Slashdot Mirror
Collin Graver and his Wooden Bicycle (Video)
This is not a practical bike. "Even on smooth pavement, your vision goes blurry because you're vibrating so hard," Collin said to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter back in 2012 when he was only 15 -- and already building wooden bicycles. Collin's wooden bikes are far from the first ones. Wikipedia says, "The first bicycles recorded, known variously as velocipedes, dandy horses, or hobby horses, were constructed from wood, starting in 1817." And not all wooden bicycles made today are as crude as Collin's. A Portland (OR) company called Renovo makes competition-quality hardwood bicycle frames -- for as little as $2200, and a bunch more for a complete bike with all its hardware fitted and ready to roll.
Of course, while it might be sensible to buy a Renovo product if you want a wood-framed bike to Race Across America, you won't improve your woodworking skills the way Collin's projects have improved his to the point where he's made a nice-looking pair of wood-framed sunglasses described in his WOOD YOU? SHOULD YOU? blog. (Alternate Video Link)
Of course, while it might be sensible to buy a Renovo product if you want a wood-framed bike to Race Across America, you won't improve your woodworking skills the way Collin's projects have improved his to the point where he's made a nice-looking pair of wood-framed sunglasses described in his WOOD YOU? SHOULD YOU? blog. (Alternate Video Link)
Someone's woodworking project is news for nerds... ...how?
Punch tree, make bicycle?
More seriously, why? If this was a 3D printed bicycle, I could understand it being here. If he was selling them for BitCoins, I could see why someone would post it to Slashdot.
Even the summary admits that there is nothing special about this accomplishment, it's just a bandwidth-eating video and a link to a woodworking blog!
I've also seen bamboo framed ones where jsut the tubes are bamboo. They're much like normal biles otherwise and I presume exactly as comfortable. There's at least one I've read about which is 100% wood. Getting the bearings and power transmission were apparently the harddest bits.
Can't find a link though.
Anyway props to this guy for making bikes out of wood.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is not a practical bike. "Even on smooth pavement, your vision goes blurry because you're vibrating so hard," Collin said to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter back in 2012 when he was only 15 -- and already building wooden bicycles. Collin's wooden bikes are far from the first ones. Wikipedia says, "The first bicycles recorded, known variously as velocipedes, dandy horses, or hobby horses, were constructed from wood, starting in 1817."
You know what else those early bicycles were called? "Boneshakers."
This seems like Maker/DIY gone terribly wrong. Why would a nerd be interested in this news?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Is what "I build wooden bikes" sounds like.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
still more relevant that most windows related articles though.
There has never been a time when wooden bikes weren't being made. As late as the 1930's, people were making bikes with wooden compression-type spokes, rather than steel tension-type spokes, and currently there are piles of amazing wooden bikes being made.
This Owen was used as a triathalon bike, with some very respectable finishes (race finishes, not varnish finishes): https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
Satoshi Sano has been building spectacular bikes using traditional Japanese boatbuilding techniques: https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
and
http://sanomagic.world.coocan....
Note internal cabling in steam-bent frame elements, and a wooden seat on a steam-bent seatpost.
And since bamboo is wood, there are at least a dozen companies using bamboo as the primary frame material.
Calfee started it, as far as I can tell:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
But there are many others, like Panda and Boo.
Bamboosera makes a great Cannondale-shock mountain bike:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
and Hero Bikes make work and utility bikes:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
Hero (and at least two other companies) go so far as to offer classes, where over a weekend you start out by harvesting bamboo, and end up making a complete ready-to-build-up frameset.
http://www.herobike.org/collec...
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Those wooden sunglasses don't show much wood working skill at all. It's 3 pieces of wood and they don't appear to fit together extremely precisely as it is. That's a high school shop class level project.
The AJC article mentioned the weight and the rough ride. I'd guess that yet another disadvantage of a wooden bicycle, at least when sharing the road with motor vehicles, is that it's impossible to trigger a green traffic signal without enough metal surface to disturb the flux in the induction loop beneath the approach to the intersection. At some intersections, even a metal bicycle has a problem with that.
Maybe they should publish the video on a few other sites. Unless it's a lengthy clip of a small rotating circular symbol.
While a piece of steel is obviosuyly much stronger than a piece of wood of the same dimensions, if we stipulate equal *weights* rather than equal dimensions, the piece of wood may be stronger. The "specific strength" (or "strength to weight ratio) of some woods like balsa are greater than most steels.
That means that the applications of wood overlap the applications of steel somewhat. Some places where you need a little steel you can use a lot of wood and the result will be equally strong and weigh about the same.
Of course ultimate strength isn't the only issue. Steel is ductile and wood is brittle; that means steel has much more forgiving failure modes than wood. Steel is uniform and every piece of wood is different. Steel is equally strong in every direction and wood is weaker across the grain than along it. Steel is very stiff and wood is very flexible. But still it's interesting that wood is not totally obsoleted by steel in every application. Tall buildings would require wooden columns of impractically immense dimensions but we still frame low-rise buildings primarily in wood. We use steel for crossbow limbs but so far as I know nobody has used it for longbows, which are made of wood or fiberglass.
Every material has its limitations, but the ultimate limitation is the ingenuity of the designer.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
They were boneshakers because they didn't have pneumatic tires. This is not true of a modern bicycle, and we also have far more understanding of mechanical systems and materials, including wood, now.
It is a widely perpetuated myth, mostly by bicycle frame makers who are attempting to get you to spend gobs of money on special designs, frame materials, etc that are "vertically stiff and horizontally compliant" (this phrase is now such marketing cliche it's mocked a lot)...that road bicycle suspension happens in the frame. It doesn't/shouldn't. It happens almost entirely in the tire/tube; when you go over a bump, the rest of the tube+tire stretches slightly to absorb the impact, and then contracts back. Some suspension also happens in the wheel; a wheel is quite strong in part because the spokes and rim both have some give to them.
Just as with cars, the most effective suspension is the one that has the least unsprung weight. So for example, high performance cars often have suspension and brake components made out of high-strength-for-weight materials, but in general, car manufacturers try to keep the weight of the suspension down.
On a bicycle with a properly sized and inflated tire for the rider's weight and road conditions, there is very little unsprung mass
Please help metamoderate.
I'd take your post more seriously if you didn't make absurd generalizations like "steel is very stiff and wood is very flexible." From that alone it's obvious you understand nothing about materials.
Please help metamoderate.
"I'd guess that yet another disadvantage of a wooden bicycle, at least when sharing the road with motor vehicles, is that it's impossible to trigger a green traffic signal without enough metal surface to disturb the flux in the induction loop beneath the approach to the intersection."
1)Inductive loop sensors are much better than they used to be, and many can detect aluminum bike frames, metal in the wheels (almost all spokes are metal - carbon fiber spokes are very rare; many rims are still aluminum), or the metal in the drivetrain (chain, cables, derailleurs.)
2)A large percentage of bicycle frames are made from carbon fiber; even many wheels these days. No different from wood.
3)Many traffic lights now use camera-bases systems. They're cheaper and easier to set up/maintain, and can quantify the number of vehicles for better decisions regarding prioritization, etc. I think some can detect emergency vehicles, provide traffic statistics, and record video if there's a crash.
Some, but not all states, allow cyclists to go through a light if it doesn't change for them after X minutes. Idaho allows cyclists to treat red lights as stop signs, a law groups are trying to get passed here.
Please help metamoderate.
And not all wooden bicycles made today are as crude as Collin's.
I'm sure you could have found a nicer way of putting that.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
No, I am the real Benetton Hasselblad. My contributions are more frequent by far.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
sister.
One of our Bangladeshi friend also made a bicycle by bamboo. http://www.amazingelearning.co...
It's hard to listen to this much "uh" and "um" the whole time. Let's learn how to speak along with other things we can do.