Designs

Emailed designer drawings of cabled upright and single tube recumbent over the fall. Thanks for the nice comment.
I've been working on a few things and one of the transistional designs has gone forward where I've managed to envision by lever and tensional cable the rider being able to shift the bike from the upright to the recumbent position, and back again, without losing steering control. Modeling is proving a challenge.
There are just so many features coming forward in just one model that it gets confusing.
Therefore, I feel I need to do a breakout and project spreadsheet to keep up with the necessary changes. Trying to keep them all in my mind - well, it gets to be a bit much as I have to put one aside and pick up another and then,,,, so forth all over again.
I realize I'm being cryptic here but, this is the internet after all.
The transistional frame is first, followed by the expandable cranks, then into the drive train of chain/tube and then the steering/lever.
Part of my problen is in trying to keep all of them going along the same design line without straying too far. I think this is what is making me crazy - trying to control the process. I need to just break them out on their own and let the processes go where they need to go with the confidence that they'll all come together.
Well, I'm glad I had this conversation with myself. Maybe now I can just concentrate one thing at a time! Ugh!

I'm back

Thanks to Debbie, I discovered my feeds from blogs (James) and have been reading them with renewed interest as others have all of a sudden "discovered" the big blue ocean metaphor of untapped market for bikes(vehicles) but haven't thought to make the transistion from bikes as recreational to bikes as vehicles. U.S. versus Asian concept.
And, as schools of fish swimming around together(using the metaphor) they haven't gone outside the school to ask others not using their product just what they are looking for, and then adapting the bike to fit the asking.

Living with Bumps

The modeling worked better than expected and there sits one frame which will actively translate from an upright to a recumbent. One part waiting though, is the tensile integrity. The compressional part works and I can make the frame work with compressional members but it will not work correctly if completed in this manner. A number of reasons for this: the tubes used are too lightweight; the compressional members are just there to position points in space but the tensional member not as yet applied will be worked out shortly. In the meantime, there does exist two separate frames presenting themselves as an upright and the other a recumbent using a static tensile system which is acceptable in some circles. If these models have acceptance separately, then it will be yet a small matter to introduce one which moves from one form to the other. Two different approaches have already been worked out for the dynamic tensional system for the translational model but I'm going to just keep it in the box for now. Generally, people just react too strongly to too much change and this new approach will be enough for them to get used to. But, as the two models are built for use, this process will work out any bugs and will give insight as to the translated version's dynamics. There are also the added features of adjustable cranks to be updated as well as new power trains, flex-linked steering and in the farther future; external articulating frames/windscreens with tensegrity.
But, for right now, the honeydo jobs need doing.

Life's bumps in the road

Here it is today and while the metal bike jig sits unfinished in Guy's shop, or dismembered(?), I've gone and constructed a wooden jig. This allowed(forced) me to make considerations.
Having a frame in one's eye and building a full sized frame(experimental) into reality takes time and money. Being short on both, I opted for the old method of building to scale(somewhat) and out of readily available dimensionalized wood. Parts still have to be made, and some equipment bought but in the end it allows one the freedom to test out concepts with imagination.
So far, I've been able to build the frame work and now the task of including the tensional synergy element falls to the mind. Frame reinforcement is first and then it starts. Kind of like standing upon some cliff over the ocean wanting to dive into uncharted waters.
Linear geometry expanding and contracting while providing tensional integrity.
Things come to me which will allow some things to happen but having them work on such small scale? Plenty of doubts. More than enough to last a life time. Just have to start and make the best of it. Until next time.

NRX Bikes

Today, Saturday, went down to Guy's shop to work on fixture. With many interruptions, we embarked on a novel approach to finish setting the parameters of the fixture/jig using tensional aspects instead of compressional integrity. This is in keeping with our tensegrity design approach of our bike frames. Met a young man named Josh(mechanic) who works there on the weekends and is an ex-worker in the bicycle industry.
It's cold today! This weekend is one of those hunker down times. If you don't have the equipment for the weather, don't play outside.
However, in recounting to Josh about riding in cold weather, it wasn't that many years ago that Seth and I were forced out into minus twenty to thirty weather to bike for groceries. As he was between one to three during those times, I remember being stopped during daylight hours by mothers or just women, to check on the condition of Seth and chide me about having a small child out in cold weather. We learned to go during night hours to bypass the prying eyes of women on patrol for men with young children out in the weather of winter. Women who lived totally removed from the effects of having to survive the cold and dress for winter enjoyment. Once, his mother and I had been biking by the university over in St. Paul during daylight on a winter day with the bike cart behind us off of the beaten path on a quiet side street when a women drove over to us from the main road, lowering her front window and screaming at us, "What is the matter with you crazy people!?" And, what followed was a tirade against us for even being on the roadway at this time of year and how dare we? Get a car!
At her mention of someone acting crazy, we gazed at her behavior and almost burst out laughing. It was even harder holding it in as she gunned her engine and spun her tires of her three thousand pound vehicle and slewed past us turning back to the main road, still screaming out of her window. I wonder now about her political party affiliation. How dare we be on the roads?
Crazy people driving three thousand pound vehicles. What are they thinking?
I tell myself that one day in the not too distant future, I'll be riding in weather as today comfortably without the heavier layers of clothing top to bottom which I used to wear with goggles, face masks and so forth. And, I'll do it with minimal layers on my body using a shell with controlled air entry, with heating for the body and a airflow vent for windshield clearing.
I've thinking about this ever since the very first days of getting back on a bike since those days of being forty-one. How to bike comfortably in winter in Minnesota and Canada?
As the exertion is more, I create more water vapor. The only solution needs controlled airflow with heat applied as it enters a weather proof shell but the shell needs to be a minimal weight. I remember riding behind a clear bubble in a trike during the winter. In the lee of the bubble going into the wind, it was comfortable for those parts of my body inside of the wind shadow. Almost too comfortable. Part of me would be getting cold from the warmer sweat generated by the part warmer and migrating up. I could almost envision a polar tech type of fabric enclosing me with a clear bubble type in front. It would have to be the "wind block" type of polar tech to be able to leech the vapor out of the enclosure else the vapor would build up inside and add to the fog/vapor. The windshield would need to be vented like the one Dave and I worked out for the trike that one winter. It would probably need the new design of the vent from the Chicago site for the intake.
Or, would the wind block material build up ice like the head gear did? Hmm.
Water vapor/ice buildup is going to be a problem to be solved experientially.
Back to the main topic.
The "cage" should allow us to work out measurements for all shapes inside of dimensional measurements of the cage. Being right at ten feet long, this should allow us to construct plugs by "lofting". Or, to take measurements of shapes thrown up and then duplicate them from stations.

NRX Bikes

Last night, I went down and worked on the new jig with partner Guy, and his partner, Doug, who graciously TIG welded the main beams together. Doug is an artist with his TIG welder. Fixtures are next.
Outlined the design criteria for Guy as to the new ideas taking shape of the Bike Concept. Such as overcoming the xforming bike shown in Holland in September '07.
The new ideas reverse the Holland approach while coupling them with tensional integrity and providing power to the frame.
Fundamental to this approach is that the default position is the upright while the recumbent position is the forced position. However, the wheel base is the recumbent position baseline. This provides a controlled transition between upright and recumbent positions, and with the possibility of intermediate positioning.
Noting the length of the jig, my conversation with Doug was as to the original intent of being able to build tandems. The idea then popped into my mind of a tandem xform. Probably doable once the intricacies are worked out for the single. In the meantime, certainly doable for a tensional tandem. Upright, or tandem.
It is going to be fun.

NRX Bikes

Recently, I checked out a book from the library entitled, "1491" by Mann which revisits was is coming to be known about the inhabitants of the Americas prior to discovery by Europeans through manuscripts written by first hand accounts over the first incursions and by compilation of scientific evidence constantly being gathered and analysed even as this is written.
One of the primary areas which caught my attention was the author's rendering of the Spanish and Inka meeting of culture and technologies. Especially where the Europeans ran up against bridges constructed mainly with tensional components instead of compressional components.
Thinking to myself, I had an "Aha!" moment.
Mann points out the two cultures technological approaches and how they each focused upon different aspects of structure. The Europeans upon compressional approaches and the Inka, tensional components.
So, I said to myself, maybe the compressional approach is inherent in our culture still in most things. Besides bridges, what else, with exception of Fuller and Snelson, have we done with tensional structures?
Why is it that a cabled bike frame made it's first rendition upside down in the 1800's and never appeared again in other designs?
I ask myself over and again. Why am I the only one which sees this as a breakthrough moment? Am I deceiving myself?
And, now that I've gone beyond the original moment, the original change of sight, why can't others see what I see? It is so simple. What don't I see?
Is it that the outward look of our everyday thinking, imagining, is still along the compressional path that we still deviate onto that path of design and sight without realizing it?
For instance, when I first unveiled my cabled steering design for Dave, he had immediately poo pooed it without trying it, while a trained mechanical engineer involved with autos had marveled at its' simplicity?
Guess I had better return to my basement and build at least the next replacement.