Suspended chain ring

Werehatrack said:

If I were inclined to bet, I'd almost be willing to wager that this is
an idea that's been tried before. It's amazing how many such
"marvelous new inventions" turn out to be neither marvelous nor new.

The biopace rings were first manufactured by Worthingtons in the 1930's.
When everyone who had tried them had stopped cycling they came back. So
I would not be surprised to see these come back later.

Garry Jones
English Cyclist ResIDING in Sweden

Garry Jones said:

Werehatrack said:

If I were inclined to bet, I'd almost be willing to wager that this is
an idea that's been tried before. It's amazing how many such
"marvelous new inventions" turn out to be neither marvelous nor new.

The biopace rings were first manufactured by Worthingtons in the 1930's.
When everyone who had tried them had stopped cycling they came back. So
I would not be surprised to see these come back later.

The REALLY funny thing was that the Shimano Biopace rings started out
really pretty egg-shaped. Then every year, they "improved them" by
making them a little rounder. Pretty soon, they had re-invented the
round chainring and we were all back where we started.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

"Werehatrack" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

... I once had the
opportunity to directly ask Douglas Adams if he'd made it

work that

Quoted message said:

way on purpose, having heard that he had not. He confirmed

that

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indeed, he'd intended for it *not* to work, and was a bit

annoyed when

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it was pointed out that it *did*, in base 13. I'd been

prepared to

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think that he was being clever, hinting that the real

problem is that

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most people just don't look at things in the manner that

allows them

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to see the answers that they need, but no, it was nothing so

subtle

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after all.

Thanks for the explanation. It's a good story.

Quoted message said:

Garry Jones said:

Quoted message said:

If I were inclined to bet, I'd almost be willing to wager that this is
an idea that's been tried before. It's amazing how many such
"marvelous new inventions" turn out to be neither marvelous nor new.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Werehatrack wrote:
The biopace rings were first manufactured by Worthingtons in the 1930's.
When everyone who had tried them had stopped cycling they came back. So
I would not be surprised to see these come back later.

Mark Hickey said:

The REALLY funny thing was that the Shimano Biopace rings started out
really pretty egg-shaped. Then every year, they "improved them" by
making them a little rounder. Pretty soon, they had re-invented the
round chainring and we were all back where we started.

That's funny! In fairness, there were only Biopace and the
rounder Biopace II (each came in 2 quality grades)

Ya gotta hand it to Shoji Onozawa for renaming his
'old-fashioned' SR-Sakae rings "Round Tech" during the
Biopace years.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

My wife has trouble walking up stairs with her cane. Do you think a spring
might help? The idea would be that the spring would absorb some of her peak
energy output, and deliver it at another part of her stride.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Leo Lichtman said:

My wife has trouble walking up stairs with her cane. Do you think a spring
might help? The idea would be that the spring would absorb some of her peak
energy output, and deliver it at another part of her stride.

When my (late) dad had trouble getting up and down stairs
with his polymyocitis, he rigged up something that was
basically a block of wood half the height of a stair riser,
to step on with one foot. It had a long, upright handle
for moving it from step to step. With it he could take
the stairs sort of a half-step at a time, using the railing
rather than his cane for support on the way up or down.
It served him well. No springs in it, though.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Garry Jones said:

Amazingly, this is not a joke.

http://www.hisingensck.se/texter-bilder/ovrigt/2005/bilder/050129/IMAG0154_stor.jpg

Quoted message said:

Can anyone explain the need for suspension springs in the chain

rings?

Quoted message said:

....and I thought I'd seen it all!

Garry Jones
English Cyclist, ResIDING in Sweden

When a mountain climber at high altitude with a heavy pack takes a
step, it is a quick step with a rest after that. If you want to lift
something heavy you try to do it as fast as you can. You would not try
to spend a long time holding something heavy. Sometimes muscles like to
to work in small spurts with rests instead of long continuous output. A
rider could use this crankset to spin high rpm normally while also
having the option to hammer at low rpm. It is not comparable to
Biopace. An easier way to get this "suspended chainring" effect is to
devise a pulley on a spring tensioned lever on the drive side of the
chain. It can always be disengaged for efficient spinning. I have been
meaning to try more experiments with this.

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 13:22:26 -0600, Werehatrack
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Can anyone explain the need for suspension springs in the chain rings?

There isn't one.

I beg to differ. The existence of fools and money, and the
well-publicised ease of parting the latter from the former, is surely
justification enough.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:41:25 +0000, "Just zis Guy, you know?"

may have said:

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 13:22:26 -0600, Werehatrack
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Can anyone explain the need for suspension springs in the chain rings?

There isn't one.

I beg to differ. The existence of fools and money, and the
well-publicised ease of parting the latter from the former, is surely
justification enough.

For that, there is no need to even have a product, as is demonstrated
on a minute-by-minute basis on eBay.

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My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.