this is a weird question, but has anyone ever tried to measure or in some way quantify the surface area of a bicycle?
i may be trying it in preparation for a project...

A +/-5% estimate should be pretty easy with standard geometric formulas.

Please tell me this is for something to do with the actual surface area and not wind resistance/aero profile.

yes, it's an aesthetic project.
maybe i should combine forces with the guy making a model of a bike...

just bust out a tape measure and measure your tubes...

circumference of circle * length = surface area of cylinder

then you would have to approximate for the areas that aren't cylinders, e.g. dropouts, but most of the bicycle is tubes

if you want to know the SA of everything including your saddle, spokes/rims, pedals.. then that would probably be pretty damn impossible.

Cut out like a million pieces of tape that are 1" by 1" and go to town. Just make sure not to lose count.

that seems like a good way to approximate nearly everything. should have said, just the frame. it's a monocog, so it's a little chunkier than a track frame.

wot ?

is it possible to calculate surface area from a volume measurement (displacement) ?

ride your bike into the pool

Who Wans Pi

I weep for today's education system.

If bard or an affiliated institution has an architecture or design program (or sometimes a set-design studio), I would try bribing an arch student to make a 3d model of a bike. If you have some good dimensions, an experienced CAD user could knock it out in about 2 hours easy. lots of extra info too... like the Volume of space a bike takes up... you can always save the model and refine it for more precise data.

Don't forget the chain.

Oh Jesus. I'd hate to be the poor guy that has to calculate the surface area of a chain.

As far as the pool guy goes, you could roughly measure the volume by dropping it into a tank of some sort and measuring the overflow, but that won't really help with surface area.

pi is exactly 3

I'd be a lot simpler to calculate areas and volumes than to create a 3-model and then measure it.

what the hell kind of weirdo project are you doing

ps come to cranksgiving up here
itll be easier than the hill race i promise

1. Cut bike tubes in half
2. Measure the space said bike tubes take up
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!!

Interestingly enough, I just took 2 minutes and worked it out for a hypothetical 58 (classic steel tube diameters and geometry, no fork, tho) and got almost a square meter on the dot.

did anyone answer the displacement question? seal the holes andd toss it in a container where you can measure the diff.. does that work?

If you're measuring volume, not surface area.

you have to measure the size of the splash ^