The cycle story and lessons learnt on torsional rigidity

Here is a tragic start to the story:

My relatively new bicycle was stolen!

Living in one of the safest city, it still happened - only to me. I parked the cycle, bought bread from the shop, returned 180 seconds later: And it was Gone!

I could not believe it; It took me a while to realize that there was some thievery involved. When talking to colleagues on the next steps, there were two factions: One camp advised to forget about the whole affair and buy a new cycle tomorrow. But I took the other camp's advice and headed to the police station to report the heinous crime. 

Sure enough, the police and other administration assured action. If someone likes the bright lighting outside Pushang fruits & vegetables, you can thank me & the municipality . Following my police complaint, the authorities installed lights and cameras at the crime spot to protect innocent bread buying people from dacoity.

I realized that I had become the talk of the town.

Aggrieved by the incident and the gossip around it, I started the task of finding the next cycle to buy. The daily rental bikes were fine. But: 

(a) They were wretchedly slow 

(b) Clearly they are favorites of all the Shanghai billionaires and real estate magnates, for they are impossible to find in CBD area 

(c) Their seat adjustment mechanism often froze in rainy/ icy winter of Shanghai *

*Peculiar niche problem - but this was pushing the author to insanity

My requirements were quite clear, my new bicycle had to satisfy the following requirements:

1. It should be the faster one in the lot

2. It should be cheaper than my stolen bicycle 

Point 2 was because of heartbreaking experience of being a victim of thievery, which had thrown my financial model of utilizing assets for X years into the bin.

A colleague of mine recommended the following, and showed me his piece in the parking lot:

Salient features of this bike:

- It weighed a few milligrams more than my wife's left earring (I have lifted both with my tiny finger and can attest the fact)

- It cost a few dollars more than the Honda Accord

Nyope..

My other sensible colleague showed his Specialized bike. I loved it, but then, it also involved a lot more money.

I gave up on my colleagues and turned to other strata of society for advice. 

Now there was one name that was emerging as a serious contender amongst these conversations: 

Forever. A China based manufacturer with a history of 100 years.

Our compound electrician and the plumber had decade old machines of this brand to get around for their jobs and swore by it.

Forever:  A local manufacturer with a legacy of a 100 years making bicycles for the masses. Incidentally, they were trying a new racing frame to venture into the road bike space.

Well well well..

We have a winner here! 

This was going to be the Mitsubishi Evolution or the Ford Sierra Cosworth of cycling. 

This was the underdog that would teach the snobby rich a lesson.

My new machine

So I went ahead and bought it. Sure enough, it rode very well. It did go faster than my previous machine, it had Shimano gears and a good frame. On paper, all configurations on number of gears, tire size, disc brakes, frame were equal or better than the other richie rich bikes.

Muhahaha.. If only my other friends could borrow some wisdom from me : it would have helped them buy faster and better cycles at a fraction of what they had paid for their brands.

Well there were minor bits though, this was heavier than my friends' bikes and the paint job & finishing could not at all compare. But what the heck, remember the price?!

All that I installed was a cushion seat, tiny rear lamp and a bell (a must… to avoid killing the screen glaring addicts in Shanghai). 

Cycling to office by the Huangpu river was fun and one day, it happened:

A gang of cyclists overtook me over a down slope!

I liked following them, initially because their machines were incredibly beautiful. There was a Canyon Aero, Specialized and Pinarello amongst the 3 guys, while a Specialized and a Cannondale served the two ladies. 

While my lungs and my muscles were working hard in chasing the gang, my brain was getting its lessons in physics.

Weight: These road bikes are built for purpose and I could see the lack of weight doing wonders for the gang. With their effortless climbs, Newtonian laws showed that I was at a major disadvantage carrying excess weight.

Rigidity and speed: 

As you lean a bike into a corner, many forces converge: gravity, which pulls you vertically downwards; momentum/ kinetic energy, which keeps you moving forward, and centripetal force, which pushes you outwards (to the left when turning right and vice versa). The game of the bike frame is to help you be stiff enough to balance these forces, while being lighter than a bundle of 28 feathers.

All advertisements show that their bike's frame is stiffer, lighter, and more comfortable. From an engineering stand point, these are all opposite ends of a triangle. You could try pursuing one while sacrificing the other. And this is where the finesse, materials used and quality of engineering shows.

Though my frame had extra weight, the ones ahead were better alloyed. At one point, you can figure that while I was expending more effort pedaling, my competitors frames were stiffer and making it easier. In my case, an iota of my pedal force was being lost in twisting the frame by one-millionth of a millimeter. Small number, but in a race, it meant a lot when every bit of energy needs to be transferred to the wheels.

All this meant that I was losing out broadly. On downhill, I could not compete. On uphill, I starting abusing my thigh muscles to make up for what my machine lost. While I did make some overtakes during the uphill, the gang effortlessly overtook me again on the downhill or the flats.

Sure enough, I was losing to them. But yes, one of the girl on Specialized was tiring out and getting slow as well, falling back behind her gang.

I recalibrated my target and decided to race her.

I followed her determinedly. Yes, that's the word I was looking for: determination. I had had my eggs in the morning but the aching muscles were managing to just keep up. I promised my old muscles that there would be one more egg added to the count for tomorrow's breakfast. 

The situation became more of a determination contest: her's against mine. Determination to go faster.

A slope ahead again. Hell no, I was not going to let that work in her favor this time.  

Ignoring the screaming muscles' revolt, I pushed harder.

I was catching up.

Catching up.. but watch out..

There was a turn at the end of the slope. I saw her lean in.

I followed suit - I leaned a couple of degrees.

The turn was more severe, she dipped in a few degrees more. 

I had not done such angles, but my eyes quickly analyzed her tires:

They were slimmer than mine.

Hah.. If those puny tires could manage the tilt to that extent, then of course my broader tires could do as well.

I tilted a bit more. Now the realization struck: I could not make it..

While she dipped in a few degrees more, I knew I would definitely fall if I followed suit.

Yikes!

I was going to go off the track.

At this speed, my bike could not turn to stay on track, the only option was to stop outside.

I jammed the brakes, lost some speed and the tires got into a skid.

Early morning Tai Chi

At my current course, there was the beautiful Huangpu river at extreme right, a group of aged Tai-Chi practitioners at their morning ritual and ample vegetation to the left.

Checking the options again: 

(a) Falling in the river (not sure if the barrier would hold); 

(b) Crashing into senior citizens, 

(c) Crashing into bushes

Now whichever region, religion or culture you may hail from, you would perhaps agree with me that your society does not look up to killing or injuring the elderly. 

Crash site.. Protect the aged we must..

So option (b) was out. I decided to try to crash land into the shrubs and the vegetation.

I was losing speed, but not enough yet. I veered right and jammed my brakes again.

The bike stopped responding to me altogether and missed the foliage, shrubs and little plants by a fair margin. I looked in horror as I realized my last momentum would be stopped by those huge trees. All these years, I had loved the cool shade, but had never realized the enormity of these trees.

My knee hit a tree, which seems to have been planted in ancient times, for this specific purpose only for this fateful dark day. While the tree trunk showed its strength in whacking my calf bone, the bark did a wonderful job in scraping my knee.

If I were a spectator to this event in slow motion, I would laugh out loud while clapping my hands. Of course I would run to the accident spot, call the fallen rider a few names and highlight his stupidity, state that the outcome was certain when attempting such a silly race with a cheap bike sans gear. 

And point my finger at the rider and laugh more.

Fortunately, the world is still full of good people and the crowd there did not share any of my thoughts.

Aged tai chi practitioners, joggers and cyclists did rush to the spot and started helping to collect things at the crash site - a laptop (the office backpack had magically opened), cell phone, a glove, the cycle and me - all scattered a couple of meters away from each other.

They were saying something:

Something Trrrrrrrrrr something tring tring..

Trrrrrrrrr?

As my ears stopped ringing, I recognized a few the words :

Something.. 你的身体还好吗？Something?

医院？ 120？

Oh.. They were asking if my body was ok? Shall they call an ambulance? Noting that the tone of queries was bundled with genuine concern, I carried out a quick self-diagnostic. The head seemed to be in its usual place, the neck as well. Most of the limbs moved, with a manageable ache in the left knee area. Since I could not take off my pants there, the knee bruise would need to wait to be discovered later at home.

I assured the population that I was ok. Other than the fact I had lost a race recently, I was otherwise in very good spirits.

After helping me collect my stuff and seeing me off, the crowd disbursed leaving me in solitude again to meditate on the events. 

A lot many engineering concepts (and philosophies) were getting clear to me now. A well-engineered frame can be rigid, and can sometimes let the torsion work in your favor. 

Not to keep you any longer, let me summarize the lessons: 

Lesson 1: DNA is an important element in every aspect. Even in this case of engineering a fast cycle, I had chosen a workhorse-DNA bicycle, which was trying to be a racer. More foolishly, I was trying to challenge the race-bred DNA machines.

Lesson 2: Shanghai has a serious shortage of smart criminals at the moment. After a few months, the police called me to inform that they had heroically recovered my stolen bike! The police priorities in chasing a bicycle thief (and actually catching them) proves that there is an acute shortage of axe murderers and bank robbers in the city to keep the authorities busy. Just in case you are looking for an alternative career.

Lesson 3: Rigidity to a frame can do you wonders in cornering. With the lesson learnt the hard way, the author has now bought a Germano-Slavic car and has a hearty time throwing it around corners, well ahead of Lexus-es, Toyotas and Acuras. 

Acing with torsional rigidity this time.