Bike Forums - View Single Post - The bike I would have built for myself is now a production bike.

08-25-15 | 06:40 AM

#30

69chevy

wears long socks

Joined: May 2015

Posts: 1,614

Likes: 19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inpd

Thanks for the article an interesting read on technology.

But with all of these thin walled round shaped structure I wonder how it will handle being dropped if you crash. Consider even a low speed crash if one forgets to unclip and falls over and the pedal or BB strikes the ground. Will it shatter given the thin walls?

The funny thing about the "stiff/compliant/light" formula is that any modern road bike can handle nearly any amount of force that a person can apply to the pedals/seat/bars, but for the bike to be light, the tubing thickness is scary thin on all modern bikes.

When you apply force to a road bike on any other axis than the ones designed to handle it, things can get pretty hairy regardless of the material used.

That being said, for the bb area to be stiff enough to handle the force of pedaling, it will handle a drop no problem.

The pedal hits, the wheels/tires come off of the ground and the twisting force in the bb area does no harm (you put more torsion on the crank shaft axis than the weight of the bike can). The cylinder inside this bikes bb area is there to tie the two sides together. It will counter the compressive forces of the pedal/crank hitting the ground, no problem

Now if you somehow pinned the wheels on the ground, had a pedal on the ground, and then stepped on the top tube, you would be able to bend/break the frame with very little effort. Lucky for us, these types of forces are fairly uncommon.

To give you a visual, stack some weights on an empty soda can and see how much weight the super thin alloy can hold up before it crushes.

Reply

0