Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - DIY Goldsprints - Anyone w/ experience?

So, lets just say that hypothetically and all that my roommate and I are total bike nerds. And we both have track bikes. And rollers. And we have friends with rollers. And we'd like to race on them...

Does anyone have any experience with a DIY Goldsprint setup? We need some sort of readout so we can each tell the others distance/speed. Mechanical with a belt on the opposite side of the rollers would work, as would an electronic system via a laptop. Either avenue would work for me...

Anyone out there? I know there are nerds on this board who may have already completed such a project.

-brad

Hey - If no one responds, check with RELoad as well as the TrackstarNYC family. I am sure there is a wealth of experience at those two houses.

aren't the computer programs and equipment that most of them use around a G?

NOt sure if this will help:
http://www.jdsport.com/index.html?dir=/dir/Cycling/Racing/Track/index-2-258-3225-0-1-.html

These guys might shoot you back an email if yer nice. Hell throw a big goldsprints party in pittsburgh is fun.

http://www.r-evolution.cc/site/index.php
http://www.goldsprints.com/

aren't the computer programs and equipment that most of them use around a G?

Thats the point. I think it can be done for pennies... Even electronically.

In school we worked with various rather inexpensive light gates and simple computer programs to measure speed/size/quantity/whatever. Shouldn't be too terribly hard to wire up a system and plug it into a USB port, or get all old school and use a serial or parallel port. I've contacted an old computer engineering friend from school, so we'll see if he can help me out with the programming end of things... I figure we'll each remember enough of our electrical circuits classes to wire up the gates.

Or build something mechanical, with a big gauge that spins on it and two arrows or something.

Something that isn't going to cost a thousand dollars.

-brad

cyclocomputers are cheap, disassemble a couple and link em to a big(ger) LCD

I have no idea what this thread means.

The way I saw it done was with two cyclocomputers on the rear wheels. You just have someone standing behind each rider and a hand gets raised when a specific distance is reached.

Now, that's obviously the most low-tech you can get save counting revolutions of the wheel manually. If you have enough EE experience, it would be trivial to make one yourself using a laptop as the logic processor. Just wire some magnets to a serial/USB port and count the number of revolutions. Use sheldon to figure out meters development and just set the number of revs to count before beeping, or something. Should be relatively simple to do. Release the source on the intarweb!

what about this? a wireless cyclecomputer for each bike. line the the receivers up in a row with a video camera on them, feed the output from the camera to a pvr/vcr to a tv, and you're pretty much set.

it won't beep or anything, but if the races are close just play back the recording, and it doesn't take any soldering.

two trainers
two cyclocomputers
two riders

pick a distance, start at the same time, whoever "gets" there first wins= cheapo version

I've always been curious... does the accuracy of a cyclocomputer depend on where you place the magnet on the wheel. Just thinking about it in my head if you put the magnet in different spots wouldn't it give different readings as to speed and distance covered? Hope that's not too off topic... mabye i'll go and post in the road section... so cold though, so very cold and dark... I can't leave ssfg forum... but... I... must!

Um no. The speed of the magnet is different depending on where you place it as it goes across the sensor.

Think about it this way. Put two magnets on the same spoke. It's impossible for one to take longer than the other to do one full rotation.

Sheldon brown's webpage says that the farther you put it from the hub the more of a chance for the cyclocomputer to not register the magnet going across the sensor at very high speeds. That would be the only reason not to mount it that far out.

You live in PGH? Who are these friends of yours who hypothetically want to do this? I was pretty big with the bike kids in PGH this summer and don't recognize your name, but may recognize the names of your friends...

i saw some rollers on CL for free. i think, either way, they were on CL.

also, you must throw up when you get off the bike.

also, you must throw up when you get off the bike.

This happened to me once when I put my bike on a treadmill, it also was one of the hottest days during the summer.

From an electrical engineer's perspective: An easy way to do it would be with the same technology that makes tachometers work. A friend of mine had to build one for a project in school, so it can't be that hard (he was only a sophomore at the time). Have two identical rollers set up with tachs on each rear roller. Hook 'em up to a laptop or you could even do it on a PIC microcontroller if you can deal with a 2-line digital output. It's not that complicated of an idea, very doable. It'll probably just take time, patience, and some soldering. :)

i used to be nerdy and wanted to do things the /best/ way. i liked to utilize technology and design interesting solutions, or whatever. then i realized that i could do it, as they say, "ghetto style," and have more money to buy beer and then more time to drink it. this is all to say -- two cylometers and some ****** to watch them. film if necessary.

why not just two riders, two bikes, and a stretch of street?

i'm sorry. "don't do what you're looking for more information on" is not a very good reply.

i just don't understand the allure of goldsprints. which is not to say that there isn't any, or that nobody should find them fun.

nevemind.

why not just two riders, two bikes, and a stretch of street?

Without going into it, for all the reasons people train indoors.

I understand that someone here will feel the need to pipe up about how harder core they are than me for not riding indoors, so let me cut you off at the pass and let you know that you are right. You are harder core than me, and your silence from here on out only reinforces your superiority.

12XU: I'm Brad. Don't know if we know each other or not... I've lived here my entire life and have no idea of my status in the bike scene.

Aeroplane: Back on topic here... Yeah, the PIC microcontrollers were cool to play with, and relatively easy to use. I'm thinking about dropping a line to one of my old engineering professors for a hand with this one. I went for mechanical engineering, and only had a class or two in microcontroller use/programming and am a bit rusty after a couple of years out. A very easy project, for sure...

-brad

Without going into it, for all the reasons people train indoors.

I understand that someone here will feel the need to pipe up about how harder core they are than me for not riding indoors, so let me cut you off at the pass and let you know that you are right. You are harder core than me, and your silence from here on out only reinforces your superiority.

sigh.
down with your dukes, devo, that wasn't my intention. i generally try pretty hard to avoid that sort of one-upmanship. the intention of my post was not to tell you what to do.

Aeroplane: Back on topic here... Yeah, the PIC microcontrollers were cool to play with, and relatively easy to use. I'm thinking about dropping a line to one of my old engineering professors for a hand with this one. I went for mechanical engineering, and only had a class or two in microcontroller use/programming and am a bit rusty after a couple of years out. A very easy project, for sure...

Thinking about it a little more... If you are really slick, you could have the PIC output to a stepper motor, that would rotate your dial or picture of a guy on a bike.

Very easy project, not likely. Doable without spending $$$$, very. In my experience, projects like this tend to involve a lot of beating your head up against a wall unless you know exactly what you're doing. Kind of like building a bike the first time. ;)

Hell, I wouldn't ride outside in the winter nearly as often if I 1) didn't have a beater bike or 2) didn't have some nice Kreitler rollers (Which still haven't come in yet).

Triplets of Bellville anyone?

i just don't understand the allure of goldsprints.



The cheap version leads to the following...you get on the bike facing an opponent you have no clue about. There is no way to gaugue who is in the lead by how much. you push yourself so you don't lose, but you need to consereve energy for the next bastard. the cool thing is you can put your head down, sit and spin as hard as you can, without steering or looking ahead, which means you can go CRAZY, the trainer is rocking, you're screaming, your legs are burning and you still have 30 seconds to go.... fun? hell yes. My first goldsprint was an accident. I was at a benefit in a dress and heels and a friend who i had just met was running the show on the stage and called me out of a sea of people, i didn't want to go, but i had to do it. i got on that bike in that dress and those heels, and i rode the hell out of it. P.S. the gearing was low as all hell too. it's good times, you should try it.

"sit and spin"

huh

when you put it like that...

I love Gold Sprints. They are great for parties. I have been to a lot of them and usually there is technical difficulty in some way or another.
Be prepared for on the spot repairs, if you are doing a big party you will want a spare rig.
People go so hard, things break(brake<BRAK>).
Make sure the bikes are as identical as possible and check tire pressure regularly.

I am gonna be Gold Sprinting with posse in Houston, Tejas! on Friday Dec. 16. Come on thru if you are around.. http://www.hhbcz.com/

Yeah, it's a lot like riding a kilo or pursuit with a gear that's like, 25" too small. There's some insane mashing and you feel like you're going to puke afterwards, but it's totally awesome.

goldsprints matched with this would be like the ultimate fighting of lung capacity challenges. and people wouldn't be asking what the allure of it is, becuase that would be relatively obvious...

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/scream-louder-its-motor-karaoke-142710.php

Not to dig up an old topic, but how do you deal with riders of a different size? I assume there are a set number of bikes for use, and that they stay set up. just long seat posts?

I think someone in BC Hellsinki is trying to develop both software and hardware... pop your question on our forum, someone is bound to get back to you

http://www.bc-hellsinki.com

i would like to take back what i said earlier in this thread, 1+ years ago. i did some goldsprinting for the first time recently, and it was fun. hard as **** though - spinning as high as you can with no resistance for 30 seconds. holy crap.

Triplets of Bellville anyone?

thats funny jim is working on broackets to hook up the old dial at the rest stop to rollers we guna race foo

And chicago will have its own setup in the next few weeks, largely in part to Tony at IRO who is donating bikes and the Chicago Seven Racing Collective (http://www.chicago7racing.com) We wrote the computer programs so that other cities using the same software can race head to head.......(that is a little ways off but we left that door open)

parts required:

2 rollers
2 rare earth magnets (taped to the edge of the roller)
2 hall effect sensors
1 National Instruments Data Aquisition card (an old cheap one)
1 crappy PC
1 Visual basic program to read the DAQ and display the results on a pretty GUI

I'll think about this a bit more. Thanks for the ideas guys.

parts required:

2 rollers
2 rare earth magnets (taped to the edge of the roller)
2 hall effect sensors
1 National Instruments Data Aquisition card (an old cheap one)
1 crappy PC
1 Visual basic program to read the DAQ and display the results on a pretty GUI

I'll think about this a bit more. Thanks for the ideas guys.

The sensors and magnets could be stolen from a cadence system from a cyclecomputer.

so queerpunk, how did they deal with bikes? Did you bring your own, or was it just set up? Any adjustments? What kind of ratios where you spinning?