News

A new reflector product, which sticks to your rims, is proving very popular on Kickstarter. The FLECTR 360 OMNI is a self-adhesive retroreflective sticker which is wrapped around the rim. With 15 days to go, they’ve already raised over 10x their original funding goal. The primary benefit claimed for this product is that it gives 360-degree visibility for increased safety. It is certainly very useful giving visibility from a wide range of angles although I would question the claim that it gives 360-degree visibility as it is clearly much less visible from the front and back than it is from the side. Users should be encouraged to use this in conjunction with front and rear reflectors, rather than being convinced that this is all they need.

Having said this, the FLECTR 360 Omni is a very nice product. Research shows that patterns of reflectors that show your shape and movement are much more effective than a single point of light. For this reason wearing high visibility clothing with bands of reflectors around the elbows and knees is a much better way to make drivers aware of your presence than using lights. Extending this idea to outline the shape of your wheels makes sense and is likely to make drivers more quickly and intuitively aware that a bicycle is there.

It is also claimed that the use of microprismatic technology makes these reflectors superior to glass bead retroreflectors. There is some debate about this point. Glass bead tehnology is still widely used in road signs and many other safety critical application. It should not be discounted as obsolete.

A further advantage claimed for the reflectors is that they do not cause any aerodynamic drag. This is a good point and a nice feature of placing reflective tape on your bike.

This is a nice product and worth getting if you want a neat ready made wheel reflector. It should not be used to replace front and rear reflectors cut insstead used to complement them. We would suggest applying reflective tape such as 3M Scotchlite widely over your bike.

Chinese bike share giant Mobike has launched an e-bike designed for dockless sharing. Chinese Mobike own more hire bikes than any other company in the world with over 9 million bikes in 200 cities around the world. This entry into the e-bike industry is therefore a significant move. According to founder and CEO of Mobike Weiwei Hu, the average speed of cars in cities is now just 25 kph. This e-bike can travel at 30 kph using only the electric motor and over 70 kph using the hybrid mode.

“We’re confident that it will become en efficient and superior choice in an era of ever worsening traffic.” Weiwei Hu, Founder and CEO of Mobike

The bike has been designed with many features to make it easy and practical to use. The chain is fully enclosed while the seat is adjustable one-handed. Foam filled tires from Dow Chemical, using Olefin Block Copolymer foaming technology, are claimed to be 20-30 percent lighter than conventional tires.

“The phone holder makes it easier for you to explore the city with cellphone navigation” Shusan Gao, Head of Bike Product, Mobike

The idea of a dockless sharing e-bike does seem a little strange, however, since e-bikes need to get plugged in to charge. It appears that Mobike intends the batteries to be removed for charging in a separate charging station.

“Like all Mobikes, every bicycle is IoT connected. We can monitor the health status of each bike in real time through our powerful cloud technology. In addition to the e-bike itself we have also specially designed a smart charging unit.” Jieli Li, Hardware VP, Mobike

It is yet to be seen how the batteries will be swopped and placed in the charging units. Perhaps Mobike will employ service technicians who will perform this task although the logistics of keeping the bike fleet charged appears to be a considerable overhead.

A wide range of electric bicycles, or simply e-bikes, are now available from many manufacturers. When comparing different bikes an important specification is the range. Manufacturers’ specifications state a range but each manufacturer works it out differently. This means that it is not possible for the consumer to make an objective comparison. At least until now. The German vehicle association ZIV (Zweirad-Industrie-Verband) has now developed a standard method of testing the range of an e-bike, the ‘standardized range test R200‘. It has been devised in consultation with major manufacturers such as Bosch, Shimano Accell and Velotech.

In the absence of a standardized test, manufacturers are free to perform tests under the most favorable conditions. This may mean a professional cyclist riding on a perfectly flat road with a following wind. Another e-bike which actually has a greater range may have been tested under less ideal conditions and therefore appear to have an inferior range. The ZIV test procedure aims to provide reproducible and consistent results by considering factors such as the weather, road surface, bicycle weight and tire rolling resistance. It stipulates that during the test the e-bike should consistently provide a 200 percent power assist factor. This means that for every 100 W of power provided by the cyclist the electric motor should provide 200 W.

This standard will provide a reliable way of comparing bikes, provided the manufacturers apply it. It will not, however, tell you your actual range. That will, of course, depend on how much power assist you choose to use.

The founder of World Bicycle Relief, F.K. Day, has recently given a really inspirational TED talk about how he started the charity. Day has spent most of his life designing high-performance bicycle components, he’s Executive Vice President of SRAM Corporation, so he knows a thing or two about bicycles! He tells of how in many places walking is still peoples main form of transport, and what they can do in a day is limited by when the sun goes down. He’s inspired by the way that bikes can give opportunity to poor people in such situations.

His story began in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, in 2004. He was thinking of ways he could respond in a meaningful way, using the knowledge he had. Day realized he could help to get people moving again with bikes, but when he approached the offices of relief organizations in the USA they weren’t interested. So he flew out to Srilanka with his family and started talking to the relief agencies operating on the ground. These people loved the idea and he created a project which locally sourced and delivered 24,000 bikes. They also commisioned an independent assessment of the impact of this work which showed an improvement in healthcare, education and economic development.

As the project in the Indian Ocean was coming to an end Day was asked by one of the relief agencies if they would scale up their program for rural Africa. They decided to give it a try, focused on the three key areas of healthcare, education and economic development and intended to monitor their impact and publish the results. Initially, they worked with an organization which had trained 23,000 healthcare workers in Zambia. These workers were wasting too much time walking between villages and many of them were giving up as a result. Initially, Day tested locally produced bikes but they all failed almost immediately. When he approached them the suppliers all thought their bikes were fine, all except one. One supplier asked for help to improve their bikes so Day worked closely with them to develop bikes suitable for the harsh conditions.

This work, focused on health care providers, has now delivered 160,000 bikes in 18 countries. The next focus was on education. Girls in traditional African culture are responsible for household chores. The drop out rates for girls in Zambia are therefore much higher hand for boys. They, therefore, focused on giving bikes to girls. If they stayed in school they earned the bike in 2 years. 150,000 bikes have now been donated into education.

Wherever they were active. donating bicycles to support healthcare and education, they would get local entrepreneurs, often farmers, approaching them asking to buy bikes. They, therefore, founded a for-profit company, to sell bikes to these people. In this way, they are also supporting economic development in the communities where they work.

Finally, Day asks us to imagine the possibility when people are released from the bondage of distance.

Tire pressure is hugely important for bicycle performance. After the aerodynamic position of the rider, it is probably the most important factor for flat-out speed. It also has a huge impact on traction, important for cornering, braking, and off-road climbs. In some conditions, tire pressure may be the most important factor to consider. If a tire gets a sudden flat in a competition then the rider will quickly realize, if however there is a slow leak then the resulting reduced performance may take a long time to be noticed and cost the race. It is therefore surprising that, with so many sensors now available, it has taken so long for a real-time tire pressure sensor to appear on the market.

Enter TyreWiz from Quarq, SRAMS’ data and digital technology brand. The TyreWiz sensors add just 10g to each wheel and allow real-time air pressure to be streamed to a cycle computer or smartphone. They are compatible with any tire using a removable Presta valve core, this includes those with tubes and tubeless as well as tires with anti-flat sealant. Quarq says they are intended for mountain bikes and road bikes with riders of any experience level. The associated smartphone app will display personalized recommendations, current tire pressure, and low/ high-pressure alerts.

What is most interesting to us is the ability to gather data on tire pressure together with other information from an add and identify patterns to better understand bicycle performance.

Features & Benefits

• Designed for road and mountain bike riders.
• Personalized tire recommendations in the smartphone app for iOS and Android.
• NFC pairing for fast and easy connection by BLE to a phone
• Data reported with +/- 2% accuracy at .1 PSI resolution.
• Broadly compatible with tires that use a Presta-style valve core.
• Inexpensive, user-replaceable CR1632 battery lasts for 300 hours.
• IP67 dustproof/waterproof rating.
• Box includes valve core removal tool for installation.

The price for two sensors is $199 / €259 / £229 and Quarq are taking pre-orders for delivery June 1, 2018. This will include two sensors, replaceable batteries, and a valve core removal tool.

The UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has developed a new process for producing titanium working with the University of Sheffield. This reduces the currently 40 stage process to only two steps and is expected to half the cost.

Titanium has a similar strength to steel but is half the weight. It doesn’t suffer from fatigue issues, which can cause aluminum to suddenly and catastrophically fail, and it is highly resistant to corrosion. It also has far better damage tolerance to carbon fiber. For all these reasons it is widely used in aircraft and spacecraft. A typical use is in aircraft undercarriage which is in many ways similar to a bicycle frame is its material requirements. However, at around ten times the cost of high-quality steel, titanium is currently reserved for only the most exotic bicycle frames and components.

The process, referred to as FAST-forge, consolidates titanium alloy powders into components. These only require machining for highly toleranced features (“near net shape”) and have mechanical properties similar to forged components. Field assisted sintering technology (FAST) is used to melt the powdered material forming a shaped billet, at this stage, it does not have the required complexity of geometry for many components and its ‘grain structure’ means that it is not as strong as a high-quality titanium component. However, the billet can then be hot forged in a single step to give a near net shape component with the required mechanical properties.

A number of new manufacturing technologies are currently becoming available which look set to enable lower cost use of more exotic materials as well as low volume and bespoke designs. For example 3D printing in titanium and in carbon fiber. Put this together with the coming graphene reinforced composites and we can expect bikes to be getting considerably lighter over the next few years

Structure Cycles have designed a linkage based mountain bike chassis, complete with linkage fork. Linkage forks have been touted as the future of bike front suspension for many years, both for motorcycles and mountain bikes. Advantages include reduced brake dive and more consistent handling. Structure Cycles’ new design, the SCW 1, is reminiscent of the Whyte PRST-1 from the 1990’s.

Linkage suspension design are interesting for city bikes because there is potential to create a folding bike which only uses suspension pivots to fold. This is something already achieved by the Riese & Müller Birdy. This can create a better performing folding bike.

A cyclist is suing local government agencies in Oregon for causing him to crash his bike. He says that he suffered serious brain injuries as a result of riding his bike into a bolt which was protruding from a paved area. The bolt was protruding by 75 to 100 mm and was hard to see as it was surrounded by dirt. The cyclist, Jesse Calhoun, is asking for $70,000 for non-economic damages and $15,000 for medical costs. It is not clear whether he was wearing a helmet or whether cycling was permitted in the area where the accident occurred. What do you think – should the government be liable?