AERO Mashes Mtns!!(1a,b)

[Tom Sherman]

a&b wrote:
>
> Scott, Hokusai's Wave indeed! Great analogy. The benter-men facing the violence of the climb but
> confident they can make it because of their skills. Your description of the
> "CSA&BG"(Cursing,Spastic Arm and Body Gyrations) is pretty funny. That's why I think there really
> are limits on grades on which bents are practical. I mean, when the DF'ers stopped or started, or
> pedaled up the 30% stuff, they just pretty much did like they always
> do. When I did the same on my bent on the 30% stuff I was afflicted with CSA&BG. bill g

A Festina might be a good bike to consider for riding in the mountains - how much can it hurt to
fall over at low speed when your seat height is about 7 inches (~16-17 cm)? A Schlumpf Mountain
Drive [1] is suggested for low gearing unless you are Ed "single 67T chainring" Gin.

[1] Zach Kaplan towed a B.O.B. Coz through the Alps a couple of years ago on a Mountain Drive
equipped Festina.

Tom Sherman - Various HPV's Quad Cities USA (Illinois side)

 

[A&B]

Maybe some crawdads doing the horizontal mambo ;-) bg

Tom Sherman wrote: I was looking at USGS Topo Quad the other day and noticed a pond with elevation
contour lines on it.
>
> Tom Sherman - Various HPV's Quad Cities USA (Illinois side)

 

[Dennis Pedrick]

> I'm a bit skeptical of the 33% grade, because there just aren't many of those critters in the
> world, but I haven't seen it.

If this is the road I'm thinking it is, it's actually a Chattanooga city street...That goes
straight up in the air. The incline railroad that runs along side the road is supposedly the
steepest in the world. 33% is probably pretty close. It's actually hard to walk; I can't imagine
trying to ride up it.

Regards -- DP

 

[Dave Larrington]

http://dougiamas.com/images/200101/nz/index.php?image=baldwin-street.jpg&d=d .html

Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Dave Larrington - http://legslarry.crosswinds.net/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================

 

[Dave Larrington]

Tom Sherman wrote:

> I was looking at USGS Topo Quad the other day and noticed a pond with elevation contour lines
> on it.

This is clearly the solution to the problem faced by the Irishman who wanted to take up water-skiing
but couldn't find a lake with a slope...

Dave Larrington - http://legslarry.crosswinds.net/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================

 

[Dave Larrington]

Tom Sherman wrote:

> Zach Kaplan towed a B.O.B. Coz through the Alps a couple of years ago on a Mountain Drive equipped
> Festina.

He did P-B-P on it as well. Peter Marsahll writes:

"In contrast to many of the American riders, Zach was completely self-supported. His Festina is
principally intended as a racing machine, but he'd cunningly managed to attach luggage in various
creative places - an underseat bag, a bag suspended from the top of the seat, a small pannier on one
side of the back wheel. The Festina, like the Trice XL, has BMX-size (406 ERTRO) wheels, which can
make high gears a problem. He was running a single 73-tooth chainring, but had a Mountain Drive
2-speed bottom bracket gearbox. When he needed a low gear he tapped a button on the crank with his
heel. And changed up several gears at the back, since bottom gear on the Mountain Drive is a 250
percent reduction. The resulting mismatch between crank speed and chainwheel speed was a very odd
sight. Zach said that riders had been looking at the size of the chainring and saying in awed tones:
"You must be really strong.""

Dave Larrington - http://legslarry.crosswinds.net/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================

 

[Jon Meinecke]

On Thu, 8 May 2003 17:30:10 -0400, "Freewheeling" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Jon:
>
>The problem with the GPS profiles is that there can be significant errors from one datapoint to the
>next, so they just don't provide reliable info for shorter sections of road, and that's usually
>where the EXTREME grades are.

WAAS enabled GPS's can be quite accurate, as I understand it. Differential GPS even more so, though
availability of that signal is limited. Some GPS's have barometric altimeters that may be coupled to
the GPS computed elevation to improve accuracy. And then there's position averaging (I'd be moving
slow enough for this) and post-processing of track logs.

On the low-tech end, I've done "informal" estimates of grade by looking ahead to a point on the road
level with my eyes and then noting the distance by cyclometer to that point. Mounting a surveyors
level to handle bars could enhance the accuracy... %^)

Jon Meinecke