Aushiker

More details at Mirror.

Andrew

JanMM

Anything inside that pretty shape?

'More details at Mirror.' ............................. Nope, no details.

Cyclosaurus

I don't know. I think this design is still faster.

cplager

If you're dropping them both from the same height? yes.

BlazingPedals

I guess I've seen enough CAD drawings to be jaded. CAD drawings don't mean ****. Call me when it becomes a real product and has actually gone down the road a few times. Then someone can answer questions on how they solved stability problems, how visibility is, what kind of drive train it uses, etc.

cplager

For stability, you are absolutely right. For rider ergonomics, you are again absolutely right (this is the one that can easily see them overlooking).

Visibility will be done as it was with the Dutch bike and be by camera and I would expect fewer surprises here if they look at what the Dutch did. For drive train, I would assume this is more or less solved, but I do understand that because of the extreme gearing there are going to be a lot of issues that most of us would never have to deal with.

Finally for aerodynamics, I don't know if it exists, but I can imagine having software that can give you very realistic estimates based on a static shape and wind flow directions.

Jeff Wills

There's plenty of fluid dynamics software out there, but a lot of it doesn't work well dealing the interactions with the stationary ground plane. I agree with Blazing- CAD is neat stuff, but the bike's still got to roll down the road and make the number. The VeloX folks are hard at work at their next generation, which they claim has 20% less drag than their record-setting bike:

cplager

and my "back of the envelope" calculations suggests that should get them to 89 mph or so.

Again, I think both stability and ergonomics are two things that have to be done to be measured. But I'm still rooting for the British team (as well as for the Dutch team and Sam and pretty much anybody else who tries).

JanMM

Very lovely. And we know it's an actual real bike with a human being inside rolling down a real road, not somewhere in hypothetical world.

StephenH

From what I've read, a great deal of the drag on the streamline bikes like that is at the interface of the wheels and the shell, but that would be exactly the kind of situation that was very difficult to model with CFD software. So to get a general idea of the drag on the bike is probably not too hard, but actually optimizing the details to squeeze the last few mph out of the thing is a different situation altogether.

Way back when I was in college, I was involved with a contest that included building an ATV for a race. One of the requirements there was that the students also did the driving of it. So no problem, everyone likes to ride a gocart, right? But, on this bicycle, if you set a world record, it probably is going to involve a top-notch rider as well. If they limit their pool of riders to the students that are working on the project, that would make a major difference in the final performance; the odds of them having a world-class rider in a random group of engineers are not good.

delcrossv

I guess you've never met Sebastiaan "I can do 300 watts while holding a conversation" Bowier. A lot of these student athletes are very, very strong. Most Pro "tour" cyclists can't deal with the stability issues of a liner- IIRC there was a team that used a "pro" cyclist,and they did rather poorly. I'm sure someone will stop by with who that was.

BlazingPedals

That would have been the Blue Yonder team, featuring Olympic champion, Jason Queally. The body was huge, because Jason didn't want to be 'pinched.' As a result, it had too much air to push aside, and it did poorly in spite of Jason's measured 2200 watt output. It was a very nice-looking streamliner, though.

StephenH

I think that kind of demonstrates my point. If you go to the hpdelft website, they show "team members" and "cyclists" there. A quick run-down of the cyclists, cut-n-pasted:
Rik Houwers "has ridden with the peleton elites and obtained remarkable results: he has won time-tracks, arrived 30th at the Dutch championship and 28th in the pref-round in Norway."
Christien Veelenturf "has taken part in various competitions during the past few years. Besides that she also explored the mountains by taking in part in La Marmotte, Trois Ballons and Dolomieten Marathon. Last winter she was active as a cross-country cyclist in the uniform of Restore. This summer she would have been standing at the start as Elite lady for Restore as well."
Sebastiaan Bowier "is an experienced recumbent bike rider, once started on the old recumbent bike of his father. Apart from cycling on a recumbent bike, he is a racing cyclist, mountain biker, wind surfer..."
Wil Baselman's "is a mountain biker and is Dutch Champion Masters 2 and appeared multiple times on the stage of the Dutch Champion Masters 1."
Jan Bos "is especially known from the fact that he was the first Dutch speed skater who became World Champion on the sprint. Although he has shown he is a very good cyclist on an indoor track, he has never trained or competed on a recumbent bike. However, he is used to compete on a high level and his experience as an elite athlete can be of great use in our Human Power Team."
Alwin Visker "is an experienced recumbent cyclist, mostly on a bike with three wheels...Alwin has participated in a lot of recumbent cycling competitions and has finished in the top three of the last three LEL editions. During the Dutch Championships time trial 2011 he became first. Apart from recumbent bike riding, Alwin is very active in the world of tennis. He has his own tennis school and has been in the National top 75 singles and the National top 35 doubles."
Jan Willem Gabriels, "after an impressive career in the Dutch Olympic rowing team Jan-Willem has decided to focus his energy on other things. He remains a sportsman and that is why this project caught his attention. Not only the incredible speeds that can be reached in human powered vehicles but also the tactical aspect of the sports performance triggered his interest."

IE, they seem to have had a good crew of experienced racers and Olympic athletes for the cyclists- not random students- which is exactly what they need to be competitive. And that's what the Arion1 team will need with the bike mentioned in the original post up there.

delcrossv

With Delft they're not random, Toronto's team is mostly student engineers and they're running Bluenose in the mid-seventies. Sort of gives hope to us with "day jobs" IIRC Sebastiaan and Wil B. were both in school last year.


The point being that just being a competitive cyclist isn't enough, you have to be able to produce power on the platform.
Sebastiaan did well because he was an experienced recumbent rider for example.

I don't think Sebastiaan is running this fall, and Jan Bos ran for Elan last year.

Jeff Wills

Yep. The wheel openings account for about 1/2 the drag of the whole bike, according to Sam (watch from about 2:10 to 2:40):

SingleSpeeDemon

It sort of looks like a 50mg Vyvanse.

Jeff Wills

By golly, you're right.
50mg lisdexamfetamine:

Bluechip

Project Ceilo

Similar to this? Looks like fun.

Jeff Wills

That would be Project Cieo: Welcome to Project cieo | hpv cieo . My nephew's working on his PhD at ETH Zurich, so maybe I can wangle an invite.

cplager

I like the "outside the box" thinking a lot. I'll be very curious to see how well the bike performs.

delcrossv

IIRC they did over 80 km in one hour at Dekra (including one crash and restart).

No bean burritos for the pilot though.

JanMM

Stoker better take some anti-claustrophobia pills.

cplager

No kidding. Yeesh.

TricycleTom

Computer modeling of airflow has made great strides, but there's still a lot of GIGO. Velomobiles are running at fairly low Reynold's numbers, where little research has been done. The Voyager team had to write their own textbook on how to minimize drag on an aircraft radiator at 100 MPH. Velomobiles also have complications with vibration and lightweight construction upsetting the laminar flow expected.
The LSR bikes don't encounter much wind, but a practical velomobile has to cope with sudden gusts, which can be challenging at downhill speeds. Such fast, low-density streamlined shapes should probably have a rather abrupt transition from front to side, so that "lift" will separate and be spoiled before reaching dangerous values. This should be fine-tuned against the loss of streamlining and sailing benefits.