A Brief History of Bicycle Engineering
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- This video explores some of the challenges in designing early bicycles and how concepts such as wheel circumferences, gear ratios, and torque were used to solve problems.
I feel that the engineering of bicycles is a great way to connect some basic mathematical ideas into mechanical problem solving. Playing with properties of circles and ratios as a way to make a bike move faster builds a context to bring these geometric ideas into something physical and creative.
The story also shows how creativity and engineering don't follow a linear path. Seeing novel solutions, failed experiments, and missed opportunities give us a great framework to inspire us and guide us through new problems.
it’s insane this doesn’t have at least a million views, extremelyyyy well done !!!
i once read, the bicycle is amazing, in that the engine, the passenger and the driver as one person all contribute to its motion.
Yep
3:14 you could use a middle gear so it can turn the last gear in the right direction. No chain drive needed.
Really good video! Needs more views for sure
This is very well made.... I loved the video, keep making more I want to see many more such knowledgable videos!!
Thank you! More animations are on the way...
@@reasonformath I am waiting to see those ! Again awesome work ! Could you make videos about cars as well ?
I watched this video randomly years ago.
It finally happened.
I was asked "Why did they make those bicycles with that large wheel?"
I CAN PUT MY RANDOM LATE NIGHT SCROLLING KNOWLEDGE TO USE!
Glad it came in handy! And glad the explanation stuck with you.
What a mell-made and well-animated video this is! Thank you for making this!! ❤❤
Thanks so much! I appreciate that.
@@reasonformath 😊
Cool educational video with cool animations, loving it.
Thank you!
This video is fantastic and easily deserves millions of views.
Beautiful illustrations..really great work
Underrated video! Should’ve gotten a million more views
thanks!
This video is criminally underrated
Thank you. My work doesn't seem to get much traction on UA-cam.
@@reasonformath Dude, why though
One of the best videos I've ever seen
Thank you - really appreciate that.
Amazing video, I will certainly show this to my students, thank you
Thanks! Please tell them I say hi.
This video is a great breakdown of the engineering concepts behind bikes! Great work!
Thanks so much!
Internal hub gears pre date the derailer as a viable multi gear system by a good 20 years if i think correctly
It's making a comeback with belt drives.
@@drill_fiend1097 I have a IGH with a belt drive and I absolutely love it. I also love the lack of maintenance. That carbon-fibre belt is going to out-live me.
Wow, awesome video of bicycle history!
More could have been said. The first bicycle,the wooden 'draisienne' or 'draisine', introduced in 1817 by Count Hugo von Drais, had no pedals and was propelled by pushing your feet on the ground. The first bicycle with pedals, invented by Kirkpatrick Macmillan in 1839, drove the rear wheel by rods in an arrangement similar to the treadles on a loom. The derailleur and the epicyclic hub gear were invented at about the same time, the first two-speed derailleur (and freewheel) appearing on C.M. Linley's Whippet bicycle in 1894. The first two-speed hub gear by Seward T. Johnson dates from 1895.
Great video i enjoyed it. Very much but was very short and missing needed informations
Thanks! The main purpose of this was to go over some main geometric/mechanical mechanisms such as wheel circumference and gear ratios, not really cover a complete history of the bicycle.
Beautiful animation.
Thank you!
Very impressive visuals for a homade UA-cam video, I wonder if you would be keen to show me your software, this is great for my cartoons
Thanks! I've worked in the visual effects industry for over thirty years now, so I've built up a pretty big bag of tricks for working in CG. For this animation, I used Autodesk Maya with Adobe AfterEffects for assembly and color grading.
Bikers of the world: Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! I see the bicycle as being a stride amplifier.
Excellent video.!
Thank you!
thank you for this amazing video
Thanks so much!
Great video !
Recumbent bicycles
Were considered
Cheating and were
Outlawed by the
Tour de France
After a recumbent
Rider beat all others
On upright bicycles
Great work
Good vibes video and nice animation. Perhaps Gentulio Campagnolo should have had a credital mention when speaking about the history of bicycling inventions related to gears.
Amazing production
Incredible production here
Thank you!
Cool animations! Great explanations! Amazing video!
Very interesting, thank you
This visualizes various concepts way better than most cycling channels ever did. Maybe a video on engineering lost/ignored could be nice. Bikeracing never accepted recumbents or aerodynamic fairings. Whether the geometry, especially Highspeed downhill, is ideal is also questionable given the rules squeezing racebikes into certain dimensions. Motorcycle racing once featured dustbin fairings for great aero. I assume thats more related to less power making topspeed a more important component, but if they were in fashion in racing they might be for normal motorcycles making them more efficient. When i look at cars I don't think the 4 seat arrangement comes from a place of logic either but rather as evolution from horse drawn carriages. I know a certain width is necessary to not fall over but outside of racing context seating people behind one another seems better. Just that at the point aerodynamics started to really matter, speeds got high, the layout we know was too established. Or so i assume.
Thank you for this excellent video!
You're very welcome!
Amazing video
Thank you!
He was actually on to something with the butt cone. There’s wind tunnel data that show significant aero improvement when there’s a large saddle bag on the bike. More than making up the weight.
It would be really interesting to ride with one of those and see if you can feel the aerodynamic difference. I would just worry that a cross wind would come in and turn the butt cone into a sail, blowing you off of your bike. 😧
I still think this is the greatest invention of all time.
i don't think , i believe is the best invention.
Great stuff, thanks
This was awesome. Thank you
Thanks so much!
the video is great, 1 point though. you start each new chapter with a summery of the last, while just finishing the last. it feels as though the videos were made separately, then connected together. no need to repeat information 10 seconds later. for example, chapter 2 is about the sprocket and chain, chapter 3 explains that again at the start.
Thanks. And I did make this originally for my TikTok account and it was in three pieces. I assembled these together and didn't want to have to recut new audio and generate updated animation.
Is the electronic groupset/shifter the new standard for Tour De France road bikes?
Fascinating!
Fantastic
Incredible
Jean Loubeyre of Paris. He indisputably patented a 2 speed derailleur device called 'La Polyceler' in 1895 (French Patent and shimano took over being 100 years old now derailleur was invented well before 1937
What? I can't believe that aerodynamic butt cones are not a thing today.
I know, Someone should start a GoFundMe to bring back the butt cone.
3:14 why not just use an idle gear in-between?
Great video thank you
1:26 the original mullet!
Well explained
Thanks so much!
What about the bearings? I heard ballbearings were invented for bicycles. True?
Thanks teach!
learned so much! thanks
Good animations
Bike radar has the storey and a 2 gear rear wheel system amd rear derailleur like an old front mech was used in 1869
Oh this is excellent
Simple amazing machine
Because I have limited knowledge of bikes I can't do this project maybe you can
Gears were meant to be put on a wheel for you to exercise your arms same as a leg arm Exerciser
So when you move the wheel with your arms you start at a light weight and after a certain number of turns you increase the gears strength so your arms moves a heavier weight
This is how people get muscles
They lift small weights and then heavy weights
The advantage of wheel with gears is you don't need the weights and can put on muscles anywhere
Let me know if you understand
Thanks for the video
Cool animations! A couple small nits though - the ancient greek weapon 'polybolos' had an endless chain drive as far back as 250BC. Also, I think bicycle makers in the day of the penny-farthing had definitely conceived of using a chain drive. Many of the women's tricycle designs in that same era had chain drives for example. If you look at old photos the chains look pretty big and heavy though. I'm guessing that it just wasn't as practical back then with the chain technology of the time - and combined with the lack of pneumatic tires a large wheel was just a practical, simple, and affordable option.
Perfect!
Why is the resolution 1x1?
The aspect ratio is square because I first posed this to my TikTok account, and a 1:1 aspect was a good compromise between the default horizontal aspect of UA-cam and the vertical of TikTok.
Interesting and informative - but surprised no mention was made of hub gears, developed in the early 1900s.
hub gears?
how about tire?
Nice
This is amazing
Thanks so much!
And now I want a but cone riding my bike after watching this vid.
Didnt campy invent the derailleur?
I think butt cones need to make a comeback, if only for the photo ops.
Rather surprising that you showed Leonardo's chain sketch without even mentioning the bicycle drawing attributed to Salai...
❤❤❤❤
you forgot the breaks. by the way nice video
😊😊😊😊
1817 the Swiftwalker created by Karl Von Drais is the very first bike. 🤔
My favorite "toy" .
whoa
The ending 😂😂😂
Very impressive, now the future for bicycles are the gearboxes
The butt cone should be reintroduced.
Inventor Karl von Drais , thanks to him i no longer have to waste money in gas on a gas engine vehicle.
Can I suggest you really need to give thanks to John Kemp Starley...from my home town in Coventry, UK.
Wait, so the bike chain was invented by da vinci? Damn.
Back then, derailleurs were considered cheating.
1970: front suspension was considered cheating.
1980: having rear suspension was considered cheating
2018: having a electric motor was considered cheating.
I'm thinking the pinion gearbox is definitely gonna be considered cheating
Three cheers for the butt cone!!!
💪
It's 3:38am for me right now why am I watching this??
I refuse to believe people though first in doubling the wheel size than to do a chain, gear or belt drive.
When presented with the problem of "it's hard to steer the wheel you're pedaling" the immediate solution is to move the pedaling to the other wheel.
I hear you. The most obvious solution is easy to see with the benefit of hindsight.
4:10 early masher
You skipped the multi-speed rear wheel hub entirely..... Your history cannot be right.
You skipped the word “brief” in the title.
he left out one single aspect that doesn’t affect the overall point of this video, therefore, his entire video is false information and should be deleted. okay rob.
There's a 900yr old temple in India with a bicycle carved in granite, on it. I dont think your time line is correct somehow.
Yes, there certainly was an even earlier version of the bicycle that didn't have pedals, you had to walk on the ground like the Flintstones while riding it. It was invented by the same person who invented the meat grinder.
@bikee1394 just not sanitation 😄
So... what about that butt cone?
Now you are just talking dirty.
(Do it again)
And yet we have hi-tech derailleur systems that occasionally drop our chains \o/
started off meh.. but actually this was really good!
I got drunk one day and tried to ride a penny farthing.
I fell down and broke my coccyx, cocxyx? Coxyxc?
Ha ha! I always wanted to write the word coccyx, coxyx, cocoyxx? In a comment! Am I the first person to write the word coccyx? In a comment? Let me know in the comments!!!!
Did you have to wear the butt cone? 😂
Engineering 101 for preschoolers
The biggest problem is theft, 1/2 due to cyclists themselves underestimating the risk by not using a Ulock & registering.
Just so you know people are stealing your video putting it on tiktok and recieve million of views
I do have a TikTok account as well. If it's @reason4math on TikTok, then it's me.
I have seen my work stolen all over (especially on Instagram), and I appreciate you alerting me.
HALLO
Probably should study a little bit more. There’s proof of bicycles for hundreds of years before the pf . Solid European perspective
lot of nonsense about higher CogG being "harder to balance"
actually the reverse is the case - the higher the CofG the easier it is to balance
I know it not only from the theory, but also from practice 😜
With a higher center of gravity, smaller shifts in weight have a bigger impact. I ride a unicycle, and the short ones are easier to balance than the tall ones since a small movement in the arms is less apt to throw you off balance.
@@reasonformath I have no personal experience of unicycling, but I am sure the same applies. As you say "...With a higher centre of gravity, smaller shifts in weight have a bigger impact..." i.e. it requires less effort to keep bike balanced - ua-cam.com/users/shorts5C6cid5RBk8?si=v3IB2rtnwmVISp0L 🤪 I know how much more difficult it is to do the same on lowracer recumbent... 👍
A bit too much repeating the same facts but cool video.