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Psychlist | 2 years ago

The trouble with the very first render is that the author is wrong about why the bike wouldn't work. The head tube isn't braced well enough to allow the front brake to be used, and would twist when cornering to a degree that would unsettle most riders. The missing chainstay would only be an issue for powerful cyclists or people standing up to pedal. But the bicycle shown could definitely be built and ridden. Probably more practical than Saul Griffith's plexiglass bicycle (that was also built and ridden).

At one stage Klein had a problem with the chainstays separating at the bottom bracket and a number of people rode those bikes after breaking them... almost exactly the "missing chainstay" problem above.

I've built some very weird bicycles and broken both those and conventional bicycles. I have at least some idea of what works... I'd be willing to build as many of those renders as someone was willing to pay for.

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avar|2 years ago

Nothing about the rendering specifies that the frame isn't made of solid steel rods.

Aren't you assuming that it's a tube of the same thickness as a typical bike?

And furthermore, that someone building it wouldn't be allowed to make obvious accomodations to reinforce the parts of the frame under stress?

E.g. [1] shows a bike for sale with similarly lacking bracing of the head tube.

1. https://cowboy.com/products/e-bike-cowboy-4?variant=41191037...

Psychlist|2 years ago

A missing top tube is much easier to deal with than a missing down tube. Lots of bikes have pushed that a very long way. But the main forces there are twisting the pedals against the handlebars and using the front brake, which the downtube is very involved with.

You could build that bike out of steel tubing and it would be rideable, as I said, but insofar as it's broken it's broken at the missing down tube.

Slingshot, for example, had no down tube just a wire and that was a bit notorious for being squirrely in the steering.

You could definitely build a bike like that that was quite rigid, it would just be heavy or expensive or both. A decent carbon layup, for example, might bring it back to the chain forces going through the seatstays being the main issue. But that's something you'd want to analyse a lot before building it. And I think you'd end up wanting a much bigger head tube lug than shown.

taneq|2 years ago

Sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time experimenting! Got any pics of the weird bicycles?