CRAB

www.crabeauce.com

Vacation

I'm going in vacation in Southern Europe until August 5th. Keep posted. Follow me on my trip at: www.jeanthibca.blogspot.com

Gaming Friday: Snake

One legged bike

Cannondale brought to us the Lefty, proving that symetry isn't needed to make a bike. Is it possible to also get rid of one chainstay? This prototype might be the answer. Benefit: the bike easily fold around the pivot for travel .

236 kph bike

Not a motorcycle, a hydrogen peroxyde rocket powered bicycle. Look at the video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/blog/video/273905?key=dplsx2l3q67dcwnljab5naxuaja7k2ct6ptlaw3n&play=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vmqca.qc.ca%2Fgroupedediscussion%2Fmessages%2F52953.html

Logo design

A good post about logo design from design observer: http://www.designobserver.com/archives/013873.html

Gaming Friday: Clownoid

Tour de Beauce results

This year winner is Valeriy KOBZARENKO from Navigator Insurance, the team that also won overall. Congradulations to all.

Cervelo R3 team

A week ago, I reviewed Cervelo's Soloist on June 12 nd saying that it wasn't the most confortable bike around, mostly because of its oval seatpost. Those wanting exceptionnal lightness and comfort should look at the R3. This bike have unbelivable thin seatstays that are designed to easily bend to give a comfortable ride. Don't be fooled, this bike is plenty stiff, thanks of massive squared downtube and chainstays. The manufacturer says that this is the best shape to resist lateral bending, compared to a round tube which is better to resist twisting. In their website, Cervelo criticized round tube as they are flexy laterally. This prove than only stupid persons don't change their mind since in their beginning, Cervelo promoted heavily round chainstays as they were stiffer than verticaly ovalized one. This isn't the most aerodynamic bike around, but I think that comfort is important for most of us, or for winning the bumpy Paris-Roubaix, as Castarella did this year on a R3.

Conference bike

17juin2006 004, originally uploaded by jeanthibca.

Seats 6 people face to face. Perfect for business meeting. I saw one in Amsterdam that the center of the bike was a beer tap!

Tour de Beauce

What a shame that I didn't provide coverage of the Tour de Beauce, which is held mainly in my hometown. The hilly Tour de Beauce is the second largest road bike race in America after the Tour de Georgia, although I think it's still the highest UCI ranked. They are now in stage 4 (out of 6) and I will provide uptodate coverage since now. Check the website: http://www.tourdebeauce.com/
Leader:

• 1st stage: KOBZARENKO,Valeriy
• 2nd stage: PARINUSSA, Stefan
  
• 3rd stage: PARINUSSA, Stefan
• 4th stage: coming when the race will finish!

Tour de Beauce

What a shame that I didn't provide coverage of the Tour de Beauce, which is held mainly in my hometown. The hilly Tour de Beauce is the second largest road bike race in America after the Tour de Georgia, although I think it's still the highest UCI ranked. They are now in stage 4 (out of 6) and I will provide uptodate coverage since now. Check the website: http://www.tourdebeauce.com/
Leader:

• 1st stage: KOBZARENKO,Valeriy
• 2nd stage: PARINUSSA, Stefan
  
• 3rd stage: PARINUSSA, Stefan
• 4th stage: coming when the race will finish!

Suspension simulation

Those who were impressed by my last post about a Java based bicycle CAD applet will have their mind completely blown by this suspension simulator. You can pick a template or draw from scratch your own full suspension design and then test it for things like bump compliance, chain feedback, brake squat... You can download the whole thing or working within your browser with a install. Amazing
http://fs-kinematics.igorion.com/index.jsp

Gaming Friday: Asteroids

Esay bike CAD

For those interested in bike designing, you should head to BikeCAD, a java applet enabling you to easily draw your own bike blueprint. Nice and easy. http://www.bikeforest.com/CAD/bikeCAD.html

New: ClusterMaps

This service analyses the IP address of those who visit this site and then add a dot on the map depending of where they are. You can now know where are the people interested by this blog. Enjoy!

Last Call

Knowing that I'm a racer, you can guess that I'm not the chopper style. This might change since I saw the Miele Last Call, made in my hometown by Procycle, Canada. While most chopper display a baroque like complexity, this one have just smooth, attractive curves. The website says that it was inspired by Italian design. www.procycle.com

Esay rider

This a clever system for the less physical and environementally friendly of us. Installing a two strokes engine now involve just changing a front wheel and swapping for water bottle for a gasoline filled one. It is said that it's less loud that it look, weight 12 pounds, add 1Hp and makes about 200 mpg. Althought I admire the design, 2 strokes engines no burned gases pollute so much that I would never recommend such device. Why not heading for an electric one?
photo: manufacurer website https://www.revopower.com/

Cervelo' Solosit Carbon

Admit it Cervelos are the lighest, stiffest, hottest bikes around. Not to mention having won the 2006 Giro and Paris-Roubaix! The soloist is one of the most amazing piece of rolling carbon I ever saw. All tubes are extensively aero-shaped, while still being so light than some setup oblige the racer to use heavier deep rimed aero wheels. The bottom bracket area is simply huge, as you can appreciate on the frame Ivan Basso is holding. This is the only consession the a full aero design that Cervelo maked. However, the company said that it don't distrurbe the air flow much, because it is already very disturbed by the crankset and the front wheel. This frame is so stiff and aerodynamical that some CSC racers use it for time-trial. (Which is quite surprising since these racers have a dedicated P3 TT machine!). At 5000$, frame-only, it is not for everyone. Those who don't want to spend as much for a bike than for a car so look at the Aluminium Soloist. Slightly heavier, but still very aero, it can become the ultimate TT or triathlon machine by reversing the oval shaped seatpost. It cost 1500$, but it's a real deal, since you get 2 top performing bikes for the price one! However, I heard that the oval seatpost don't give much, so it is the most confortable ride around.

Biomega's Brooklyn

Any cyclist interested in design would rush to Biomega's website. Their bikes are so innovative, it is breathtaking. They may have found THE solution for sand and snow cycling. Instead of using studded or very large 26'' tires (more about this later), they used sort of ATV tires with a BMX frame. The result is a very bad-ass looking bike, that would surely find a place in my garage. I live in Canada so this kind of bike may give me a new perspective of cycling in the snow. Picutres: Biomega's website

Twisted bike

The work of a twisted mind!

Gaming Friday: Space Invaders

Bicycle furniture

I was in Paris last weekend and I was pleased by the decoration of the hotel bar (Ibis Bercy). Much of the furniture were made of bicycle parts, not to mention that the staff wore jerseys. The bar name is ''Les six jours'' refering to the 6 days track race that was held at the beginning of the 20th century.

I think that local frame builder could build that kind of things, to reach prospects with artistic and low priced stuff. It would be a very credible offer since custom bicycles are also works of art and creativity. A foot in the door to sell them a brand new frame!

Gaming Friday: PacMan

Biomega shart-drive

Biomega is one of the most innovative company when it comes to city bikes. Their Copenhagen model is a stunting exemple of that. The shaft of the drivetrain is enclosed in the chainstay, to reduce weight (although the bike is over 30 pounds). People that makes shaft drive and that don't use this route are either lazy or to much price oriented. The bike even have an internal geared hub, which is not that common for shaft bike. Check their other wonderful bikes at: www.biomega.dk

BB pivot

Most four bar linkage full suspension bike have their main pivot just above the bottom bracket. Since pedaling feedback come from a variation in the chain lengh, this pivot should ideally be placed on the BB instead of near it. This would equal a constant chain lengh no matter where the bike is in its travel, without the use of a crazy pivot system (like the Giant Maestro). Probably that the design constrains were to have bearing small enough to get around the bb while being still strong. Several manufacturer have produced such a design. Jamis with the carbon Diablo, Rotec, Dean and then this custom frame builder. The bike shown here succeded well on this task. The bearings are german needle bearing, both small in diameter and strong (the rear-end looks a lot like a Dean). The design are is a faux-bar, with the secondary pivot on the rearstay instead of on the chainstay. This a maybe more prone to brake-lock than the patented Specialized horst-link, but it ensure that the chain is always at the same lengh. This would allow this bike to run a single-speed cog, are more logically for a 2000$ frame, a Rohloff hub. The downfall of this design is that a little bit a chaingrow might be good for traction, but again, at the price of pedaling feedback. This bike is made by a small american frame builder out of steel. I lost the manufacturer website, but I will had it to this post soon.

Titus Exogrid

Good design in not just about mechanical properties. It's also making things beautiful. You you at the Titus Exogrid tubing. It is made out of machined titanium with an underlayer of carbon. They could have made the titanium holes industrial looking with FEA. Instead, they push the design up to put their brand on the tube. Beautiful! This is the kind of raffinent I like. Carved lugs for steel bike is great, but it is to past inclined for me. I prefer futuristic things like the Exogrid.

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Single-speed drop-out

Single-speeds are cool, but they have a big downside. The rear hub can slide in the drop-out under heavy torque. Many solution exist. First, Paul Component designed a drop-out with a screw to ajust after the wheel is in the proper position. The design is simple and neat. More interesting are the Paragon Machine work slinding drop-out. More complicated but they have the major advantage of allowing the use of disk-brake without crazy solution (like the one from Paul Component). Another solution that allow disk-brake is the eccentric bottom bracket. It allow regular vertical drop-out for the price of weight, complexity and money. It is a paradox to see that a bike designed to be simpler become quite a headache!

White industrie Eccentric hub

There are many solutions for transforming a regularvertical drop-outs equipped mountain bike to a single-speed. First, you can be lucky so your chainstay/chainring/sprocket combinaison is exactly want you need to obtain the right chain tension. Or you can toy with differents gears until it fits. For this, you have to be quite flexible on the gear size you can propel. A popular solution is to add a chain tensioner. It works like a derailleur, but at my opinion, itdisturb the single-speed harmony and a bit of the efficiency (the Paul component version is pictured here). A better looking alternative is the White Industrie Eccentric hub. It's axle can move reporting to the frame, so a perfect chain tension can be achived. It cost 159 US$ Finally, a more radical alternative for steel frames is to change the drop-outs for horizontal ones. This may cost around 40$ in material and 200$ in labor, plus a new paint job. At my opinion, all these alternative are far from perfect. A better idea would be to sale the frame and to buy a single-speed specific one. Why not? Maybe it is time for a new baby!

Gearbox continued

Following my post on G-boxx, I saw a gearbox prototype from Hayes showed in Interbike. It is made from a road bike cassette and a very simple derailler that push a pulley across the cassette. The design is good because it is simple stupid, much more simpler than a Rohloff hub. The good part is than standard parts are used here, simplifing replacement, which is a good departure form the geared hub gearboxes. However, this design puts a lot of load on the small chain, leading perhaps to breakage and wear. An overdesigned chain would be welcome here. The compangy said it is open for builders wanting to add the gearbox to their bikes. It is not probable than this design would be light enought for XC bikes, but it might be good for DH ones. The benefits are that

G-boxx

The G-boxx project (http://www.g-boxx.org/) is to create a open-source platform for derailleur-less bicycle. The main objective is to get rid of the breakage prone parts like derailleurs and dished-wheels. A G-boxx bike will typically have a gear box system consiting of either a chain based or a geared hub based system. The result unable a full suspension bike to have a single pivot located in the best spot while still having the main gear situated a the center of the main pivot. It also give the bike a stunning look! The one picutured above is a Nicolai, a mechanical marvel costing about 4000$ frame only. More about Nicolai later. Pictures: www.nicolai.net/

AWD bicycle part 2

Another AWD bicycle design that comes from my home province of Quebec. It's chain driven and it's weight about 45 pounds. The manufacturer said that it is used somewere by soldiers in the desert. The design is not as clean as the one that have been previously discussed. I don't know if this design could handle a full-suspension setup. The point is still if a driving front wheel is needed. Cycling puts so much weight on the rear wheel that gives it a lot of traction. A little bit like front and rear braking, the former being way much more efficient. Picture: manufacturer website: www.chartran.com