sinclair launches world's smallest folding bike

[Colin Blackburn]

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 11:04:02 +0000 (UTC), davek
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Its wheels are a quarter the size of those on a regular
> bicycle, but Sinclair promises a smooth and sturdy ride
> for most cyclists. "You require no extra energy to ride
> the A-bike and it can go up to 15 miles per hour (24
> kph)," he told Reuters.

Does it have a speed limiter then?

Colin

 

[Jon Senior]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Does it have a speed limiter then?

Yes. At 15.1 mph it folds. Would you really want to go
faster than 15mph on a plastic bike with 3" wheels.

Jno

 

[Dave Kahn]

Tim Hall <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 20:52:56 GMT, JohnB
> <[email protected]> wrote:

> >Clearly someone needs to develop the folding wheel.

> Easy. Take a wheel. Overload drastically by, say, riding
> into something immovable. Wheel folds.

Or just leave your bike chained up at Twickenham station on
a Friday night.

--
Dave...

When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I
looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. —
Woody Allen

 

[Colin Blackburn]

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 15:50:53 +0000 (UTC), Ian G Batten
<[email protected]> wrote:

> The Sinclair Programmable had the tiny form factor of
> their later calculators, was a proper RPN beast (this
> isn't a troll: I only use RPN calculators)

Can you recommend a currently available calculator with RPN?
DO HP still do RPN calculators?

Colin

 

[Colin Blackburn]

On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 10:55:00 +0100, Jon Senior
<jon@restlesslemon_DOT_co_DOT_uk.remove> wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>> Does it have a speed limiter then?
>
> Yes. At 15.1 mph it folds.

Simple but effective.

> Would you really want to go faster than 15mph on a plastic
> bike with 3" wheels.

Depends on the hill and how soft the verges are.

I do see his point though. I often get told that the
Brompton must be hard work because it has small wheels. I
tell them that I use gearing. Oddly, these same people think
nothing of messing about with gearing on a stepper motor to
achieve the motion they require.

Colin

 

[Jon Senior]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I do see his point though. I often get told that the
> Brompton must be hard work because it has small wheels. I
> tell them that I use gearing. Oddly, these same people
> think nothing of messing about with gearing on a stepper
> motor to achieve the motion they require.

It's not the size of the wheels as related to gearing
that concerns me. It's the size of them compared to the
holes in the road. On both racers I can ride over most
roads in Edinburgh without too much concern. The 406 on
the bent has suspension so is not too bad, but I try to
steer clear of the worst of them. The wheels on the A
Bike are significantly smaller and will simply disappear
into many of the cracks and holes round here. I can't
imagine how terrifying that would be at 15 mph on a
plastic clothes rack.

Jon

 

[Ian G Batten]

In article <[email protected]>,
Colin Blackburn <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 15:50:53 +0000 (UTC), Ian G Batten
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The Sinclair Programmable had the tiny form factor of
> > their later calculators, was a proper RPN beast (this
> > isn't a troll: I only use RPN calculators)
>
> Can you recommend a currently available calculator with
> RPN? DO HP still do RPN calculators?
>
> Colin

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/03/2122226&mode=th-
read&tid=100&tid=137&tid=173&tid=187
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/25/181208&tid=173
http://www.hp.com/calculators/scientific/33s/

ian

 

[Peter Clinch]

Colin Blackburn wrote:

> I do see his point though. I often get told that the
> Brompton must be hard work because it has small wheels. I
> tell them that I use gearing.

I know how you feel, but there's more to small wheels than
driving them in the right gear. The wee micro scooters with
engines proved you can get about on good roads with the
right drive, but OTOH really small wheels soon come up
against problems on anything other than good surfaces.

Alex Moulton set out to prove that small wheels were not
intrinsically poor, yet despite not worrying himself with
things like low cost mass production, and with a background
of exhaustive practical testing, he's never gone below 16"
wheels AFAICT, and that's with capable suspension designed
by someone with a track record in designing suspension.

The R&M Frog uses 12" wheels but again that has a serious
bit of suspension on it, not obvious on the Sinclair from
the pictures or the target price.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111
ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382
640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net
[email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

 

[Jon Senior]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> The R&M Frog uses 12" wheels but again that has a serious
> bit of suspension on it, not obvious on the Sinclair from
> the pictures or the target price.

Given the Sinclair is a plastic folding bike, I would
imagine that the suspension comes from the way the frame
will flex when ever you hit a bump. This might also be the
reason for the 15mph speed limit.

Despite the fact that is apparently completely useless, I
would love to find somewhere that sells them (When they
begin their mass-market world domination phase next year!)
and have a go.

Jon

 

[Colin Blackburn]

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 11:41:55 +0100, Peter Clinch <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Colin Blackburn wrote:
>
>> I do see his point though. I often get told that the
>> Brompton must be hard work because it has small wheels. I
>> tell them that I use gearing.
>
> I know how you feel, but there's more to small wheels than
> driving them in the right gear.

I appreciate that, but I suspect he was answering a specific
query in the interview with Reuters, from a journo who
thinks smaller wheels means harder pedalling.

> The wee micro scooters with engines proved you can get
> about on good roads with the right drive, but OTOH really
> small wheels soon come up against problems on anything
> other than good surfaces.

And this is the question Reuters should have addressed to
him as this is the real limiting factor of the bike.

Colin

 

[Jtaylor]

Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Alex Moulton set out to prove that small wheels were not
> intrinsically poor, yet despite not worrying himself with
> things like low cost mass production, and with a
> background of exhaustive practical testing, he's never
> gone below 16" wheels AFAICT, and that's with capable
> suspension designed by someone with a track record in
> designing suspension.

Moulton Mini has 14" wheels (not that bicycle wheel "size"
is linerarly related to wheel diameter).

 

[Peter Clinch]

jtaylor wrote:

> Moulton Mini has 14" wheels (not that bicycle wheel "size"
> is linerarly related to wheel diameter).

I stand corrected, but that still looks rather bigger than
the Sinclair, and I doubt the frame was made of cheese...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111
ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382
640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net
[email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

 

[Julesh]

Gawnsoft wrote:

> I was never a Spectrum person. I wanted a 6502 too much.
> So I had an Oric (or two).
>
I recall, white with two blue stripes and tiny keys
wasn't it?

Wasn't the Dragon Micro(made in Wales) also a 6502?

Jules

 

[Anonymous Cowar]

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 10:55:00 +0100, Jon Senior wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>> Does it have a speed limiter then?
>
> Yes. At 15.1 mph it folds. Would you really want to go
> faster than 15mph on a plastic bike with 3" wheels.

What cycle computer should I fit to warn me when I'm going
dangerously fast?!

AC

>
> Jno

 

[Julesh]

Gawnsoft wrote:

>>The Oxford 300 was a sub £30 "Scientific" calculator - it
>>had a memory and trig functions if I recall - and it
>>didn't need everything entered in Reverse Polish notaion
>>(this isn't a troll - I did once program in Forth and I
>>don't want to do it again!).
>
>
> Why on Earth not? One of the fab things about the Oric
> was the fact there was a decent version of Forth
> available for it.

I'm not going to ask the obvious question here as
these group gets heated enough without me helping to
stir it up
>
>
>>The ZX81 was a "real computer at under £100" or £70 if you
>>soldered it together yourself. The ZX-Spectrum offered
>>"colour" at under £175 - which was unheard of at the time.
>>I (and I guess about a million other people - we were all
>>crazy then) waited 12 weeks for delivery - which was about
>>half the time/cost needed to wait for a (admittedly far
>>superior) BBC Model B.
>
>
>>The QL promised a 32-bit 68000 processor
>
>
> Surely you mean 16-bit?

I probably do. After 20 years
8086/8088/80286/80386/80486/Pentium/Pentium Plus/Pentium
II/Pentium
III/Pentium 4 my Motorola skills have got a little rusty.
>
>
>>(although I believe Sinclair bought the model with the 8-
>>bit data bus so he could wire it together with cheap
>>support circuitry),
>
>
> Just like IBM did with the IBM PC (they used the Intel
> 8088 - 16-bit internals and memory addressing, and 8-bit
> data bus.

I was there. 1982 was "The year of the Micro" in the UK.
>
>
>>an operating system with a witty name, storage that
>>didn't involve cassette tapes, "high resolution" graphics
>>and "business-strength" applications for £399. This when
>>PC's were about £3000.
>>
>>I didn't buy a C5. That was a bridge too far on the
>>marketing front. IIRC (and this was 20 years ago) it had a
>>double page spread showing lots of city gentlemen cruising
>>to a commuter-belt railway station in their C5s. Even I
>>wasn't going to fall for that one!
>>
>>The funniest thing at the time was the argument about the
>>motor. IIRC the entire thing was made by Hoover in South
>>Wales and some people pooh-poohed it as having a "washing
>>machine" motor. Sinclair came back and said that the
>>company also made motors for torpedos. This was much
>>better as its obvious these are designed for a long
>>working life
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Cheers
>>
>>
>>Jules
>>
>>45 - by the way.

 

[-Lsqnot Respond]

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 12:56:39 GMT, Julesh
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Gawnsoft wrote:
>
>> I was never a Spectrum person. I wanted a 6502 too much.
>> So I had an Oric (or two).
>>
>I recall, white with two blue stripes and tiny keys
>wasn't it?
>

Was it the Oric that had a tiny built-in LCD screen allowing
you to programme the thing?

I started with a ZX81. To an 11 year old science fiction
buff, having my own computer was like the future had
arrived. I progressed through Spectrums and even started my
career as a software engineer.

Looking back, I find it quite remarkable that the nations
youth (well, the male ones) were so gripped with programming
as a hobby. Maybe it was just my school but if you mastered
interrupts, you were The Man.

 

[Andy Leighton]

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 12:56:39 GMT, Julesh <[email protected]> wrote:
> Gawnsoft wrote:
>
>> I was never a Spectrum person. I wanted a 6502 too much.
>> So I had an Oric (or two).
>>
> I recall, white with two blue stripes and tiny keys
> wasn't it?
>
>
> Wasn't the Dragon Micro(made in Wales) also a 6502?

No it was a 6809 like the Tandy CoCo.

--
Andy Leighton => [email protected] "The Lord is my
shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

 

[ambrosen]

Gawnsoft <[email protected]> writes:

> Yes - one of the things that leaps out from the article
> about the A-bike is that it's pricing is currently claimed
> as £160!
>
> For something that folds smaller and lighter than a
> Brommie, in almost as fast a time.
>

Indeed, it'd be nice to get one and try to hack some proper
wheels onto it.

Yes, I know spoked wheels are expensive, but they're worth
the effort.

A

 

[Tim Downie]

"JohnB" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Alan Braggins wrote:
>
> > The picture at
> >
ttp://www.straitstimes.com.sg/mnt/media/image/launched/2004-
07-03/h20.jpg
> > looks a bit like a Strida, only with ridiculously small
> > wheels and a
less
> > plausible looking pedal position. I don't care what
> > cunning suspension mechanism is packed in there, those
> > wheels aren't going to work anywhere with potholes or
> > kerbs.
>
> Clearly someone needs to develop the folding wheel.

Admittedly for the yachting market but with a bit of
ingenuity....

http://www.sailnet.com/store/item.cfm?pid=29646

Tim

--
Remove the *obvious* to reply by mail

 

[Andy Leighton]

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 14:17:00 +0100,
[Not Responding] <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 12:56:39 GMT, Julesh
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Gawnsoft wrote:
>>
>>> I was never a Spectrum person. I wanted a 6502 too much.
>>> So I had an Oric (or two).
>>>
>>I recall, white with two blue stripes and tiny keys
>>wasn't it?
>>
>
> Was it the Oric that had a tiny built-in LCD screen
> allowing you to programme the thing?

No I don't think so. Are you thinking about the Grundy
Newbrain which had a 1x16 display (but I don't think it was
LCD)? I don't know whether you could actually use the
machine without a TV/monitor hooked up either.

--
Andy Leighton => [email protected] "The Lord is my
shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_