thebristolkid

I'm a graduate design student, and I work in the design community, so I spend a lot of time thinking about design. I started riding a fixed gear about 4 months ago, so naturally I've gotten to thinking about bicycle design. I was talking to my friend at work the other day - the friend who got me off my pink GT BMX and onto a fixed gear - about the design of the bicycle. We live in a society where the design of consumer products continually evolves - half-inch-thick laptops, multi-function cellular telephones, cars that park themselves, etc - but the bike, like the spoon or the scissors or the pencil, seems to stay the same.

Bicycle history is littered with the unsuccessful attempts of companies trying to make radical changes to the drivetrain or the geometry of the bicycle, and there will always be new add-ons and new frame materials...hell, half the roadies I see look capable of launching the nukes with all the componentry they have strapped to their aircraft-grade-adamantium-framed road missiles, and I'm sure they'd all trade in their carbon for a seatpost made of compressed Grape Nuts if some magazine told them it was lighter and absorbed more shock. But eventually, it all comes back to the basics: 2 wheels, a chain connecting 2 gears, and a frame made of 2 triangles.

Since we ride the most elegant and efficient of all bicycle permutations, this seems like a reasonable venue for this question. Has the bicycle been perfected?

doofo

im going with no on this one

br995

I have a feeling that 'perfect' may be subjective when it comes to bikes....

TheDean

much much lighter and stronger materials are on the way and just look at how frames have changed in 30 years.

mander

Perfect for what???? What are you talking about exactly?

doofo

hes saying that bikes are so perfect

that their technological advance is not driven by the same forces as other products

except road bikes

which dont count

cause roadies suck

lima_bean

The recumbant bicycle was a pretty successful innovation

cc700

yeah, we need some parameters and context to give any real answers.

i'd go with a hell no.

enigmagic

Do all design students masturbate about the evolution of products in public? Or are we just lucky?

What a weird post.

Igneous Faction

In a way, yes. I see what you're saying. A high-end scorcher from the turn of the century isn't all that different from the bike I ride on a daily basis. Certainly not in comparison to something like a car from the turn of the century to a 2007 car. Or aircraft.

EDIT modification: I just noticed that you said perfected in the original post. I can't agree with that. For one thing, I don't think there exists an endpoint to progression in terms of technology AND things continue to get better.

The things you pictured are unsuccesful innovations. What about the succesful ones? The derailleur? Indexed shifting? dual-pivot brake calipers? aluminum? carbon-fiber? etc...

thebristolkid

That is exactly what I'm saying. When you take away material advances, there's not much difference between this and this.

Pfutz

No, and the concept of attaining perfection is stupid.

I love my fixed gear as much as the next guy but it would explode if I took it within 40 feet of the north shore to do some freeride.

mander

Basically what pfutz said. Horses for courses. My fg is perfect for making me happy while getting me around the city and sub optimal for all kinds of other things. There are good reasons why no one rides fixed in the TDF, on bmx street courses, etc etc etc.

Pfutz

I am so boggled by this thread. I feel more lame after reading it.

its like a bunch of british lords sitting in a study drinking fine wine asking "yes good sirs, are we not the greatest spectacle of man to have ever walked this earth?"

thebristolkid

Maybe I should rename the thread, because it's a bit misleading. I was talking more about general bicycle design, of which fixed gear is the most basic. Today, a bicycle, whether it's a FG or a BMX or whatever, is 2 wheels, a chain with gears, and a frame made of triangles. 100 years ago, a bicycle was 2 wheels, a chain with gears, and a frame made of triangles. Why is that? That's my question.

blickblocks

If I remember correctly, Steve Jobs of Apple said that modern pants have been designed to perfection.

Much like pants, design progression for highly body-proportioned products come with material, fashions, and specificity.

By design do you mean ID? I'm doing product design here at CIA.

doofo

maybe because they have not experienced any selective pressure

you

I feel like this argument can be applied to anything.

garagegirl

No, this is much closer

https://www.sevencycles.com/road_deta...?bike=axiom_sg

roadgator

im really tired of hearing this fixed is most efficient BS. a free wheel prevents any chance of your legs re-absorbing the work they just put to the pavement.

most minimalist, perhaps. but in terms of function, no way.

but the 2 triangle design is most common because its the best truss structure. its engineering, not aesthetic. now its a UCI rule on all race frames so the high end inst venturing away from it even if they wanted to.

TallRider

While the term "perfected" is turning people off, and probably rightfully so, the OP's real question is, are we reaching a limit where minor innovations, or new materials, may continue, but the basic design is increasingly stable over time? It's a good and valid question.

Of course, asking this question in a fixie forum seems like asking for a biased sample, although responses thus far don't seem to yay-fixies, except for the 'cuz-roadies-suck post, a fine example of message-board logic.

I think, in the end, that the OP's design question is unintentionally set up to favor fixies. Fixed-gear bicycles are exceedingly simple - that's the nature or definition of their design. As such, they have much less space in which to change or improve. So they appear to be a pinnacle (or a little-changing design) simply because they are defined into a corner. A good corner, I would argue, but a corner nonetheless where the OP's question is concerned.

dijos

UCI rules have killed a few different designs. The little movie ad in the upper right hand corner speaks to this. also, t I think that there is a difference between efficency "large percentage of power goes to rear wheel" and efficiency "getting the best result from a given power source".

San Rensho 

As you have noted, bicycle design has changed very little since the late 1800's. The first bicycles were push alongs (Drasine), then big wheel bikes and then the chain drive and diamond frame bike were introduced. Since the chain drive/diamond frame, there has been very little change in the basic design of bikes, with maybe the exception of the derailleur in the 1940-50s.

Since the invention of the chain drive diamond frame, there has been a refinement in materials, lighter structural materials, better shifters, more gears, but there has been no revolution in bicycle design like the revolution between big wheel bikes and chain drive bikes.

I think the design of a bicycle is so simple, elegantly simple I would add, that I can't see the design changing radically in the near future.

huerro

Exactly, The fixie, for example, is horrible for carrying heavy loads up hills. Icecream/Tamale bikes (I suppose they are really trikes) with the load in front and low are much better for that task.

More real innovations in bicycle (again using the term loosely for individual pedal powered vehicles) design will come when they are used increasingly as more than recreation/personal transportation machines by enough people with enough money to make more R&D profitable. For the time being it seems to be carbon road rockets and multiple suspension machines that drive research.

Landgolier

I think you're confusing design and engineering.