J
Jens Herrmann
Guest
Hi Rick,
Larry Varney wrote:
> Sbtypesetter wrote:
>
>> I've heard that the Vision and the Cobra can climb while others can't. True? What consitiutes a
>> good climber and why?
> False. A good climber requires stability, efficiency, and a strong
I don't know about the Vision and the Cobra but there definitely are bikes that climb better than
others. I used a HP-Velotechnik SMGT for 2 years and i can say that this is not the bike to climb
hills. Why is that? My experience was as follows: Uphill you can sweat a lot with a high puls rate
on this bike, but you were still very slow. I observed that it helped a lot then to stand up in
the seat. The HP-Velotechnik is a SWB-bike with a bottom bracket almost on the level of the seat.
My explanation is that it has to do with the angle of the upper body and the bottom bracket. When
i last year did my first ride with my homebuilt lowracer(about 30 cm between seat and BB) i
couldn't believe it. It not only went faster than the SWB-bike uphill, but was easier zu
accelerate despite having the same weight. I later found in a anatomy book that with a closer body
angle you can use additional muscels of your body. It would take quite a few lines to explain that
here, so if you interested in that ask again. But i can say that it works for the same reason that
100 m-sprinter nowadays start from a very deep position(i don't know how it is called in English)
which they did not when you look a few decades back. I observed as well that people on uprights
often lean forward when going uphill. I suppose they unconsciously know that it works better, even
if they can't explain why. I know some people who can fully agree with that explanation, as well
as people not having problems with low bottom bracket bikes. The people without problems mostly
are smaller persons and i assume that a low bottom bracket is not as bad for them as it would be
for a tall person.
Regards Jens
Larry Varney wrote:
> Sbtypesetter wrote:
>
>> I've heard that the Vision and the Cobra can climb while others can't. True? What consitiutes a
>> good climber and why?
> False. A good climber requires stability, efficiency, and a strong
I don't know about the Vision and the Cobra but there definitely are bikes that climb better than
others. I used a HP-Velotechnik SMGT for 2 years and i can say that this is not the bike to climb
hills. Why is that? My experience was as follows: Uphill you can sweat a lot with a high puls rate
on this bike, but you were still very slow. I observed that it helped a lot then to stand up in
the seat. The HP-Velotechnik is a SWB-bike with a bottom bracket almost on the level of the seat.
My explanation is that it has to do with the angle of the upper body and the bottom bracket. When
i last year did my first ride with my homebuilt lowracer(about 30 cm between seat and BB) i
couldn't believe it. It not only went faster than the SWB-bike uphill, but was easier zu
accelerate despite having the same weight. I later found in a anatomy book that with a closer body
angle you can use additional muscels of your body. It would take quite a few lines to explain that
here, so if you interested in that ask again. But i can say that it works for the same reason that
100 m-sprinter nowadays start from a very deep position(i don't know how it is called in English)
which they did not when you look a few decades back. I observed as well that people on uprights
often lean forward when going uphill. I suppose they unconsciously know that it works better, even
if they can't explain why. I know some people who can fully agree with that explanation, as well
as people not having problems with low bottom bracket bikes. The people without problems mostly
are smaller persons and i assume that a low bottom bracket is not as bad for them as it would be
for a tall person.
Regards Jens