Bicycle Frame Geometry

In the wind-tunnel frame geometry if unfettered by a rule moves the downtube above the chainrings, this single move lowering the overall drag on the machine something like 7%, old news, Burroughs' & Obree both put out machines like this and they worked so well were banned in the late 1980's.

But who races, in the USA, your street, your town, compared to who rides around?

Most people ride around, so, they should use a bike with the tube raised and get a free ride!

Industrial designers have a course on what amounts to what happens when you scale your idea up, to millions. This is to tell what happens in society when you design something.

So, this is the news, if you don't race, you don't need the downtube attached to the bottom-bracket which makes the frame a dog in the wind, really slows it down, no reason at all to do it that way for most people.

The image is a Schwinn Varsity with the tubes redone to take advantage of the aerodynamics, and put in a cruiser style curve for looks and more stand-over clearance.

Rebuilt touring bike frames, frame-only, are being offered, the tubes are redone and cut to fit the rider.

The idea is to use original mine-to-steel and manufacturing energy spent, customize the fit and produce a bicycle frame that saves the rider about a calorie a mile over the original.

If you scale up the change from moving the tube up, it saves the people using bicycles for transportation millions of pounds of food a day, this for the poorest people so significant.

Source: Mallard Design Company - Cannonball Cycles | read on source

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