Final Year Project Survey

rossthompson

Hi guys, I am doing my final year project at Brunel Unviersity on improving mountain bike performance.

Please could you spare 2 minutes to complete my survey:

http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-surve ... M_b8927352

Thanks

Ross

diy

As an alumni, I thought I'd give it a go, but the survey timed out.

I have to say I can't see the point in remote tyre control.

I think you'd get much more interest in electronic gear changers that you could link to a cadence sensor or sat nav. Or perhaps shock settings linked to sat a nav?

thekickingmule

I completed it, but I have 3 bikes, each with different things on the handlebars.
I don't know whether I would like a function of changing tyre pressure on the go, I keep mine to how I like it really.

ride_whenever

diy wrote:

As an alumni, I thought I'd give it a go, but the survey timed out.

I have to say I can't see the point in remote tyre control.

I think you'd get much more interest in electronic gear changers that you could link to a cadence sensor or sat nav. Or perhaps shock settings linked to sat a nav?

+1

There was a Ti framed bike with a lefty and butchered Di2 with a sequential gearbox which was quite cool. Personally I like the idea of electronic suspension that varies with gradient!

cooldad

Pointless IMHO.

And I'll say it again - sick of people joining the forum with a random survey as their first post.

diy

Come to think of it my mates lefty had remote electronic shock control, but only for the front, which seems daft.

Another thought on electronic gears, would be a cadence integrated cvt gear. Might be a bit heavy though.

Also I think there is some mileage in duo lever and telelever suspension, particularly on long travel hard tails which suffer a bit from fork dive under braking.

BobbyTrigger

completed. left a note to say its a daft idea

ride_whenever

diy wrote:

Come to think of it my mates lefty had remote electronic shock control, but only for the front, which seems daft.

Another thought on electronic gears, would be a cadence integrated cvt gear. Might be a bit heavy though.

Also I think there is some mileage in duo lever and telelever suspension, particularly on long travel hard tails which suffer a bit from fork dive under braking.

The issue with cvt is that it is hugely inefficient...

moggy82

dont do it, do something on cars etc instead, i did a bike related final project and go much worse marks than mates who did automotive based projects even though mine was much more in depth and well presented. My mates agreed mine was better, but the tutors just didnt like that it was push bike related so marked me down.

Steve_F

Completed it too but mirror the comments about having more than one bike with more than one set up.

Presuming this is just for an assignment, not something you're seriosuly considering in the real world as it is a fairly daft idea.

To control it you'd need to have something on your wheels to inflate the tyres, this would have to be a pretty serious bit of kit it you're planning to have this remote for quick, on the move adjustments. This means a compressor that's mounted to one part of the wheel, including some radio/infrared control device as wires are definitely out on a spinning wheel. That's a lot of extra weight to carry on one part of a wheel which is the one place to try and drop weight, not to mention the change in balance.

Maybe thinking too much about what is obviously just an idea you have to create a report on and not sure how these are marked but if they can take points off for bad ideas I'd watch out!!

Rindle

I can't complete the survey as my answer for question two (number of gear shifters) is zero.

Admittedly the produt is almost definately not for me beasue i I can't be bothered with gears i very much doubt i can be bothered to change my tire pressure whilst riding.

diy

The only way I think this could be remotely possible is some sort of tubeless setup on hollow mag wheels with a pre-pressured reservoir in side the mag. You would then manually inflate the wheel and use electronic sensors to control the air in the tyre from the rim.

But the important design consideration is not how you would do it, but why you would want to change tyre pressure. I can think of a much easier way of dynamically altering the position of the bead lock to increase or reduce the profile of the tyre, which would be a lot lighter, easier and give the same sort of dynamic control.

Perhaps even easier would be to run an aluminum heating element in the rim tape and use a current or reversed current to heat or cool the air in the tyre (increasing or reducing pressure. Much less moving parts, but not hugely dynamic (would probably take 5 mins to have any effect and then only a marginal change) and again rather pointless.

Regarding CVT, there was something called the nuvinci hub which used balls to create a cvt drive. There are variations of it in RC cars, but yes transfer efficiency is the big limit.

Shami Sniffer

Anyone suggested ABS?

moggy82

Shami Sniffer wrote:

Anyone suggested ABS?

Tested a servo assisted ABS system, as part of my project., got way too hot and faded too easily! Too heavy to be vialbe though!

cooldad

Hit and run poster doesn't seem too interested in opinions.

diy

I think there might be mileage in mechanical abs, however abs is still very much work in progress on motorbikes.

I think linked braking systems would be easy to introduce, but then people like me would refuse to buy them adamant that I know better. Plus cyclists are always fiddling with different rotor sizes which would need to be dialed in to the brakes.

I think there could be mileage in airbags on cycle gear. We've already seen these starting to appear on motorbike safety gear.

wordnumb

cooldad wrote:

And I'll say it again - sick of people joining the forum with a random survey as their first post.

Hi - I'm currently at uni studying people's reactions to online surveys and I'd really value your opinions - if you could just fill in this quick fifty page survey I'll have something to bung in an appendix to a piece of coursework my lecturer probably won't bother to read.

covelove

sorry to be so negative but what an odd idea, i would guess that most people might just carry a small pump in their bag. I really don't think a remote tyre device is any kind of niche in the market. My uni lecturer (also a biker) would have laughed me out of his office if i suggested it for my finals.

nicklouse

mebers joining just for a survey.

they must have no idea of the forum.

cooldad

wordnumb wrote:

cooldad wrote:

And I'll say it again - sick of people joining the forum with a random survey as their first post.

Hi - I'm currently at uni studying people's reactions to online surveys and I'd really value your opinions - if you could just fill in this quick fifty page survey I'll have something to bung in an appendix to a piece of coursework my lecturer probably won't bother to read.

Couldn't resist your link. Excellent.
The other end is here: In the beginning...