Originally Posted by
Jabba Degrassi
They were trying to design a bike, egghead. Buying a ready-made product sort of defeats the purpose. Maybe they'll think of something Surly or Moots missed. Maybe they'll come up with a commercially viable idea in the process. Either way, consumerism is a piss-poor substitute for creativity.
Right, of course, and the educational purpose this project serves is invaluable. And, yes, they may develop new and refreshing ideas on the subject, but take a look at the articles:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...prod=permalink
http://passporttoknowledge.com/antar...archers16.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/healthsc...03prowler1.asp
They're not exactly breaking new ground here. If they had started with a beginning platform that was already closer to their final goal, they could have saved time, money, and likely made a more effective final product. For example, modifying golf cart tires and wheels, and then having to use snow chains with them versus working off of tires and wheels that are already designed to be used in a snow or sand environment like the Surly Endomorph tires or studded tires and wheels that already have the capacity for existing bike components.
I very well might be missing a variety of other variables, but the conditions this bike will experience are pretty similar to what the bikes in Iditabike or a similar event will experience, aside from the extreme cold, so a fairly large base of bikes and riders to work off of for this project already exists.
I'm all for new development and creativity, but effective research and building off of existing technology and ideas is something that these college groups always seem to fall slightly short of. For example, they assumed this would be used for basic transport only, but when they delivered the first bike the South Pole scientists replied it was too slow for what they wanted it for; fun. I'm sure this first bike was a valuable part of the design process, and they will likely change it to match the new needs. But, it's probably a reasonable assumption that switching their golf cart wheels from SS to geared won't be quite as easy as swapping out a wheel on a standard bike and an effective survey or discussion about the project may have allowed them to create a bike that better matched the scientists needs in the first place.
In short, I'm all for design and creativity, but I'm not necessarily for stumbling around looking for good design on grant dollars.