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That doesn't make sense - the purpose of shifting your weight around on a bike is to use the handlebars to brace yourself against so as to be able to push down harder with your legs. To do this best, you need the handlebars to not pivot up and down. |
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I like the sentiment, but [hippo] is right. You'd be sacrificing the leverage available to your legs, which would be a poor trade-off. |
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I'm not positive but I think you have fallen victim to an optical illusion. Though they are moving so fast they look look they are pivoting, The handle bars on time trial bike are just as fixed as those on your street bike. The side to side motion used by sprinters is a trade off between power and efficiency. More power can be generated however it is transfered less efficiently to the ground, this is why you will only see riders go into this motion during the very steepest of grades or in a sprint or acceleration. The rest of the time they are tucked and have their butt firmly planted on the saddle. If the handlebars had any flex in them you would generate even less power. |
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Note the behavior of the sprinters body during the sprint. Most of the time their body is very still and it is the bicycle that is shifting under them. The more stable the body the more efficient the motion. The shifting of the bike is done by the arms and upper body through the handlebars(note there is no pushing or pulling here just a slide side to side, the force on the handlebars is realtively low in this situation and as much weight as possible is shifted to the pedals), if they flexed, this would be very challenging to do. I don't think your concept would do much but to unbalance the rider and create an even less efficient motion. |
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I was hoping that the side to side motion of the bike would be mitigated if the bars tilted as the rider shifts body weight. |
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That is actually what you want allowing gravity to aid in the power stroke of the bike compared to a combination of pushing and pulling while seated. The weight shift is to center as much mass as possible over the leg that is thrusting. |
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My experience is that when I'm sprinting or climbing, I pull up on the left handlebar when my weight shifts to the right - which causes me to push down on the right handlebar. That's the inspiration. A solution to the above complaints, if there should in fact be a balance issue, would be to angle the handlebars upwards a few degrees and reduce their dip. |
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You're onto something really great here though. You might be able to adapt those new pogo sticks to a bike, that has a store/release switch on it, so you click the button down and it starts to drain energy from your pedaling and stores it into a mechanical device, I'm thinking if some sort of metal tension spring thingy didn't work, an air piston in the frame would be ideal. You could store up enough energy to propel yourself back up to full-speed, like a hybrid car's regenerative braking. I'd buy that bike. |
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[z] I thought you were going somewhere else with that pogo stick comment. Such as storing up energy in a spring which when released bounces the front wheel off the ground, like doing a wheelie. |
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"Add lightness and simplicate" - Sigrid Savonius |
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If you're tilting the bike, weights could be set up on a "pedal" to propel with the front wheel. This might help to more efficiently use the power generated... It might also add a lot of unnecessary weight to the bike. |
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How about a glorified clock-spring on the
back wheel? When waiting at traffic lights,
pedal furiously to wind the spring then,
when the lights are green, engage the
clutch, and whoosh. |
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