DougC wrote:

Postman Delivers wrote:

Bike 2.0 takes Seoul Cycle Design Competition prize
By Ben Coxworth

18:06 November 22, 2010
http://www.gizmag.com/bike-20-wins-s...etition/17019/

Short URL
http://xr.com/nm9o

(yawn)
Not a bike, just a daydream and a pretty picture.

Worse than that, there are plenty of technical materials available
that explain why the "winner" is a design loser. Archibald Sharp's
_Bicycles and Tricycles_, published in the 19th century, explains the
shortcomings of the cross-style frame as employed in this bike. And
David Gordon Wilson's _Bicycling Science_ has analysis that shows the
maximum efficiency of a generator-motor pair to be somewhat less than
the minimum efficiency of a poorly-maintained conventional bicycle.

Bikes are not new. There has been a lot of design vetting to arrive
at the systems we have. Non-cyclist industrial designers almost
inevitably make large steps backwards when they seek to "improve" the
bicycle, because they are ignorant of the drawbacks of their mistakes
(which someone else usually made 140 years ago).

These contests would be a lot more interesting (and have a lot less
bull****) if they had to demonstrate at least one complete working
example.

That would be a fine constraint to place on entries to such contests.
And then we'd see that most gee-whiz updates to the basic design of a
bicycle result in slow, heavy, expensive, fragile, unpleasant riding
machines.

Chalo