the mountains the next day.

Plans

I invite you to my bicycle group in What’s App in case you live in Austria. You may also join if you live in Europe, because, maybe, we will make a trip to your country or you to ours.

The requirements are: you can make at least 80 km per day, and you need to be able to get a good bike. Also, it is important, that you are a responsible, friendly, helpful, and interesting person. And now, some information about cycling, routes and how the bikes work

Biking 101

There are two distinct routes: paved routes and trail routes. These routes require different bikes and ranges. For example, on paved asphalt roads, you may ride 25 kilometers per hour on average with a road bike and make 200km or even 250km in a one-day trip. But If you use a mountain bike, even 150km will be tough. This is due to the weight of mountain bikes, wide rough wheels, and less-powerful cranks.

Mountain bikes are universal, but road bikes are faster. Road bikes are fast. My highest speed on a road bike was 64 km per hour, and I scored it in Mallorca when I was going on a highway with a small slope. Usually, I gain 50 km per hour. Professionals have a maximum speed of 112 km per hour. Interestingly, most riders named this number as the maximum they did. Such high speeds are gained due to the lightness of the bike and rider. Expensive carbon road bikes weigh nearly 7.5 kilograms.

The tires are important. There are tires for roads, trails, downhill, cross country, winter variations, etc. All of them have different forms and widths and, therefore, frictions. That is why downhill tires will stop faster and will be easier to control, but you will not score even 40 km per hour on the road.

Cranks help you to use the optimal force. Cranks make your rear wheel move. The bigger the front crank and the lower the rear is, the more force you will apply to a wheel. Why is that? To move the wheel, you need to trigger the rear crank. All the cranks are attached – therefore, all the cranks are constantly spinning together. We need to spin one of these cranks, but which one will be easier to spin?

Let’s experiment: put your phone or notebook on a table and spin it around the center of a device. Try first to do it on a point further from a center and closer to a center which is easier – further from the center. But check the distance your finger made to make one 360 degrees spin. The closer to a center made a much smaller distance. What does it mean? The shorter length, the harder it is to spin, to apply a force. That Is why the smaller rear crank gives more force. We have an opposite situation on the front wheel – try to explain it yourself.

The bigger front crank or lower real crank does not mean, that you will be faster – you need to apply much more force (or Power, in Watts), and you can be fastly exhausted, and you may damage your cranks. Friction of tires and a road and the friction of chain and the cranks are also reasons for lower speed and damaging a bike. You have to control the forces to get a higher speed.

But there are limits. Road bikes give you the possibility to apply a lot of force, or power, Watts. That helps gain huge speed on a road. But, when you want to ascend a mountain, you need much smaller power, otherwise, you will be tired in seconds. Road bike does not have such a small front or such big rear cranks. That is why it is too hard to ascend with a road bike, even with lower weight, and thinner tires.

2022   bicycle   english   Europe

Bike Lockers: Structure and Design

Bike lockers will appear in the upcoming years, mainly in every city of Europe. The trend of ecological and healthy transportation comes into our lives. People need to leave a bike or an e-scooter in the place where Locker will protect the transport from rain, thieves, and vandals. Few companies already produce the boxes, but most make mistakes and can’t take the market over. In this article, I gathered the main features of the bicycle locker structure and design. To make reading clear, I sorted the rules by topics.

Place

Bicycle lockers can be anywhere: near Shopping malls, Offices, Schools, hotels, garages, museums, train and metro stations, public places, homes, garages, etc. It is possible to make different lockers for each location, but the locker price will be overwhelming. For this reason, companies try to make one universal model for any location. Some companies offer additional features, like the Bluetooth locker, a green roof, e-charging, or a different color. These changes are not crucially affecting the construction but help to reach the needs of the customers.

Safebikely, they have the best design for now.

Form

Bicycle lockers should be compact. One rectangle must include two bicycle slots on two sides.

The bicycle should enter the locker starting from the rear wheels.

you may scroll left and right

The basement may be made for each rectangle separately for the ease of transportation or changing the sizes if the amount of boxes does not satisfy the demand. However, you will get the double layer of the inner walls. So, the basement can be made for all of the planned sections.

The walls between slots can be made out of the metallic grid or with patterned or transparent material. It is made for safety reasons. The outer walls can also be patterned or transparent. It depends on the safety requirements from the government or a company. But the box must not lose the primary purpose – the safety of a bike.

The lock on a box must be covered from the rain. The lock can become rusty soon, and the opening of the door will be a tragedy.
Handles must be comfortable and keep warm temperature. On hot or cold days, the metallic handle can reach an enormous temperature so that it will be uncomfortable or even risky to touch the handle. They can be either made of a material like wood or can be covered by a sunlight.

The locker must be easy to clean. There should not be details that make cleaning impossible, like too sharp angles or too small patterns.

Size

If we want to place the boxes on the street, we should not make them too high; otherwise, boxes can damage the view of a city and can be banned to use in the city.

The size should be well suited for standard e-scooters (like Ninebot or Xiaomi), city bikes, road bikes, and MTBs. Let’s assume that the max size of Mtb can be XL (22 inches frame) with 29 inches wheels. Don’t count any unique bikes that are too high or too long, a bike with four wheels, or a bike with too wide handlebars.

For example, I took Cube Stereo Hybrid 160 with a frame length of 128,9 cm and 73,9cm (29 inches) wheels. That means that the length is 129+74=203cm + 2-5cm. The manufacturer of steel usually uses 2m and 2.5m width of a steel sheet. So we must satisfy 2m. In this case, we put the bicycle not straight but under angle.

The height is equal to half of a wheel 37cm + frame and handlebar size 65cm + 7-10cm- + additional space 3-5cm, so it is 115 cm-120. don’t forget about the height of a basement and the “feet” to make the construction stable.

The width is equal to the size of the handlebar. Mtb handlebar has a maximal of 61 cm. Don’t forget about the real part. The width of tires (excluding fatbikes) and the end of the frame are important. So, the width in the form should be 65-75 cm. The manufacturer uses a 1.5m, 2m, 2.5m sizes of the sheet, so we can use 75 cm for 2 walls, or 67 for 3 walls (but it’s hard to measure it right), or 62.5cm for 4 walls using 250cm sheet. Don’t forget about the angled laid bike.

we see that in this example the size of a box is too large and it could be lower if we assume that most of the people use normal-sized bikes, however, don’t forget that e-scooter must have enough space there too, maybe the scooter can be laid on a wall to save space

Material

The purpose of the box is to protect the bicycle; the design and sustainability come next.
The material used should last long and should be easy to clean and produce. The material should be water, cold, and dirt resistant. However, the price of the material should not be extremely high unless it is corten steel.

Why can corten be a good idea? If we implement corten steel, we don’t need to care about cleaning it, and through times corten will look better. Corten seems nice with a green roof. However, this is an assumption. Probably due to its size, it will look unpleasant.

That is just a pot for the flowers, but it looks like the bicycle locker.

Color

Color should be neutral. It is better to use one color. The color may differ due to different surroundings and company styles. If it is a specific material, like corten, we save the initial color.

The box lock

There can be three types of locks in the locker: no locks, key (password) lock, and Bluetooth (Wifi or cellular) lock. Each type has its scenario of usage:

  1. No locker can be used, e. g., in schools, shopping malls, or other locations, where lockers are not used for a direct profit. Instead, people can use their locks, then the purpose of the box is to keep safe the details of a bike: wheels, cranks, saddle, or forks. These parts are popular in the darknet.
  2. A Key or a password lock can be used near houses (e. g., in the courtyard), offices, etc. That means that only members of one community will be able to use the bicycle parking slots. The boxes can also be used for profit by renting out the slots for months or years.
  3. A Bluetooth (Wifi or cellular) lock can be used for mass usage. These boxes can be placed anywhere and are typically used for profit. The owner can be the shopping mall, business center, University, or even a government.

structural stability and safety

The box must not fall or disassemble due to external forces like vandalism, punching, or obviously – using a screwdriver.
That means that only an authorized person can disassemble a box, e. g., with special instruments.

other examples

By this link, you may find different companies who produce or use bike lockers. I used their photos in this article.

Holy Bike, my project of a bike locker will use all of the rules mentioned above to make the most comfortable and well-looking Bike Box

2021   bicycle   Design   Дизайн   Стартапы

Sram Eagle, how to choose the right model

All of the Stram Eagle sets are good. They are better than any sets that were 10 years ago on market. The difference between models is in materials and additional features.

SX

It is the cheapest set, you cannot even buy this on market

NX 300$

Just a good set

GX 545$

This is the best set in price/quality ratio. usually is used in bikes from 2000$ to 5000$

GX carbon 685$

is made of carbon, so it weighs less.

X01 eagle 1285$

XX1 1500$

nearly the same as X01, just better material

X01 eagle AXS 1900

This model does not have wires. It is an electrical set. That means, that when you pull the trigger, the trigger will send a signal to the rear chainring changer. usually, it has enough power for one day, so it is not a good variant for long-term trailing.

more information you can find in this youtube video

2021   bicycle   Велосипед