General Cycling Discussion - Longest Bike in the World

So a couple of Dutch students at the Technical University in Delft have constructed the longest bicycle in the world. Where else would this happen but the bicycling capital of the world, the Netherlands.

The thing is 28.1 meters (over 90ft) long and 400 kgs (880 lbs) heavy. It is actually a tandem, with one guy pedalling and one guy steering. You can read about it (in German) and see a couple of pictures at http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/wunderbar/0,1518,226875,00.html

And they actually rode the thing about 100 meters.

By my calculations, these guys need over 250 Watts of power to move the thing just 18 km/h (11 mph)--and I used a generously small frictional coefficient for the rolling resistance. If they tried to ride it up a 1% grade at that speed, they'd need over 500 Watts. (Actually, I am sure that their power requirements are quite a bit higher, I just have no good way to estimate the frictional coefficient.) Good thing they are in the Netherlands.

Cheers,
Jamie

I cant read German so I couldnt figure it out. ----Why did they see the need to do this?

Matt

Yeah, I also saw it on the news just now. It is really long. The structure really has to be that way, can u imagine such a long top tube? I don't think it will be possible for the tube not to break at some point or another.

use babelfish to translate it:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?tt=url&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Funispiegel%2Fwunderbar%2F0%2C1518%2C226875%2C00.html&lp=de_en

The article doesn't say why they felt the need. Why does anyone feel the need to break a world record? Because it's there. And, for heck sakes, they are Dutch enginneering students. In the Netherlands there are nearly as many bicycles as people. And, that's just the kind of thing engineering students do.

But, they did say that they were not at all sure whether they would actually be able to get the thing to move. The needed a crane to get it out of the building. In any case, they have documented the whole thing and will send the materials to Guinness.

Cheers,
Jamie

Oh cool deleriou5! I didn't know you could do that! :beer:

Here how about this...... http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bikeforums.net%2Fshowthread.php%3Fs%3D%26threadid%3D18726&lp=en_ja&tt=url

:D :D :D :D

I saw this thing on tv last night. Looks like the frame is a converted television antenna tower. They hardly could get it moving. Cornering anywhere would be just about impossible.

I believe this is the previous record holder.

http://zzz.com.ru/pic68.jpg

Definitely has to ridden on flat ground!

Uh, I just tried out the Babelfish translation of the original site. I was impressed to see that one could actually understand something of the original article.

But, as someone who does translations to make a few dollars now and again, I have to say that you get a awful lot of babble from the thing. The fact is that machine translation is still very far away from the real thing.

It is a running joke among those who are remotely good in a foreign language that you can take a text, run it through Babelfish, then run the given text through it again in the reverse. The text you will get will be completely unreadable. Here is the Babelfish German translation of the first sentence of the paragraph, already sounding pretty much like gibberish:

"Es ist ein laufender Witz unter denen, die entfernt gut in einer Fremdsprache, daß Sie einen Text nehmen können sind, ihn durch Babelfish laufen zu lassen, dann den gegebenen Text durch ihn wieder in dem umgekehrten laufen lassen."

Here is the reversed English translation:

"Is far away good a current joke under those, in a foreign language that you can take a text are, to let it run by Babelfish then the given text by it again in the reverse run to let."

By the way, my point here is not to show off. I still consider myself quite below where I would like to be in both German and French. But, I just don't want a bunch of people to be deceived by Babelfish's capabilities.

And, by the way, as soon as you regard learning a foreign language as an adventure in an of itself, and not just as something you can use when travelling, it becomes a true pleasure to learn.

Cheers,
Jamie

yeah... but in defense of the technology, i don't think it ever tried to sell itself as accurately translating the material. it's a tool.... and that's all it probably ever will be. it's useful for getting the gist of what's being said, but that's about it.