CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
One of the Blue Peter presenters is off to the South Pole for Sport Relief, and will get there (hopefully) by cycling, kite skiing and skiing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/diaries/helen-skeltons-polar-challenge-for-sport-relief
Check out the balloon tyres and areo bar combination!
Robert
Wierest bike I've ever seen! I was wondering a few weeks back how possible it would be to go for a tour on something like a Pugsley to the North Pole. I can't see the rack on her bike, so assume she aint taking panniers with her?
Those teeny tiny wheels and that big long derailleur - just asking for a snagged or snapped derailleur I'd say!
Surely it wont get much above walking speed anyway that a hub gear would be much more appropriate? And an oil-free belt drive?
Would you need special oil in those temperatures?
The Pugsley is old hat now... why not a Moonlander? ;-)
Maybe a hub gear wouldn't work in those temperatures, due to oil freezing, metal parts contracting, etc.?
I'd wildly guess, knowing next to nothing about carbon belts as I do, they weren't sure about it staying flexible?
It does look like there's nowhere near enough clearance for the derailleur, though.
I would assume if you built the hub "for" sub-zero temperatures specifically in mind, it would run fine as you could build the relevant tolerances into the design and use an oil specifically for freezing conditions. Of course it probably wouldn't work very well in "normal" conditions.
Of course it probably wouldn't work very well in "normal" conditions.
Which are unlikely to be very common in Antarctica! Reminds me of the NASA Orbiter, whose payload bay arm was incapable of lifting even its own weight in Earth gravity.
Looks suspiciously like a Brooks saddle...!
Hey, we can buy them too for when the Atlantic conveyor stops and we get *proper* winters! ;-)
http://www.fortunehanebrink.com/general/about/
"We" redesigned this bike in PY.
The obvious solution was to build the gear system "upside down" with the derailleur arm pointing up the way out of the zone where it would be at risk of thumping off bits of ice rather than hanging down. A crossover chain is also required. I forget why. Something about wanting to make the bike go forwards rather than backwards. Aero bars should be replaced with a fairing.
@Kaputnik Hmmm, I still think with your inverted derailleur design the fairing will have to go on the back and you'll need good mirrors to see where you're going ;-)
I really want a Moonlander now, but I understand that the frame alone will be a brutal £700. That's a lot of wonga for a toy serious expedition bike for riding to Peter's Yard in all conditions...
Maybe the odd bump with something on the ground is intentional to knock any built-up ice and snow off the mech and pulley cage. If the mech was above you could still pedal forward and go forward but the mech would be trying to drag the chain on the side with the greatest tension.
The problem is that you can't have a mech on the power side of the chain otherwise whenever you pedal you have to crank out 30-odd links of chain before it goes tight all the way from the cranks to the cassette...
I'd be inclined to have a mad number of chainrings and a single freewheel on the back with a mechanism that varied its distance from the hub so the chainline stayed reasonable.
Surely it would be simpler and more reliable for the ice bike to be single speed? No shifters, cables, derailleurs to get all frozen up and fail. No chain getting stuck trying to shift gears. Nice big cog on the back, smallish one on the front. Freewheel for downhills. Get off and push if uphills too steep. Bingo!
Agree with Crow. Surely it's going to do a speed of between slow walking speed and slower walking speed and carrying only rider's weight. No idea what gears are actually for.
Right then, that's the case solved. ;-) Who's going to forward this thread to Blue Peter in order to avert gear change disaster in Antarctica?
(Do they have bike shops down there for picking up that cassette converter kit I wonder?)
Surely they have the relevant parts in the undoubtedly EPIC baggage train that will be following close behind...
Retro direct would be fairly snow and ice proof.
Wait! She can have 10 speed Campy race if she wants, as long as she uses "Lubriplate Mag-1" as her bearing grease.
Or so it seems:
Winterizing Freehubs
By Simon Rakower
at ICEBIKE, Home of the Winter Cyclist And Other Crazy People.
And finally, a cautionary note:
What would you say to other cyclists, tempted by the idea of cycling in a Siberian winter?
It is hard. Very hard. Do not underestimate it. But it is also a hell of an adventure! And you will earn my respect if you do it.
From http://travellingtwo.com/resources/10questions/siberia
So, Antarctica will be a doddle then for a TV presenter with limited MTB riding experience!
More insanity: winter cycling in Greenland.
Of course the bike material had to be of best quality, since there was no help out on the ice. When the cable housings simply break without reason, the grease becomes solid, the fuel for the cooker precipitates, and rum in the bottle freezes, then it is really cold. In such situations one has to rely completely on the right material - it may be important for survival. We were unable to test most of the material at home, since cold rooms only reach -30°C. So, we had to find out there what's good... And: our bike chain Rohloff S-L-T-99 was perfect!
http://www.mountainbike-expedition-team.de/Greenland/greenland.html
So, you want pictures of bike in snow(?)
@Crowriver, Some friends used to play around on old russian made sidecar outfits (think of the German ones in the Great Escape and you'll have the right idea). Now although the build quality was often pretty diabolical, they were built to be maintained in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a siberian winter if required, hence aparently one manual they found which described ways to avoid/recover from petrol freezing in the fuel tank... whether this is possible*, or just an effect of cr*p fuel with contaminants I don't know, but brrrrr! nonetheless!
*(Not had experience of petrol but I certainly have seen a mix of 50% Kerosene and 50% good modern (winter!) diesel turn into a slush puppy due to the cold, all our diesel was freezing overnight so we mixed it with kero to help it stay liquid until at 50% we couldn't realistically risk more kero in trucks and Landrovers. Was dashed chilly lol)
Russians still seem attached to their Lada 1200s it seems. Someone should drive one of them to the South Pole.
Googled it and the figure generally quoted for petrol gelling is around -60 deg so perfectly possible with wind chill added.
Still very much Brrrr though!
People often scoff at the Russian technology, but just because it is made to what we view as poor tolerances does not necessarily make it bad design. Their engineers have their problems to work around but they are not fools.
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