TdF and recumbents

On Jul 27, 10:27*am, Hank wrote:
On Jul 27, 8:52*am, Tim McNamara wrote:

Pat writes:
How would a recumbent handle the Tour?

You mean, if the UCI rules permitted the use of recumbents?

They'd like have some advantage on flat breakaways and time trials,
but the disadvantages in sprinting and climbing would scupper them
compared to regular bikes.

Another factor is that recumbents are heavier than regular bikes,
although there are now some 20-22 lb recumbents (e.gg., Bacchetta)
that can be bought by Joe Everedge. *That would go a long way towards
improving climbing. *My friend Don's titanium Bacchetta seems to work
pretty good on climbs.

I'm wondering how well they'd handle switchbacks, since all lowracers
are LWB, right? Plus, having the rider closer to the ground reduces
lean clearance.

I think they'd be great for TTs and probably flat road stages. In the
mountains, both climbing and descending (unless the descent is a
straightaway), not so much.

And every time Tom uses the phrase "foam hat" I want to punch him in
the neck. Not that I'm pro- or anti-helmet, it's just a jackass thing
to call it.

Hey, I am a proud wearer of a foam hat. My current one bears the marks
of a fall and it is cracked on one side. I had another one that I
cracked in half. Don't know what damage I would have sustained without
the foam hat, but I am certainly glad I was wearing it on those two
occasions. So, I take no offense in wearing a foam hat. Mine I got on
sale at sierra trading post many years ago and it fits very comfy. Its
blue with yellow and red, sort of like one of those hot-rods with
flames on the sides. Any anti-helmet proponents would be envious of my
excellent taste and looks. Style man and the Fav five would certainly
approve and wear one just to walk if they saw me. Also, I like to
paint and all my cyclists wear foam hats and look good.

http://www.geocities.com/andresmuro/desert.html

Anyways, its been raining like crazy hear in the El Pazso dessert for
the last couple of days. So, I am going running instead of riding. See
ya latter.

Andres

aka Andres Muro wrote:

There are a couple of guys that ride recumbents and show up to up to
our weekend rides occasionally. One of them would never be able to
keep up with our group and the other could on regular bikes. With
recumbents they keep up with the group without problems. One of them
takes pulls at 25+ mile per hour without braking a sweat. On flats,
recumbents transform average cyclists into animals. The lower the
recumbents the faster these guys become. One has a very low racing
recumbents and he built an aero contraption in the back. He goes
really fast in that apparatus and because he is very low, it is hard
to draft him. He makes a great training partner. It's sort of like
motor pacing. On hills, he slows down quite a bit though. It is not
just the weight. His racing recumbent is not that heavy.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that that a particular recumbent
is 20% faster on the flats and equal on the climbs to the group members'
uprights. If the recumbent rider is just the equal of the group on the
flats, that means he is a considerably weaker rider, so it is no wonder
he gets dropped on the hills. What is being demonstrated is not the poor
climbing ability of the recumbent (which is typically the false
conclusion made by the upright riders), but rather its performance
advantage on flatter terrain.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

Tim McNamara wrote:
Pat writes:

How would a recumbent handle the Tour?

You mean, if the UCI rules permitted the use of recumbents?

They'd like have some advantage on flat breakaways and time trials,
but the disadvantages in sprinting and climbing would scupper them
compared to regular bikes.

Would the upright sprinter ever catch the recumbent breakaway so as to
be able to use their greater [1] sprinting power?

Another factor is that recumbents are heavier than regular bikes,
although there are now some 20-22 lb recumbents (e.gg., Bacchetta)
that can be bought by Joe Everedge.

Gee, I know people that have Razz-Fazz lowracers that are in the 7.5 kgf
(16½ pound) range, much lighter than the Bacchetta Arrow, er Aero.

That would go a long way towards
improving climbing. My friend Don's titanium Bacchetta seems to work
pretty good on climbs.

While that bicycle is higher performance that most commercially
available recumbents, it is not in the class of a Razz Fazz with a
tailbox or a Velokraft NoCom.

[1] Probably 1.5:1 or 2:1 based on the meager evidence.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

Hank Wirtz wrote:
On Jul 27, 8:52 am, Tim McNamara wrote:
Pat writes:
How would a recumbent handle the Tour?
You mean, if the UCI rules permitted the use of recumbents?

They'd like have some advantage on flat breakaways and time trials,
but the disadvantages in sprinting and climbing would scupper them
compared to regular bikes.

Another factor is that recumbents are heavier than regular bikes,
although there are now some 20-22 lb recumbents (e.gg., Bacchetta)
that can be bought by Joe Everedge. That would go a long way towards
improving climbing. My friend Don's titanium Bacchetta seems to work
pretty good on climbs.

I'm wondering how well they'd handle switchbacks, since all lowracers
are LWB, right? Plus, having the rider closer to the ground reduces
lean clearance.

Every commercially produced lowracer and most homebuilt ones are short
wheelbase [1]. I can only think of a few homebuilt lowracers that are
long wheelbase. What limits the turning radius on many lowracers is
running the chain by the front wheel for less drive train friction. This
limits the turning diameter to about 20 to 30 feet, or similar to most
front wheel drive subcompact cars on the market. So no problems on any
road built for automobiles.

Ground clearance is not an issue. On my lowracers the BB is about 46 cm
above the ground, and the bike can be leaned over by hand to more than
60° from the vertical before any "ground strike". As Jobst Brandt has
pointed out, if your lean angle goes much beyond 45°, you are crashing.
It is uprights that typically have the clearance issues (pedal strike)
with their lower bottom brackets and preferences for longer cranks than
are optimum on recumbents.

I think they'd be great for TTs and probably flat road stages. In the
mountains, both climbing and descending (unless the descent is a
straightaway), not so much.

With some vertical compliance built into the frame while retaining
torsional stiffness [2], passive suspension occurs which can help
greatly when traversing high speed bumps. The limited sight line over
obstructions is much less of an issue on a closed road that can be
pre-ridden (as is the case in the TdF). As for cornering grip/speed, I
see no theoretical or practical reasons which this should differ
significantly from that of an upright bicycle.

I will not repeat my discussion on climbing performance here that is
posted elsewhere in this thread.

And every time Tom uses the phrase "foam hat" I want to punch him in
the neck. Not that I'm pro- or anti-helmet, it's just a jackass thing
to call it.

Not in the face?

butbutbut, the primary component is expanded polystyrene which is
commonly known as Styrofoam®, and it is worn in the same location as
clothing items known as hats.

Is it also not being a jackass to spew pro-bicycle alleged protective
headgear propaganda that is not backed by evidence?

[1] This is defined by the BB being ahead of the head tube (SWB),
adjacent to the head tube (MWB) or behind the head tube (LWB). Actual
wheel base length does not factor, except to distinguish compact long
wheel base (CLWB) which is less than 1.5-m from LWB (1.5-m or greater).
[2] Quite possible on a single tube CFRP frame, and possible to a lesser
extent on metal single tube frames and only partially triangulated metal
frames.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

aka Andres Muro wrote:
...
Hey, I am a proud wearer of a foam hat. My current one bears the marks
of a fall and it is cracked on one side. I had another one that I
cracked in half. Don't know what damage I would have sustained without
the foam hat, but I am certainly glad I was wearing it on those two
occasions. So, I take no offense in wearing a foam hat. Mine I got on
sale at sierra trading post many years ago and it fits very comfy. Its
blue with yellow and red, sort of like one of those hot-rods with
flames on the sides. Any anti-helmet proponents would be envious of my
excellent taste and looks. Style man and the Fav five would certainly
approve and wear one just to walk if they saw me....

Fabrizio Mazzoleni would only wear what the UCI pros are using this
year. He could not stand to see his reflection in the store front
windows wearing last years helmet/foam hat model.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:23:07 +0100, Pat
wrote:

How would a recumbent handle the Tour?

Pineapples.

Kiwi fruit.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:23:07 +0100, Pat
wrote:

How would a recumbent handle the Tour?

Dear Pat,

It's common to confuse recumbency with fairings.

But no one is allowed to use fairings in the Tour de France.

As Scott Adams might say, no wool jumpsuits are involved:

Dogbert: "Who would win if a giant moth fought a giant but modest bee
in an all wool jumpsuit?"

Dilbert: "Wait . . . who's wearing the jumpsuit--the giant moth or the
giant bee?"

Dogbert: "The bee."

Dilbert: Is this just hypothetical?"

http://books.google.com/books?id=erx...um=3&ct=result

In 1934, a single unfaired recumbent did okay against upright teams
(but was by no means overpowering) in a dozen or so one-day, fairly
flat city-to-city races out of Paris.

An unknown contemporary enthusiast argued that the recumbent rider,
Manuel Morand, was medioc

"The writer [of a letter to Mochet, the recumbent designer] states
that the Velocar must be an outstanding and excellent machine, if a
mediocre rider like Manuel Morand can get such good results with it!
He therefore proposes creating a pro-team of good riders for the next
Tour de France. He offers to take responsibility for this and for
finding sponsors and other support, such as masseurs. Mochet would
only have to deal with the technical aspects: to build the Velocars."

Alas, no recumbent team materialized, possibly because the UCI banned
recumbents when literally second-class riders like Faure on unfaired
recumbents began winning track races.

So far, recumbents haven't attracted enough competitive riders and
fans to set up their own Tour de France for comparison. There was a
shorter TDF with fewer days for women for a few years--I think that it
reappeared this year. And a woman finished the 1924 Giro, though she
had to have the time-cut rule waived:
http://speedychix.blogspot.com/2008/...g-history.html

Anyway, back to unfaired recumbents competing against unfaired
uprights . . .

The rider, Morand, hired by the recumbent designer, Mochet, often did
well on the flats, but he was usually dropped uphill:

"All the early hours [of the 1934 Paris-Angers 310 km, over 9 hours]
would have been desperately monotonous but for the Spaniard Morand,
who rode a recumbent bicycle, and kept us amused. Then when he was
leading the field he did an easy 50 kph for several kilometres at a
time. This forced his rivals to work terribly hard. Fortunately for
them, he did not rub it in too much, and uphill he was generally
dropped."

Mochet felt that his unfaired recumbent was better, one-on-one, than
an upright, but that team tactics defeated Morand:

"Morand was hired at the beginning of 1934 to take part in road
competitions. He was not a super champion but a good, serious and
conscientious professional racer. He practised on the Velorizontal
with application. He participated in about 15 pro events with
distances in the order of 250 to 350 km. I believe he finished them
all and in honourable places. He was all on his own with no
team-mates, no following car, nothing. Given the circumstances, his
performances were admirable."

"The Velorizontal was clearly superior and performed better than a
classic bicycle. We had believed that Morand would win a classic race
quite easily. However, we had ignored the fact that a bicycle race
comprises a bunch of teams. These form very fast elements. If Morand
could last against a bunch over 20 to 30 km, he had against him the 50
to 100 he would have dominated individually. But acting together, they
left him no chance to finish first. His determination to keep going
was admirable. He demonstrated that riding a Velorizontal was easy
in a bunch. Despite the hostility of all, he finished these long
competitive rides honorably, and he was a great and good chap."

Of course, a team of good riders _might_ have had more success than
Morand on his lonesome unfaired recumbent.

(As long as they weren't wearing wool jumpsuits.)

More details and three photos of Morand on his unfaired recumbent:
http://www.hadland.me.uk/velocar.pdf

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Pat wrote:
How would a recumbent handle the Tour?

I have no idea, but I got a ride on one of these

http://www.meta-bikes.com/welcome.html

and it was pretty awesome.

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:25:01 +0200, Tosspot wrote:

Pat wrote:
How would a recumbent handle the Tour?

I have no idea, but I got a ride on one of these

http://www.meta-bikes.com/welcome.html

and it was pretty awesome.

Oh well, if you're looking for the exotic...
http://www.johnstone-wheelers.co.uk/killian_mic.php

Never heard of them before, but:
http://www.razz-fazz-race.de/mediac/...z-Fazz~003.jpg