[HN Gopher] Peloton riding is planet's most energy efficient loc...
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Peloton riding is planet's most energy efficient locomotion, finds
new research
Author : kitkat_new
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-09-07 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bikebiz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bikebiz.com)
| ars wrote:
| "It's long been known that an average person on a bicycle is a
| more efficient translator of energy per gram per kilometre than
| any other machine or animal"
|
| Yah, that's not actually true. A human is around 25% efficient
| (counting only the actual energy in the food), while electric
| cars are around 60%.
|
| And if you count the energy needed to grow the food, even gas
| cars are more efficient than humans. And that's even if you only
| count the payload and not the weight of the vehicle.
|
| And flying birds easily are more efficient than humans on a bike
| because they can use wind to help them.
| hirundo wrote:
| Tailgaiting is hypermiling.
|
| We're close to having the tech necessary to make the tailgating
| safe. A critical mass of cooperating auto pilot software should
| do it.
| phailhaus wrote:
| "Critical mass" only makes sense in systems where you need a
| minimum concentration to achieve a self-sustaining feedback
| loop, but traffic is not such a system. You just need two cars
| to get the benefits of hypermiling via tailgating. But the
| amount of cooperation needed between the two cars is such that
| we'll probably never see it outside of long-haul trucks, and
| even then only within fleets operated by the same company.
| bluGill wrote:
| I think for long haul trucks if this ever works every company
| will want in, and want each other in. Maybe there will be
| some system to ensure no cheating (pay the lead truck?), but
| there are enough companies that run trucks that it is easy to
| create a convoy on the fly, with someone else, but much
| harder to get one for your company.
| Lio wrote:
| Would Adaptive Cruise Control count as an existing system to do
| this?
|
| It's not that close granted but it does improve safety by
| watching the car in front on a long drive.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > We're close to having the tech necessary to make the
| tailgating safe. A critical mass of cooperating auto pilot
| software should do it.
|
| Technically you are already there. All train and metro
| carriages already do this. :)
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Thanks for sanity
| nomel wrote:
| This is an extremely small fraction of traffic, and only
| works if you're all going to the same place. Being able to
| zip onto the freeway, then insert/connect/merge into the
| "road train", perhaps with charging, could be amazing.
| antipaul wrote:
| I thought you stay in once place on a Peloton bike??
| _ph_ wrote:
| I would like to have seen a comparison to a state-of-the-art
| velomobile though. They have greatly reduced drag compared to a
| single cyclist too.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Big Triangle (UCI) will never let that happen. They have a
| stake in keeping that technology supressed. Just like big oil
| and the electric car. :P
| _ph_ wrote:
| Well, this is not about UCI regulations, it is about what is
| physically most efficient. But indeed, it is a pity that the
| UCI blocks any new bicycle designs.
| smm11 wrote:
| A cycling peloton is just humans imitating birds. If Peloton, the
| company, did not want to lose lawsuits it should have used a word
| that wasn't already in use in the same neighborhood.
|
| They could have called the company Wopat or something, and people
| still would have bought the things (given Covid, but still).
| [deleted]
| hprotagonist wrote:
| the air resistance savings in a paceline are absolutely insane to
| experience. Even with just one riding partner, we can go
| significantly farther on a ride.
| bosswipe wrote:
| Why would you need a supercomputer to figure this out instead of
| putting simple sensors on the bikes in a peloton?
| rconti wrote:
| They all already have power meters! It seems like you should
| know that 2 riders of similar weight and profile are doing
| vastly different amounts of work, and extrapolate from there.
|
| Of course, you won't be doing 5-10% the output because there's
| still mechanical losses and rolling losses, but they should
| have decent models of those as well.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| The study is good, with the possible exception of using
| stationary (terra-cotta) riders in the wind tunnel. It seems
| possible that moving riders would create turbulence that would
| change the equation.
| shmapf wrote:
| For anyone as confused as I was, peloton is the term for riding
| bicycles close together in a group. Not the brand of indoor
| exercise machines.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Thank you. Testament to the strength of Peloton's brand that
| most of us related to the exercise bike right away.
|
| Unfortunately brand does not sustain a company in the absence
| of a product+price market fit
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Imo there is a product+price market fit, just lacking the ego
| fit.
| Kukumber wrote:
| It's not the "strength of the brand", it's a brand name that
| should have never been allowed in the first place because of
| that kind of confusion, that's specially why they went with
| that name, they knew, it is market manipulation, for the same
| reason Phone is not allowed as a phone brand
|
| That brand is only known in few US states, the world refer to
| peloton as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloton
| Lio wrote:
| This!
|
| They actually had the balls to threaten a few bloggers for
| using the term peloton correctly on YouTube.
|
| Luckily the blogger didn't give in and the exercise firm
| had to back down.
|
| I also note that tickets to the (most excellent) Tour of
| Flanders came from a different firm also calling themselves
| Peloton.
|
| So the exercise bike group aren't exclusively trading under
| name either.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| There's a difference between whether a name is sufficiently
| distinguished to trademark and whether it is prohibited as
| "market manipulation." One certainly could not trademark
| the word "phone," but it would be perfectly legal to sell a
| phone branded as such.
| Psychoshy_bc1q wrote:
| Peloton is the term for the biggest group in a cycling race,
| usually there the favorites are. the term isn't used outside of
| races.
| moskie wrote:
| It was also sly of the author to put the word at the beginning
| of the title so that it should be capitalized.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Lol. My quick take was "you're literally not going anywhere,
| how could that be efficient!?!"
| michaelwww wrote:
| I'm glad they specified "planet" because bicycle riding on the
| Moon is probably the most energy efficient human locomotion
| Waterluvian wrote:
| There's YouTube videos of a guy who, on a downhill stretch, gets
| on his tummy and is like a rigid dart flying through the air,
| overtaking everyone at a ridiculous speed.
|
| I was always curious if it was real and why not everyone does it.
| aliqot wrote:
| It's real, we don't do it because you can't dodge stones or
| dogs attached to leashes that dash across the lane faster than
| an iphone can jump back into the owner's pocket.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Not sure about the specific video, but it can be done[0]. It is
| extremely dangerous of course, which I guess is why most people
| don't try to do it. It may also even be against regulations.
|
| [0] Example of a particularly dangerous version:
| https://youtu.be/p0mE2b5zu48?t=133
| latchkey wrote:
| The guy is on a fixie. Likely got to an RPM point on the
| downhill where it was actually safer to pull his feet off the
| pedals.
|
| This isn't really as unsafe as it looks... or at least not
| any more dangerous than keeping their feet on the pedals at
| that speed.
|
| I spent a lot of time riding around velodromes... you only
| forget to stop peddling once on a fixie. It is like riding a
| bucking horse. Perfect example:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXJmELmmXos
| forinti wrote:
| It's dangerous. He would have zero chance of not crashing if he
| met a hole or had to change course suddenly.
| Lio wrote:
| It would probably be banned under the same rule as descending
| on the top tube and the puppy paws position.
|
| I wouldn't be at all surprised if that rigid position was
| really fast though.
|
| If I put the dropper post down on my mountain bike and get low
| when I am on a road hill I drop like a stone. I've often over
| taken friends on road bikes doing that.
|
| Matej Mohoric used a dropper post to win Milan-San Remo this
| year.
|
| I could see them becoming a key aero tool on road bikes in
| future.
| abc03 wrote:
| It's not allowed by the UCI:
| https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/news/uci-rules/ And
| certainly not everyone should do it.
| [deleted]
| sockaddr wrote:
| I think a spore floating thousands of miles simply because of its
| geometry is the most efficient.
| cyclingfarther wrote:
| You can always gain efficiency by giving up safety.
|
| Just look up peloton crashes. Or imagine cars driving like that.
| bitwize wrote:
| When motor vehicles do that, it's called a convoy.
| Unearned5161 wrote:
| I'd say it depends on the group, if you have a group of riders
| that know each other and have ridden in packs before then the
| risk of issues are slim. Essentially just stuff that probably
| would have given you trouble riding alone anyway. The risk
| starts when you either have a race going on or you have riders
| that are inexperienced and don't know the customs/procedures.
| Lio wrote:
| Yep. It's definitely something you want to train for.
|
| It's one of the main reasons to join a bike club.
|
| A good group will call out obstacles in the road and say when
| the are going to slow down. They'll have set procedures to
| move the group round when the riders at the front get tired.
|
| The experience of being pulled along faster than you could
| ride on your own is a truely joyous experience! :D
| ruined wrote:
| there are automated peloton machines that do synchronized
| braking, cooperative load and force distribution, etc. and when
| on a specialized roadway there is very little risk of
| disruption or crash.
|
| i think they're called trains
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(page generated 2022-09-07 23:00 UTC)