NUMBER 55 WINTER 2003-2004

Editorial; mast, summaries ................................... 2

The biomechanics of force and power
production in human powered vehicles
Danny Too and Charles Landwer ................... 3
Optimal gear selection on an automatic bicycle
Iain Crouch ..................................................... 7
Letter: recumbent monocycle
Brian Burgess ................................................ 10
Efficiency measurements of bicycle
transmissions - a neverending story?
Bernhard Rohloff and Peter Greb ................. 11
Comment from Chester Kyle .............................. 14
Errata for HP54 .................................................. 15
Announcement Human Power Institute ............. 15
Elegy for Sturmey-Archer
Vernon Forbes .............................................. 16
Human powered helicopter, a retrospective
William Patterson ......................................... 19
Comment from Chris Roper ............................... 20
Number 55
Winter 2003-2004

$5.50

Green Fleet - human-powered houseboats

on the Ruhr: Philip Thiel's Escargot ............. 22

HUMAN POWER
is the technical journal of the International*
Human Powered Vehicle Association.
Human Power 55, Winter 2003/4
Editor and production (this issue):
Theodor Schmidt
Ortbhlweg 44
CH-3612 Steffisburg
tschmidt@ihpva.org
Associate Editor
David Gordon Wilson
21 Winthrop Street
Winchester, MA 01890-2851 USA
dgwilson@comcast.net
IHPVA
Richard Ballantine, UK, Chair
Paul Gracey, HPVA representative
Publisher
HPVA
PO Box 1307
San Luis Obispo, CA 93406-1307 USA
Fax (USA) (866) 643-7102
Human Power (ISSN 0898-6908) is
published irregularly by the Human
Powered Vehicle Association, a non-profit
organization dedicated to promoting
improvement, innovation and creativity in
the use of human power generally, and
especially in the design and development
of human-powered vehicles.
Material in Human Power is copyrighted
by the HPVA. Complete articles may be
published elsewhere if full credit is given
prominently to the author(s) and the
HPVA / IHPVA.
*Special

note for this issue

This is the last issue of Human Power
produced on behalf of the IHPVA. Future
issues will be entirely by and for the
HPVA. Please send contributions and
comments for the next issue of Human
Power to the HPVA. The IHPVA may
endorse future electronic human power
journals which become available on the
internet and are mostly freely available for
everybody. Any information about this will
be available at www.ihpva.org.

FROM THE EDITOR

This issue of Human Power marks an
end, a beginning, and transitions. Jean
Anderson, who had produced Human
Power for many years, retired from most
HPV duties with the last issue. Jean had
worked in almost every position the
IHPVA and the HPVA had to offer and
we are grateful for her great amount of
work for so long. Jean remains physically
active and rides her recumbent trike in
San Luis Obispo and elsewhere.
This is my last issue of Human Power.
I want to help start an electronic publication called Human Power International
2

Journal, which will be freely available to

everybody with internet access. The publisher will be the newly formed Human
Power Institute (HuPI) described in this
issue. The HPVA will however also
continue to print Human Power and has
several offers from potential new editors
to choose from.
Why this new development? The traditional human-powered vehicle movement
has matured but is in danger of stagnation.
With so many splendid achievements having been accomplished on land, water and
in the air, the pioneering spirit has diminished. With so many excellent HPVs and
HPBs available commercially, the interest
in home construction has all but vanished,
and with regular HPV races being organized in many countries, the original spirit
of rebellion against established sports
bodies is past, indeed we have become
established sports bodies ourselves.
What about the environmental side of
the human power movement? There are
some positive developments in western
countries which have by now at least realized the problems of over-motorization,
even if most aren't doing anything about
it. Improvements are the increase in
pedestrian areas and the introduction of
pedicabs or velotaxis in some western
cities. In Switzerland so-called "LowSpeed Vehicles" (LV, i.e. walking,
cycling, and HPVs) have been officially
recognized as a traffic category worthy of
promotion by government funds. In contrast, the mayors of many large Chinese
cities regard HPVs of all types as backward and are promoting motor vehicles
and beginning to ban cyclists from major
streets. The developing countries seem
intent on repeating northern-western
mistakes and regarding money and consumerism more highly than a high quality
of life or indeed life itself.
With the globalization of information
it is now possible - and necessary - to
shorten the dark "oil age" for the developing countries. To this end, the information
we have to offer must be available worldwide on the internet.
It must also be available freely, especially as differences in earning power vary
enormously worldwide. Freedom of information promotes its propagation, as is
shown by the presently largest common
project of global human society: the
GNU/Linux computer operating system
with free and open source software.
Also of interest to readers will be former editor Dave Wilson's project to make
Number 55

available the archive of all past issues of

Human Power on a CD-ROM and on the
internet, complete with a searchable
index. Dave and the founding members of
the Human Power Institute have been hard
at work at assembling and indexing the
issues. The CD-ROMs should be available
presently from the HPVA and other
IHPVA members.
Several readers wrote regarding the
editorials in HP54 which commented the
connection between HPVs, oil and the
Iraqi wars. One reader supported the war
and three the reasoning in the editorials.
All stressed the importance of the upcoming elections later this year in the USA,
which have far-reaching consequences for
the USA and for the whole world.
Besides choices like between right and
might, freedom and deception, education
and armaments, I feel it is of utmost
importance to ratify the Kyoto Protocol
for limiting greenhouse gases, which still
requires the signature of Russia or the
USA. The good news is: most readers of
Human Power can do a lot about it: ride
HPVs more and drive less, telecommunicate more and fly less, and above all:
go and vote in November: it has never
been so important!
Also in this issue...
The main theme is the efficiency of
human and mechanical drive trains. We
have a continuation of Danny Too's work
with his and Gerald Landwers article
"Biomechanics of HPV" Part 2.
Iain Crouch's article on the
optimization of gearing for an automatic
bicycle reaches a similar conclusion: you
have to get the operating points of both
the human engine and the mechanical
gearing system right.
Rohloff are also concerned about the
right gear in their article on hub gear
efficiency. This is however mainly a
criticism on Kyle's and Berto's previous
efficiency measurements, including lots of
new measurement data of the 14 speed
Rohloff hub gear.
Vernon Forbes rounds up this subject
with his "Elegy for Sturmey Archer", a
fascinating combination of intimate hub
gear details, recent industrial history, and
moral indignation of the present harsh
industrial climate which shifts jobs overseas just as easily as goods.
Finally, we have Bill Patterson's
proposal for a new scoring system for
human-powered helicopters and a success
story describing a fleet of Philip Thiel's
"Escargot" human-powered houseboats.
Human Power

by Danny Too and Gerald E.

Landwer
Abstract

There are a large number of factors

affecting performance in human powered
vehicles (HPV). Designers of HPVs
often focus on how resistive forces (friction, drag) can be minimized, as opposed
to how propulsive forces can be maximized. How to maximize propulsive
forces through vehicle design is not often
understood because of a complex interaction between internal biomechanical factors (muscle force/torque/power production) and external mechanical factors
(e.g., seat-to-pedal distance, crank arm
length, seat-tube angle, backrest angle,
chain wheel size). The purpose of this
paper is two-fold: (1) to provide information, from a biomechanical and physiological perspective, how muscle force is
produced and modified; and (2) to examine how the muscle force produced interacts with external mechanical factors to
produce power.
Introduction

Speed and performance in land based

HPVs are a function of the amount of
propulsive forces produced versus the
amount of resistive forces that need to be
overcome. Designers of HPVs often
focus on minimizing resistive forces (drag
and rolling resistance) in the construction
of a vehicle. This would include reducing
vehicle cross-sectional area, the surface
area, and drag coefficient to decrease
aerodynamic drag. To decrease rolling
resistance, vehicle and rider weight would
be reduced, and the wheel and tire properties modified (e.g., using a larger wheel
diameter, greater tire pressure, etc.).
Since aerodynamic drag forces have a
greater effect on speed than rolling resistance, the design and construction of
HPVs have focused predominantly on
how to minimize drag forces. A vehicle is
often constructed first, with the objective
to minimize drag, and then a rider is

Human Power

selected to fit in the vehicle - without

consideration as to whether the rider is in
the most effective seating position to
maximize force and power production.
In attempts to increase propulsive
force, designers will modify or manipulate
external mechanical factors such as crank
arm length, seat-to-pedal distance, seattube angle, backrest angle, chain wheel
size, and gear ratio (and/or select bigger
and more powerful riders, such as competitive cyclists or world class athletes),
without really understanding how muscle
force is generated, modified and might
interact with these external mechanical
factors. Modifications of these mechanical factors are often done intuitively or
randomly, without empirical data to support the variable(s) that should be manipulated, the extent of these manipulations,
and whether some variables might interact
with other variables to affect power production. Therefore,
depending on the
100
design of the vehicle, the rider could
be seated in any
number of cycling
positions, with different body orienta50
tions and joint configurations, pedaling with any combination of crank arm
length, seat-to-pedal
distance, seat-tube
angle, backrest
angle, and chain
0
wheel size - without
scientific evidence
as to what factors
and/or combination
Figure 1:
of factors will
maximize propulsive forces. This is
thus the reason for such diversity in
HPVs. It should be noted that the
optimum parameter (e.g., crank arm
length and/or seat-to-pedal distance) to
maximize power for one cyclist (determined from trial and error) might not be
optimum for another, especially when
cyclists have different anthropometrical
characteristics (in height, leg length,
thigh/leg length ratio, etc). To provide
information to designers of HPVs about
how and why seating position may affect
propulsive forces, a review of how muscle
force and power are produced and
modified, will be provided.

Force-Length Relationship

Based on the force-length relationship,

a muscle can produce it's greatest force at
it's resting length. At resting length, an
optimal overlap occurs between the
muscle contractile elements (actin and
myosin filaments) resulting in a maximum
number of cross bridges that can be
formed. With increasing or decreasing
muscle lengths from resting length (such
as when a muscle is lengthening or
shortening during a pedal cycle), the force
a muscle can produce will decrease.
Therefore, an inverted U-shape curve best
describes the force a muscle can produce
with increasing length from it's minimum
length to resting length, and then from
resting length to it's maximum length (see
Figure 1).
For single joint muscles, the joint
angle corresponding to this resting length
can be determined experimentally using

Force(%)

The Biomechanics
of Force and
Power Production
in Human Powered
Vehicles

Number 55

50

100

150

Resting Muscle Length (%)

Force-Length Relationship
an isokinetic dynanometer or using maximal isometric contractions at different
joint angles throughout the joint range of
motion. However, for multi-joint muscles, it is much more difficult and complex to determine the joint angle(s) at
which resting length and maximum force
production occur at. For example, the
rectus femoris is a two-joint muscle that
crosses the hip and knee and is involved
in flexion of the hip and extension of the
knee. If maximal isometric knee
extension strength is measured when the
hip and knee are both at 90 degrees of
flexion (such as the starting position for

performing a leg extension when seated in

an upright position), the force produced by
the rectus femoris will change if the hip
angle is changed (such as when leaning
forward or backwards during the isometric
contraction). Changes in hip angle (with
hip flexion or extension) will change the
length of the rectus femoris (shortening or
lengthening it) and alter it's maximum
force produced at the knee. Conversely, if
the hip angle is fixed and the knee angle is
free to vary, different maximum isometric
forces will be observed with different knee
angles (due to different muscle lengths of
the rectus femoris). Complexity is further
increased when, both the hip and knee
angles change simultaneously during a
dynamic contraction, such as in a squat or
leg press. During a squat or leg press,
when both the knees and hips are extending during the extension (pushing) phase
of the squat or leg press, the rectus femoris
would be shortening at the knee while
lengthening at the hip. During this phase,
the muscle length (and force produced)
could remain the same or change, depending on whether the hip and knee are extending simultaneously, synchronously,
asynchronously, and/or have the same
change in angles. A similar analogy can
be made to cycling.
In cycling, there are multi-joint
muscles (hamstrings, rectus femoris,
sartorius, gracilis) acting at the hip and
knee, and knee and ankle (gastrocnemius,
plantaris) to produce force during a pedal
cycle. The hip, knee, and ankle joint
angles (resulting in resting muscle lengths)
that maximize force production during a
pedal cycle are unknown. During the
propulsive phase in cycling, both the hip
and knee are extending. The hip and knee
angles that might maximize hamstring
force production (during hip extension
when cycling) may not be the same angles
to maximize rectus femoris force
production at the knee (during knee
extension). Knowing (or not knowing) the
specific joint angles that would maximize
force production during a pedal cycle is
probably not that important if cyclists were
constrained to pedal in the same seating
position. For example, if a selected
seating position (e.g., standard upright
cycling position) results in joint angles that
are fairly efficient (or inefficient) for one
individual, it would probably result in joint
angles that are similarly efficient (or
inefficient) for others. But if two
dissimilar cycling positions are used (e.g.,

a high upright sitting position versus a

low recumbent sitting position), one
cycling position may result in greater
production of power due to more
effective joint angles (from more optimal
muscle lengths) than the other. In this
case, information about the specific joint
angles that would maximize force
production during a pedal cycle is
important if cycling performance is to be
maximized.
Seat-to-Pedal Distance

If some seating position (e.g., standard upright) is selected regardless of

whether it results in effective or ineffective muscle lengths and joint angles, and
a standard crank arm length is used, the
only manipulation to change hip, knee,
and ankle angles, would be changes in
seat-to-pedal distance (seat height). Of
course the cyclist could shift the saddleseat location a bit, or lean forward to rest
on the handlebars, or sit more upright, to
manipulate the hip angle. But this
change in hip angle would be minimal
compared to the change that would occur
with changes in seat height. If the seat
height is changed, the minimum and
maximum angle of the hip and knee will
change, although the range of motion at
the hip and knee will remain the same.
This would mean that with changes in
seat height, contraction of the muscles
would occur in different regions of the
force/tension-length curve during a pedal
cycle (although the amount of muscle
shortening/lengthening would remain the
same). Maximum force production
would then occur with a seat height
where muscle contraction corresponds to
the portion of the force/tension-length
curve closest to resting length (or at resting length). This is supported by studies
that reveal an optimum seat height to
maximize cycling performance in aerobic
and anaerobic tests (Gregor & Rugg,
1986; Nordeen-Snyder, 1977; Shennum
& deVries, 1976; Thomas, 1967; Too,
1993).
However, this traditional upright
cycling position with specified joint
angles (minimum, maximum and range
of motion) for the hip, knee, and ankle
(dictated by the seat height and standard
crank arm length) during a pedal cycle
might not be the most effective position
to produce force. The most effective
position may be a non-traditional cycling
position (i.e., recumbent) that utilizes

Number 55

joint angles and muscle lengths (for both

single and multi-joint muscles) that correspond to the resting length portion of the
force/tension-length curve (Too, 1996).
This is supported by studies where hip
angles (minimum and maximum) were
systematically manipulated (through changes in seat-tube-angle, using 5 positions
ranging from a high sitting upright position with the hips above the pedals, to a
low sitting position with the hips below the
pedals) while the knee angles (minimum,
maximum, range of motion) were controlled (Too, 1991, 1990).
Joint Angles, Muscle Length, and
Crank Arm Length

Unlike changes in seat-to-pedal distance with a fixed crank arm length, a

change in crank arm length with a fixed
seat-to-pedal distance will result in a
change in the range of motion during a
pedal cycle at the hip and knee (Too &
Landwer, 1999, 2000; Too & Williams,
2000). In addition, the minimum and
maximum hip and knee angle will also
change unless the seat-to-pedal distance is
determined from maximal extension of the
hip and knee during one pedal cycle. In
this case, the maximum hip and knee angle
will not change with changes in crank arm
length whereas the minimum and range of
motion will change. This presents greater
complexity in determining the joint angles
and range of angles at the hip and knee
that would maximize force production
because: (1) with changes in crank arm
length, the amount of muscle shortening
and lengthening would change, and depending on whether the crank arm length
was increased or decreased, contraction of
the muscles would occur over greater or
lesser portions of the force/tension-length
curve during a pedal cycle; and (2) with an
increased crank arm length, a greater
torque can be produced at the crank
spindle with the same force (or the same
torque can be produced with a smaller
force). The interaction between the force
produced at different muscle lengths during a pedal cycle when different crank
arm lengths are used - with the length of
the crank arm, will ultimately determine
the torque which can be produced at the
crank spindle. Of course, the resulting
interactions to produce force and torque
would be even more complex if different
combinations of seat-to-pedal distances,
crank arm lengths, and seat-tube-angles
were used, resulting in an extremely large

Human Power

number of combinations of joint angles

(minimum, maximum, range of motion)
and muscle lengths at the hip, knee, and
ankle. It should be noted that it is not the
actual seat-to-pedal distances, crank arm
lengths, and seat-tube-angles that are
important in maximizing force and torque.
Instead, it is the resulting hip, knee, and
ankle angles from the combined interactions of these external mechanical variables that correspond to the portion of the
force-length curve closest to resting length
to produce the force that will maximize
torque and power production.
Force-Velocity-Power
Relationship

Based on the force-velocity relationship, the force a muscle can produce will
be affected by it's velocity of contraction.
With a high velocity of contraction (and
no load), minimum muscle force (and
power) can be produced because the actin
and myosin filaments would be sliding by
each other faster than the cross bridges
that can be formed and activated. As the
load increases, the velocity of contraction
decreases, and with a maximum load, the
force of contraction becomes a maximal
isometric one (resulting in zero power)
(see Figure 2). Since power is a function
of force and velocity, based on the forcevelocity-power relationship, maximum
power appears to be obtained with a load
and velocity that is one third to two thirds
of the maximum muscle force and velocity of contraction that can be produced.
From the force-velocity-power
relationship, maximum power (or a
desired power output) in cycling can be
obtained with numerous combinations of

load (chain wheel size, gear ratio) and

velocity (pedaling frequency). However,
it should be noted that there is not only an
interaction between force (load), velocity
(pedaling rate), and power, but also with
muscle length. Depending on the muscle
length with different cycling positions
(i.e., upright or recumbent), the optimum
combination of load and velocity to maximize power output is unknown and may
vary with different cycling positions. This
complexity is further increased if the
crank arm length is manipulated.
Power Output, Load, and
Pedaling Frequency

A change in crank arm length will not

only affect force production by the hip
and knee, by changing joint angles
(minimum, maximum, range of motion)
affecting muscle length, but it will also
affect the torque produced at the crank
spindle, the load that can be applied, the
maximal pedaling frequency, and the
resulting interactions in the production
of power. For example, when compared
to a long crank arm, a shorter crank arm
will not only reduce the minimum, maximum, and joint range of motion at the
hip and knee over one pedal cycle affecting muscle force production, but it will
also result in a reduced torque (if the
same force is applied) at the pedals.
However, because of the shorter crank
arm, there is a potential for a greater
maximal pedaling frequency. Whether
this greater maximal pedaling frequency
can be obtained, will then be dependent
on the load (gear ratio, chain wheel size)
and resistance that needs to be overcome.

Force/Power (%)

100

Power
50

Fo

rce

50

100

Velocity (%)

Figure 2: Force-Velocity-Power Relationship

Human Power

According to
Seabury, Adams, and
Ramey (1977), (1)
there is a most
efficient pedaling rate
for each power output;
(2) the most efficient
pedaling rate increases
with power output; (3)
the increase in energy
expenditure when
pedaling slower than
optimal is greater at
high power outputs
than at low power
outputs; and (4) the
increase in energy
expenditure when
pedaling faster than

Number 55

optimal is greater at low power outputs

than at high power outputs. This would
suggest that if a given sustained power
output is required to set a new distance
record in some human powered vehicle
event (such as the hour record or 24 hour
record), it becomes important to know not
just what is the optimal pedaling rate, but
also the interaction of pedaling rate with
crank arm length and load, in order to
maximize power output, yet minimize
energy expenditure and muscle fatigue.
On the other hand, to maximize performance of human powered vehicles for
short distances (200 meter sprint) and set
new speed records, a great deal of power
would be required but only for a short
period of time. To maximize this power,
it is desirable to maximize both, force
(i.e., load, gear ratio) and velocity (pedaling frequency). However, according to
the force-velocity-power relationship,
increasing force (load) to a maximum
value will result in a decreasing contraction velocity (pedaling rate) to a minimum
value. Therefore, with a fixed crank arm
length, the maximum power appears to be
obtained with a load and velocity that is
1/3-2/3 the maximum muscle force and
velocity of contraction that can be produced. If the crank arm length is free to
vary, the interaction between force (in this
case, it would be torque) and velocity to
produce maximum power, would be more
complex. With a given force, the torque
applied to the crank spindle would be less
for a shorter crank arm, but the maximum
pedaling rate would be greater. Conversely, with a given force, the torque
applied to the crank spindle would be
greater for a longer crank arm - and a
greater maximum load can be used - but
the maximum pedaling rate would be
lower when compared to a shorter crank
arm. To maximize power with increasing
load, force and torque would also have to
increase, assuming pedaling rate is already at a maximum. However, according
to the force-velocity-power relationship,
as load continually increases, there will be
a critical load beyond which will result a
decrement in velocity (pedaling rate), and
this would be especially true for shorter
cranks. With longer crank arms, greater
loads can be used because greater torques
can be produced, and due to the decreased
maximal pedaling rate for longer cranks,
the critical load beyond which will result
in a decrement in velocity (pedaling rate)
will be much greater than that expected

for shorter crank arms. What is the critical

load for different crank arm lengths (short
and long), beyond which there will be a decrement in pedaling rate and/or power, is unknown. What is the optimal combination(s)
of load and pedaling cadence for different
crank arm lengths to maximize power production or to minimize the energy requirement for a given power output are also unknown. Of course this complexity is increased with the interaction of other factors
(such as changes in seat-to-pedal distances,
seating positions, etc.)
Other Considerations

Body orientation (trunk angle) with

respect to the ground, and location of the
lower extremities relative to the crank
spindle are additional factors that need to be
considered because of their possible effect
on force production and total force contribution to the pedals in cycling. Changes in
body orientation (trunk angle) will affect
muscle force/tension-length relationships
and force production if it results in hip angle
changes. Changes in body orientation (trunk
angle) without changes in hip angle may
affect the body weight contribution to the
force on the pedals (depending on the location of the lower extremities to the crank
spindle). For example, a cyclist in a standard upright bicycle would have the leg
weight contributing to the total force on the
pedals during the power stroke. However, if
a cyclist was in a reclining/recumbent position where the lower extremities were below
the crank spindle (e.g., cycling in an inverted
position), work would have to be done in not
just overcoming the cycle resistance/load,
but also in overcoming the weight of the
lower limbs when pedaling-working against
gravity, resulting in less total force applied
to the pedals during the power/pushing
stroke. Too (1989, 1994) determined that
changing the body orientation (trunk angle)
with respect to the ground does affect peak
power production and power output. In fact,
if cycling in a completely inverted position,
it would probably be easier and more effective to pull against the pedals during the
recovery phase (using the leg weight when it
is aided by gravity) than during the power
phase (where work would have to be done
against gravity to overcome the lower limb
weight). This would explain why recumbent
bicycles are less effective in climbing hills
when compared to the standard upright
bicycle. Low sitting position recumbent
vehicles that have pedals located above the
cyclists hip, require the cyclist to pedal
upwards against gravity (to overcome some
portion of their leg weight) during the power
stroke. When climbing hills (and depending
on the angle of the hill), the cyclist would

need to overcome an even greater

proportion of the lower limb weight during
the power stroke, and thus requires an even
greater expenditure of energy.
Summary and Concluding
Remarks

As the limits of engineering design in

HPVs to minimize resistive forces are
reached, it becomes essential to focus on
maximizing the propulsive forces. This
requires an examination of the human
engine powering the vehicle and how to
maximize it's efficiency. This necessitates
not just an understanding of how muscle
force is produced (based on force/tensionlength and force-velocity-power relationships), but also how they interact with
external mechanical variables such as seatto-pedal distance, seat-tube angle, and
crank arm length to alter lower extremity
joint angles (hip, knee, ankle), affecting
force and power production. It should be
noted that it is not the manipulation of the
external mechanical variables that is
important, but rather how the manipulation
affects joint angles of the hip, knee, and
ankle during the pedaling action. The
question should not be what is the
optimal crank arm length or seat-to-pedal
distance to maximize force and power
production? but rather what are the joint
angles that would maximize force and
power production, and what manipulations
in HPV design should be done to obtain
these joint angles? It should also be noted
that the optimal crank arm length for a very
tall individual will probably not be optimal
for a very short individual, whereas the
joint angles to maximize force and power
will probably be similar for both the tall
and short individual. It is beyond the
scope of this paper to review the existing
literature involving manipulations in
external mechanical variables and the
resulting effects on joint angles and cycling
performance. However, that would be a
topic for a future paper.
About the authors

Danny Too is an associate professor in

the Department of Physical Education and
Sport at the State University of New York
at Brockport, and has been involved in
human powered vehicle research since
1985. He can be reached at the
State University New York at Brockport
350 New Campus Drive
Brockport, New York 14420
Email: dtoo@brockport.edu
Gerald E. Landwer is a professor in the
Department of Educational Leadership at
the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Number 55

References
Gregor, R. J. and S. G. Rugg. Effects of saddle
height and pedaling cadence on power output
and efficiency. In: Science of Cycling, E. R.
Burke (ed.). Champaign, IL: Human
Kinetics Publishers, 1986, pp. 69-90.
Nordeen-Snyder, K.S. (1977). The effect of
bicycle seat height variation upon oxygen
consumption and lower limb kinematics.
Medicine and Science in Sports, 9, 113-117.
Seabury, J.J., Adams, W.C. & Ramsey, M.R.
(1977). Influence of pedaling rate and power
output on energy expenditure during bicycle
ergometry. Ergonomics, 20, 491-498.
Shennum, P.L. & deVries, H.A (1976). The
effect of saddle height on oxygen
consumption during bicycle ergometer work.
Medicine and Science in Sports, 8, 119-121.
Thomas, V. (1967). Scientific setting of saddle
position. American Cycling, 6(4), 12-13.
Too, D.(1989). The effect of body orientation on
cycling performance. In W.E. Morrison
(ed.). Proceedings of the VIIth International
Symposium of the Society of Biomechanics
in Sports, (pp. 53-60). Footscray Institute of
Technology, Victoria, Australia.
Too, D. (1990). The effect of body configuration
on cycling performance. In E. Kreighbaum
& McNeill (eds.), Biomechanics in Sports VI
(pp. 51-58). Montana State University,
Bozeman, Montana
Too, D.(1991). The effect of hip
position/configuration on anaerobic power
and capacity in cycling. International
Journal of Sports Biomechanics, 7(4), 359370
Too, D.(1993). The effect of seat-to-pedal
distance on anaerobic power and capacity in
recumbent cycling. Medicine and Science in
Sports and Exercise, 25(5), S68. (Abstract)
Too, D.(1994). The effect of body orientation on
power production in cycling. The Research
Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 65, 308315
Too, D.(1996). Comparison of joint angle and
power production during upright and
recumbent cycle ergometry. In J.A. Hoffer,
A. Chapman, J.J. Eng, A. Hodgson, T.E.
Milner, & D. Sanderson (eds.) Proceedings
of the Ninth Biennial Conference and
Symposia of the Canadian Society for
Biomechanics (pp. 184-185). Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, British Columbia,
Canada.
Too, D., & Landwer, G.E. (1999). The effect of
pedal crankarm length on joint angle and
cycling duration in upright cycle ergometry.
XVIIth International Society of
Biomechanics, Book of Abstracts, 311.
Too, D., & Landwer, G.E. (2000). The effect of
pedal crankarm length on joint angle and
power production in upright cycle ergometry.
Journal of Sport Sciences, 18, 153-161.
Too, D., & Williams, C. (2000). Determination
of the crank-arm length to maximize power
production in recumbent-cycle ergometry.
Human Power: Technical Journal of the
International Human Powered Vehicle
Association, 51, 3-6.

Human Power

Optimal gear
selection on an
automatic
bicycle
by Iain Crouch
Abstract

This paper describes an electronically

controlled automatic transmission which
was designed and built for use on a bicycle as a final year university project. The
particular focus of the project was on the
algorithm which determines the optimal
gear to select at any time for maximised
performance; i.e. acceleration and top
speed, given the amount of effort the
cyclist is putting in. This optimal gear
selection is shown to be possible with the
correct use of a prior strategy based on a
fixed target cadence (pedalling rate).
However, this cadence is unknown and
varies over time and between different
cyclists. It is shown that a cyclists optimal cadence can be continuously estimated during normal cycling by a controller which fits recorded data to an assumed
model. Microprocessor-based hardware
was constructed and fitted to a bicycle to
allow such a controller to be implemented
and tested, and examples of the results are
given and discussed.
Motivation

Automatic gearboxes have been fitted

to motor vehicles for decades, yet rarely
feature on human powered vehicles. The
technical problems are obvious: the extra
weight, cost and complexity of an automatic governor would be significant when
fitted to a simple, lightweight cycle. In
addition, existing crash transmissions
are not designed to transmit power during
gear changes; to modify them would further compromise weight, strength, cost
and efficiency. Using an electronically
controlled gear selector can help reduce
the weight penalty, and such devices have
been introduced as optional extras on continuous-power transmissions such as the
Shimano Nexus Auto-D hub gears and the
Browning split chainring system (Kyle,
1995). Mechanical compromises are still
present, however, so they are aimed in
general at recreational cyclists - the Shimano system is specifically targeted at
novice cyclists who find manual shifting
complicated or distracting.

Human Power

Existing automatic systems

usually employ a simple gear selection strategy that attempts to
maintain the cyclists cadence at
some fixed value, say 64 rpm.
This is a comfortable rate for
most people, however it is limiting in terms of performance for
example a racing cyclist would
develop his peak power at a
much higher rate. Furthermore,
the selection of the best gear for
maximum acceleration depends
on characteristics that vary beFigure 1, top: Modified transmission, showing
tween cyclists and over time (due automated derailleur, torque sensor and reed
switches
to fatigue for example). Some
systems (including the BrowFigure 2, below:Main unit
ning automatic) have the facility
when (s)he is uncomfortable with the gear
for training or adapting to the cyclists
(s)he is in, whereas an automatic selector
preferences, which will improve permay always choose the optimal gear given
formance but is still not optimal as it
the information that it has.
relies on the perception of the human
It will be shown that a cadence-based
rider.
selection strategy can be optimal if it uses
The focus of this investigation was on
the correct target cadence.
improving the intelligence of the autoHardware Description
matic gear selection strategy, to assess
whether more experienced cyclists could
As a university project rather than a
then find performance gains in using auto- commercial development, there was the
matic rather than manual selection. To
opportunity to disregard some mechanical
accomplish this, the extra intelligence
difficulties and practical issues and conmust not only make up for the additional
centrate on investigating the control
weight and complexity, but also the disad- aspects. The prototype used to develop
vantages of taking control away for the
and test the control algorithms was thererider for example a human cyclist has
fore based on a conventional crash
the advantage of being able to see changgearchange, with modifications built for
ing conditions ahead. However (s)he also durability rather than light weight. This
takes the effort of performing the gear
means that, although the drivetrain comchange into account when considering
ponents were new and therefore as
changing, and will often only change gear smooth-shifting as they could be, any

Number 55

cyclist using it must be vaguely aware that The Model Used

unexpected gearchanges would occur.
To allow investigation, simulation
The practicalities of commercial impleand development of the control strategy,
mentations on other drivetrains are cona general model of cyclists output charsidered in the Discussion section.
acteristics was required. A parabolic
The test bicycle was built around a
approximation to the relationship beGiant Terrago MTB frame, fitted with a
tween maximum power and cadence
Shimano Deore LX groupset and slick
was found to be satisfactory: derived
tyres. Figure 1 shows the modified transpower versus cadence curves [including
mission, which has a 9-speed cassette and Whitt and Wilson, 1974] were found to
a single front chainring. The existing
closely approximate parabolas, espederailleur was modified using a geared
cially over the region of interest close to
motor and a feedback potentiometer,
the cyclists optimum peak power cawhich allows its position to be sampled by dence. The relationship is shown as a
the onboard 8-bit PIC microcontroller and graph in figure 3. As this parabola is
compared with the position for the desired known to pass through the origin, the
gear. The motor was a surplus component model of available power P versus cawhose specification far exceeded the
dence of a cyclist may be completely
estimated requirements; it rotated at 8rpm defined by two values: his or her peak
and produced 0.6 Nm (1.8 Nm peak)
power PMAX and corresponding optimum
torque - greater than the torque from the
cadence OPT:
derailleurs original return spring. Despite
the motors high inertia, a simple proporP = PMAX ( 1 - ( - OPT) 2 / OPT 2 )
tional feedback control routine, combined with the natural damping of the
system, gave a satisfactory response
for the derailleur, with a very slight
overshoot to aid shifting.
Two magnets were mounted on
opposing rear wheel spokes, allowing the microcontroller to time pulses from reed switches mounted on
the bicycles chainstays and calculate its speed. Similarly, magnets
mounted on the cranks with corresponding reed switches on the
Figure 3: Diagram of the relationship
chainstays send pulses to the
between a cyclists maximum power
output and his pedalling rate
microcontroller when the cranks
are approximately horizontal. A
chainring (actually the granny
ring from the bicycles chainset)
was mounted on a machined disk,
which in turn was attached to a
cantilever arm via a bearing and
held against the tense upper part
of the chain. The applied torque
could then be measured using a
pair of strain gauges fixed to the
cantilever. The signal is amplified and sampled by the microcontrollers analog to digital converter. Data is regularly logged so
it can be downloaded to a PC after
each test run. The control system
Figure 4: A Matlab graph of the
is completely self-contained, with
corresponding available power versus
batteries and a display built into a
road speed for different gears.
main unit (figure 2), and control
The cyclists available power versus
routines, written in assembly lanroad speed, mapped through the available
guage, running on the microgears, is shown in figure 4. The graph
controller.

Number 55

Figure 5: Torque vs. Pedalling Rate

shows that correct gear selection is

essential to maximise performance an
automatic controller can calculate this
correct gear, given the road speed, gear
ratios and the cyclists optimum cadence
(his peak power need not be known, as
this only scales the graph vertically).
While road speed can be measured
accurately, and the gear ratios are known,
the optimum cadence remains unknown
and variable. Running simulations (in
Matlab) of maximum rate accelerations
indicated that errors in the target cadence
value used by a controller of just 10rpm
would noticeably restrict performance.
The variation in efficiency between gears
is negligible and was disregarded.
Control estimating the
optimum cadence

This parabolic model not only allows a

mathematical analysis of the effects of automatic gear selection, but also provides
the key to allowing continuous online
estimation of the optimal cadence OPT
the one missing parameter that is required
for theoretically optimal control.
A parabolic power versus cadence
relationship implies a linear crank torque
versus cadence relationship. This was
verified using collected data such as the
maximum rate acceleration in figure 3.
The zero-torque intercept of the fitted line
corresponds to the zero power intercept of
figure 3; hence the cyclists peak power is
found at half the maximum cadence
predicted by the fitted torque data. (NB
this will not necessarily be the cyclists
actual maximum as it is outside the range
of the data used to develop the model).
This is the basis of the optimum cadence
estimation algorithm - in figure 5 the
intercept of 164rpm predicts, plausibly,
an optimum cadence of 82rpm. Furthermore, data for other, less than maximum
rate accelerations was also found to
approximate straight lines, albeit less

Human Power

cleanly, with correspondingly lower estimated optimal cadences. This was an

early indication that the controller would
be capable of adapting to cyclists when
they are not fully exerting themselves,
despite the less well-defined nature of the
corresponding data.
Test data sets of torque/cadence pairs
over typical accelerations were taken and
used to develop the estimation algorithm,
which was then implemented and tested on
the prototype bicycle in the following
form:
A single torque sample is taken every
right crank stroke (for simplicity, and
consistency of data) and recorded along
with the current cadence. This then updates an array which contains the last eight
torque/cadence data pairs. This array is
sorted to detect outlying points (bad data)
and allow the gradient of the torque/cadence relationship to be approximated
using a specially designed regression
technique. The new optimal cadence estimation can then be found by extrapolating
the line to find the cadence at zero torque,
and dividing it by two. The previous target cadence is then updated by averaging it
with the new estimation, which is weighted
(or rejected) according to the conditioning
of data (a better spread will give a better
approximation) and how well the data
points fit the linear approximation (best if
the cyclist is fully and continually exerting
himself). Other criteria were imposed to
simplify computation, for example the
cyclist must be accelerating (as data collected when cycling at constant speed is ill
conditioned, while usable data from decelerations is rare).
The new target cadence is then used by
a gear selection routine to calculate the
range of cadences appropriate to the
current gear. It can the shift up or down
accordingly if the current cadence is outside the range. Only one gear change is
permitted per crank revolution to avoid
damaging the actuator.
Results

Although exhaustive testing is beyond

the scope of the investigation and
unnecessary at this stage of development,
data collected over several tests provides
convincing evidence that:
- the estimated optimum cadence
coincides with the target cadence for
best performance
- it is capable of tracking changes in
optimal cadence

Human Power

the response is stable, robust,

consistent and fast, surpassing the
early aims of the project

behaviour could be observed. In figure 7,

the cyclist is fully exerting himself for the
duration of the run, and is therefore
exhibiting a well defined and relatively
constant power-cadence relationship. The
target cadence starts at 60 by default, but
converges smoothly and rapidly to 74
during the first hard acceleration. The
single minor update to 75 during the next
acceleration is further evidence of
convergence. In addition it suggests not
only that the controller is capable of
extracting information from further
accelerations but that the estimated
Figure 6: Timed sprints for fixed
optimum found is close to the previous
cadence controllers
estimate, which was calculated from an
Figure 6 was generated by timing
independent data set. This implies a desprints, with the controller using a fixed
gree of consistency in both controller and
target cadence 2 times were recorded at cyclist behaviour. The reasonably high
each multiple of 10rpm. The graph
estimated optimum of around 75rpm corindicates that the cyclists performance is responds to the cyclists effort level.
maximised if his cadence is kept close to
Figure 8 was recorded by a cyclist who
100rpm. An early version of the
was not fully exerting himself, yet the tarestimation algorithm was also running;
get cadence still converges rapidly over
although the runs were short to avoid
each acceleration, from the initial value of
tiring the cyclist (<200m), it still
80 (the flat data between 33 and 66s was
regularly estimated optimum cadences
caused by the chain coming off!). The
close to the actual optimum of 100.
final, maximal exertion sprint provides the
clean torque data to allow
the target cadence to
jump rapidly from 64 to
94rpm. Although the investigation was only intended to demonstrate the
ability of a controller to
converge on an optimum
slowly, assuming continuous exertion and slow
rate of change of OPT due
to fatigue, even this simple incarnation backs up
the earlier suggestion that
the controller would be
capable of tracking OPT
at sub-maximal effort.
Other sets of test data
over different conditions
show similar characteristics; no irregularities
were ever observed in the
target cadence found, but
the fast response means
Figure 7. Evolution of estimated optimum cadence
that there is scope for
over a test run
further filtering to reduce
Figures 7 and 8 are examples of
sensitivity if desired.
logged data, independently taken for test
In the opinion of the users, the gears
runs using the estimation algorithm. The selected by the controller felt natural and
data was recorded over urban courses,
comfortable, especially as the controller
providing rich information for the conshifted more often than they would
troller due to frequent accelerations after normally bother with. By contrast, if the
corners and junctions so that its
target cadence of the controller was fixed,

Number 55

learning techniques
(such as neural networks or fuzzy logic),
however for example
fuzzy rules could be
used to add heuristics,
such as a cost associated with changing
gear.
Gear selection
based on prior knowledge of theory and accurate measurements,
rather than the
cyclists own preferences, habits and perception, should result
in performance gains.
In the case of this project that means faster
acceleration, and alFigure 8. Evolution of estimated optimum cadence over
though a direct comanother test run
parison is not possible
users found the enforced cadences to be
due to the crash transmission, the results
restrictive, forcing them to cycle more
obtained are a strong indication that the
leisurely or aggressively than they desired. advantages of automatic gear selection
can outweigh the disadvantages for
Discussion
cyclists at all levels. The system has
An analytic approach to optimising
great potential for further development to
automatic gear control on HPVs has been
achieve this: the control software uses
investigated, developed and demonstrated. only a fraction of the simple 8-bit
The resulting controller is capable of
processors time, so there is much scope
adapting to the changing rider characteris- for increasing the complexity and
tics despite requiring no prior training or
flexibility of the controller. The main
setting up; the user does not have to interunit and torque sensor can be made very
vene or even be aware of the controllers
light, especially if the torque sensor is
operation. Although a thorough evaluamoved to the crank itself and the actuator
tion is not possible at this stage due to the
is made more efficient to reduce battery
nature of the prototype transmission and
requirements (the average current at the
the amount of variation in characteristics
moment is a few milliamps). Cadence
that would have to be accounted for, the
and crank position can also be
investigation provides convincing support
determined from the torque variation.
for the theory on which it is based. This
Weight is also saved in other areas due to
suggests that the algorithm is indeed worthe removal of the mechanical derailleur
thy of further development for more suitcable, shifter and return spring. Having
able transmissions.
more precise control of the derailleur
The parabolic power / linear torque
position and shift timing may allow the
model used is surprisingly simple and efcrash transmission to be adapted for
fective, and lends itself well to the two
faster, continuous-torque gear changes.
stage optimum cadence estimation and
Furthermore, the more frequent and
gear selection algorithm. Other apcorrect gear selection may mean that
proaches based on the same theory are
fewer gears are required, possibly with a
possible for example a controller could
single front chainring to avoid extra
aim to minimise steps in the torque applied automation in the case of the crash transat the wheel over gear changes. However
mission.
the approach used has the advantage of
The optimum cadence estimator could
also using the model to filter the input
find other uses which do not depend on
data, at the linear regression stage. Sucdeveloping an appropriate transmission.
cess with the analytic approach meant it is For example it could be the basis of a
was not necessary to resort to common
training aid, which would resemble a

10

Number 55

cycle computer with a remote crankmounted torque sensor, that could tell a
cyclist which gear to be in at any point as
well as recording his optimum cadence
variation over time.
Conclusion

This investigation has resulted in the

development of simple basis for electronic
gear selection which merits further investigation and has the potential to benefit
riders of even the highest standards. At
the very least, it has enlightened the author
on the nature of cycling in general and improved his own gear selection greatly.
References
Whitt, Frank R, Wilson, David G. 1974.
Bicycling Science. MIT Press, Boston
Kyle, Chester R. 1995
The Browning Automatic Bicycle Transmission. Cycling Science Winter 1995
The author

Iain Crouch is a mountain biker from

Glasgow, Scotland. He has recently
completed an MEng in Engineering
Science at Oxford University and can be
reached at: <iaincrouch@hotmail.com>
Letter: recumbent monocycle

I have been searching for pics and/or

drawings of a pedal powered monocycle.
(you ride inside the wheel...usually four to
five feet in diameter.) I would like to
know if you have any info/links or other
news. My next project will be a pedal
boat using a hydrobike drive unit. I recently raced a full size one for three miles
and came in halfway in the pack amoungst
kayakers and canoes. This is a resounding
success given my previous last place finishes with a home built chain-drive unit! A
picture of what I want to build can be seen
at: <http://www.valedo.com/5370410.gif>
Brian Burgess
<pedalyurassoff@peoplepc.com>

[Any reader with more info please contact

Brian Burgess.. His link is pictured below. Ed.]

Human Power

Efficiency Measurements of Bicycle Transmissions a neverending Story?

by Bernhard Rohloff and Peter Greb (translated by Thomas Siemann)

In Human Power 52 (Summer 2001)

there was a report of an efficiency test of
bicycle transmissions The Mechanical
Efficiency of Bicycle Derailleur and HubGear Transmissions by Chester. Kyle
PhD, and Frank Berto. The test included
three derailleur systems with from 4 to 27
gears as well as eight gear hub transmissions with from 3 to 14 gears. The
results of the test are summarized in the
table below:
Table 1: Derailleur and gearhub
transmission efficiencies measured
by Kyle and Berto.

Transmission
Type:
Derailleurs
Gear Hubs

Efficiency
(%)
87-97
86-95

Note: Test performed with 80W,

150W, 200W input.

The motivated reader of the report will

find contradictions behind their measurements. Our specific interest in giving a
critique of the publication is based on
differences of the results compared to our
efficiency measurements. These can be
summarized as follows:
Table 2: Derailleur and SPEEDHUB
500/14 efficiencies as measured by
Rohloff.

Transmission
Type:

Efficiency
(%)

Derailleurs

95-98.5

SPEEDHUB 500/14

95-98.5

Note: Test performed with 400W

input.

The lower range of Kyle and Bertos

measurements are up to eight percent
lower than those made by Rohloff. The
reasons for this are presented in this
document.
1. Verifiability - The text does not say

if only single measurements were performed or if the measurements were confirmed by repeated measurements. Furthermore, there is no information about
the duration of break-in time the testing
samples underwent. This is especially
important for hubs with dragging seals
which need a minimum run-in time in

Human Power

order to level off friction losses from the

seals. Rohloff has determined this to be
extremely important for tests under
200W; this will be discussed later in this
document.
2. Precision of measurement

The results are shown as absolute values

with no information about the tolerances
of the measurements. Only the precision
of the dynamometer and the tachometer
were given without any information about
the width of the measuring range and the
related tolerance variations. The
ergometer wheel produced variable losses
of over 2% with different loads. The
ergometer wheel losses at different speeds
were not measured. However this is
important when evaluating transmissions
with a large range of gears such as the 27
speed derailleur system or the Rohloff
SPEEDHUB 500/14, because the speed
differences between the smallest and
largest gear are more than 500%.
3. Plausibility - The report regarding

the gearhubs states correctly that the

efficiency of planetary gear systems drops
as the number of active gears increases.
This fact should reflect itself in the
measurements of the efficiency of the
gearhubs.
The speed-ratio of the Sachs three
speed hub is reducing in gear one,
increasing in gear three, and direct drive
in gear two. Unlike gears one and three,
there shouldnt be any gearing losses in
gear two. At 80W the measured efficiency of gear two is much lower than
those of gear one and gear three, which is
not evidently plausible. At 200W the
results are very similar in all three gears
with efficiency values of 94.1%, 94.9%,
and 94.1% for gears one, two, and three
respectively.
The trend shown that the efficiency of
the SPEEDHUB 500/14 drops in higher
gears is also in contrast to the design of
the transmission as well as the fact that
gear four and gear nine are more efficient
than the direct drive gear eleven. In gear
eleven there cannot be any gearing losses
since no planetary gears are rotating,
unlike in all other gears. As can be seen
in Table 3, in the first seven gears there is

Number 55

always one more gearset active than in the

higher seven gears. Therefore, the losses
in the higher seven gears must be smaller
than the losses in the lower seven gears.
Table 3: Active gear sets in the Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14 for each gear.
Gear

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

No. of
active 2 2 3 1 3 2 2 1 1 2
gearsets

There are three planetary gear sets

linked in series in the SPEEDHUB
500/14. The single gears are the result of
different combinations of gears within
those three gearsets.
The efficiency variations of the
Shimano four speed, Shimano seven
speed, and Sturmey-Archer 7 speed
transmissions do reflect the construction
of the transmission.
4. Validity The validity of the testing

method. The measurements made by

Kyle and Berto were performed while
applying constant torque with power input
at 80W, 150W, and 200W. Those loads
were meant to reflect a typical bicycling
situation. Rohloff does not believe that the
loads or the power applied sufficiently
model a typical cyclist. The power
produced by the cyclist consists of a
relatively constant speed and widely
variable torque due to the crank kinematics. Measurements show that while
speed variations of about 5% are typical,
the torque variations can be over 90%
throughout a single crank revolution.
Table 4 shows the results at different
power inputs.
Table 4: Maximum and minimum
torque measurements during a
pedal stroke.
Power input (W), 100 W, 300 W, 575 W,
Speed (rev/min) 75 rpm 75 rpm 50 rpm
Max. Torque
(Nm)

21.6

68

200

Min. Torque
(Nm)

3.8

20

The power characteristics are largely

governed by the torque component.

11

test bench power of 160W at the

same speed.
5. Interpretation of the
measurements In order to

Figure 1: Torque vs. crank angle for

one crank revolution.
Power is area under curve.

The cyclical torque of a cyclist produces an alternating load situation on all

power transmitting parts, chainlinks,
chainrings, bearings, gears, etc, which is
very important to keep in mind when
evaluating the mechanical losses which
effect the efficiency.
A precise simulation of the cyclical
torque is not easy to produce in the
laboratory and from a measuring point of
view, excessively costly. For this reason
electric motors with a constant power
input are used. This brings up the
question of how to choose the appropriate
power input when using a constant torque
so that the efficiency measurement
correlates to the efficiency that would be
measured with the cyclical load actually
applied in the real world.
We encountered a similar problem
when designing our chain and chainring
wear test, which is operated at constant
torque. Extensive comparisons between
components used in real world and
components worn out on the test bench
showed the following: If the field-tested
components were used at an average of
150 W with an average cyclic torque
between 5 Nm and 30 Nm, this correlated
to a chain tested at a constant torque of 30
Nm in our laboratory.
It can be assumed that the reasons that
cause the wear of components are the
same ones that are responsible for the efficiency. Therefore you can deduce from
the comparisons that a in a lab test, a constant power input using the maximum value of the cyclic load produces results that
are closer to reality than choosing a constant power input using the average load.
For example, an average cycling power
80W in real life should be simulated by a

12

give a correct interpretation of the

results it is important to establish
what the losses are composed of.
Losses are created by friction.
The value is determined by the
type of friction (rolling or
sliding), the size of surfaces in
contact, type of surface finish,
material hardness, lubrication,
combination of the rubbing parts.
Two separate types of losses exist
in bicycle transmissions:
A) Power dependent losses. These are
created by friction of parts that are
moving under a driving load, i.e.
chainlinks, gears, bearings, etc. The
quantity of the loss grows proportionally to the transmitted power.
B) Power independent losses. These
losses are created by friction of
moving parts and are not changed by
the driving load, in other words these
losses are constant regardless of the
load applied, e.g. Gaskets and shims.
With lubricants, the quantity of loss
depends on speed, temperature, and
lubricant viscosity.
In the following example, two bicycle
transmission systems are compared.
Both have a 91% efficiency at 50W
input. They have two different power
dependent and power independent
losses.
In system A, seven percent of the input power is lost due to power dependent friction plus one Watt of power
independent friction for each value of
input power. The values shown in
Table 5 are input powers from 50 W to
500 W with their respective efficiency
ranging from 91%-92.8%.
Table 5: System 'A' power loss
components.
Input
50 100 200 300
400
Power (W)
Power dependent
3.5 7
14
21
28
losses
(7%) (W)
Power independet
1
1
1
1
1
losses (W)
Total loss
4.5 8
15
22
29
(W)
Total
efficiency, 91 92 92.5 92.7 92.75
(%)

Number 55

500
35

1
36
92.8

Table 6: System 'B' power loss

components.
Input
Power
(W)
Power
dependent
losses
(3%) (W)
Power
independent
losses
(W)
Total
loss (W)
Total
efficieny
(%)

50

100

200

300

400

500

1.5

12

15

4.5

12

15

18

91

94

96

96

96.3

96.4

In system B, only three percent of the

input power is lost due to power
dependent friction that exists in the chain,
gears, etc. An additional 3 W of power is
lost due to power independent friction that
exists due to tight seals.
At 50 W power input the efficiency of
system B is at 91%, the same as system
A. At higher power inputs, the overall
efficiency increases until it reaches 96.4%
the efficiency is significantly higher than
the efficiency of system A. This is due
to the fact that the power dependent losses
become dominant over the power
independent losses at higher power inputs.
Figure 2: Total efficiency of system
A through D.

In addition to curves for systems A

and B, Figure 2 also shows curves for
systems C and D. The curve for system C
describes how the power independent
losses increase from one to two Watts due
to temperature or lubricating film changes
at the seal of system A. The curve for
system D describes the efficiency changes
of system B with a reduction from three to
two Watts of the power independent loss
for the same reason. The examples show
that for power input of less than 200 W
that even small changes of +/- 1W of
power independent losses play a large role

Human Power

in the overall efficiency. Since power

independent losses are the result of a
complex relationship between speed
changes, temperature changes (created by
own friction heating), and lubrication.
These variations can occur in the test
situation. If power input is less than 200
W, it must be confirmed that the influence
of those variations are verified by repeated
tests. Over 200 W the influence of power
independent losses can be neglected.
Knowing that, all measurement values
shouldnt be absolute values, but rather
represented as a range of values showing
the corresponding upper and lower
boundaries.
6. Reason for efficiency
measurements The reason for effi-

ciency measurements is to find out which

one of the different bicycle transmissions
converts the most of the bicyclists power
into forward motion. To propel the rider
forward in the most efficient manner, it is
important that the rider be able to choose
an appropriate gear for the given load or
riding situation, a gear that is suitable to
the riders fitness level.
The development of power in the
muscles is subject to a grade of efficiency.
This efficiency is the ratio of metabolic
capacity and the delivered mechanical
power, i.e. the power at the crank. The
efficiency depends on the muscle power
combined with the speed of movement, if
both variables reach their optimum, the
muscle efficiency can increase by 25%.
[See also article by Too and Landwer in
this issue. Ed.]
The differences in muscle efficiency
between positive and negative fatigue
ratios (bodily stress/developed power) can
easily vary by 10%. This is of much larger
value than the variation of mechanical
efficiencies of various bicycle transmissions systems.
Table 7: Comparison of muscle and
mechanical efficiency of the bicyclerider system.
Rider A Rider B
Muscle Efficiency (%)

24

22

Transmission Efficiency (%) 93

97

Overall Efficiency (%)

21

22

Rider A is using a perfect gear ratio for the

situation and his muscle efficiency is 24%.
His bicycle transmission is moving in a
gear with relatively poor mechanical

Human Power

efficiency of 93%. Rider B is using an

unfavorable gear with a high efficiency
of 97%., however, because of the unfavorable speed, his muscles work at
22% efficiency. The overall efficiency
shows taking into consideration muscle
and transmission losses that rider A is
riding more efficiently even though his
transmission efficiency is lower than
rider Bs.
In order to use the rider as a bicycle
engine most effectively, the ratio increments between the gears are as important
as a good mechanical efficiency. The
most efficient energy conversion is very
limited using transmissions with only a
few gears. A larger selection of gears
with smaller increments make a favorable
energy conversion possible in a wider
range of riding situations, but only if the
correct gear is used. Sport medical research shows that the increments between
gears must be smaller than 15% to benefit the riders efficiency.
Under this point of view it does not
make sense to compare transmissions
with only a few gears, large gaps, and
small overall range, with
transmissions with many
gears, small increments,
and a large range of
gears. A comparison of
different transmission
systems should always
take the application into
consideration.
7. Conclusions
A) All measurements
below 200 W need
to be evaluated
cautiously because
the influences of the variations of the
power independent losses are high.
B) From a practical point of view changes of efficiency play a major role
only when riding above the recreational level i.e. greater than 100W.
C) When comparing transmission
systems, gear range and number of
gears should be taken into consideration in addition to the efficiency.
Rohloff measurement results

We would like to point out that the points

represented here should be a stimulus for
a discussion since there are so many open
questions in the field of practical
efficiency measurements of bicycle
transmission systems. As a comparison

Number 55

to Kyle and Bertos results, our results in

Figure 3 and Figure 4 show our efficiency
measurements of a 24-speed derailleur
system with 46-36-26 toothed chainrings
and Shimano XT 11-28 toothed cassette,
and the Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14 with
a primary gearing of 46 tooth chainring
and 16 tooth hub cog. Both systems had
been run in for 100 km.
The measurements include the losses of
the complete transmission, bottom bracket,
chain, hubs, etc. In order to simulate a
strong rider who applies about 160 W and
produces a maximum torque of 50 Nm
(285 N @ pedal), the measurements were
taken at a power of 314 W with constant
torque.
Table 8
crank speed (rev/min)

60

brake power, constant (W)

314

torque (Nm)

50

Figure 3: Efficiency of a 24-speed

mountain bike drivetrain.

The reproducibility of the results and

their precision was verified by repeated
test runs. Figure 3 shows the efficiency of
the derailleur system plotted vs. distance
per crank revolution. Note the gear ratios
are not consistently spaced as can be seen
on the plot.
The derailleur system was tested first in
clean and well-lubricated conditions. In
order to achieve results closer to real-life
use, the chain and the sprockets were replaced with components which had been
subjected to 1000 km of field use and had
not been cleaned. The average efficiency
was measured to be 1% lower than the
clean drivetrain. The plot in Figure 3.
includes the data for a new and used
drivetrain and a +/- 0.5% uncertainty.

13

Figure 5 shows the efficiency ranges of

Figures 3 and 4 on the
same plot for comparison.
The efficiency of internally geared hubs
drops when the number of working planetary sets increases.
This fact must be
shown in the efficiency
results of the gear hubs
tested. In the SPEEDHUB 500/14 there
Figure 4: SPEEDHUB 500/14 efficiency
are three planetary gear sets that can be
Figure 4 shows the efficiency range of the
used in series. The unique gear ratios are
Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14 plotted vs.
created by engaging different combinadistance traveled per crank revolution.
tions gears within these planetary sets.
The increase between all gear ratios on the Table 3 shows the number of the active
SPEEDHUB 500/14 is always the same
(working) planetary gear sets per gear.
percentage. Sprocket and chain were reFigure 6 shows the range of efficiency of
placed by components ridden 1000 km.
the SPEEDHUB 500/14 plotted vs. gear
Efficiency differences were not measurenumber. The efficiency plots confirms
able. The range of efficiency represents
the number of the active planetary sets as
the used and unused drivetrain plus the +/- represented in Table 3. Gear 11 has the
0.5% uncertainty.
highest efficiency because it is the direct
drive gear, no planetary gearsets are activated. The curve between gear 1 and 7
corresponds with the
curve between gear 8
and 14. This is due to
the fact that the first
two planetary gear sets
are shifted between
gears 1 and 7 in the
same way as they are
between gears 8-14,
however gears 1-7
Figure 5: Efficiency of both derailleur drivetrain
have an extra planetary
and Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14
gearset activated providing a compound
low gear. The efficiency between gear 17 is about 2% lower
due to the use of the
third planetary gear
set. In order to show
this fact more clearly
the curve between gear
8-14 has been copied
and shifted to the left
so that it can be
compared with the
curve representing the efficiencies of
Figure 6: SPEEDHUB 500/14
gears 1-7. The results correspond to the
efficiency comparison.
gear combination or respectively to the
number of active planetary gears inside
Gears 8-14 shifted to the left to
compare with gears 1-7.
the hub.

14

Number 55

Conclusion The explanations show

that efficiency of bicycle transmissions

depends on many factors of which exact
measurements may involve prohibitive
costs. In order to measure real-life values,
factors such as contamination, lubrication,
wear, and production tolerances should be
included as well as sports medical research. We think that there is still a lot of
room for tests and discussions.
About the Authors

Bernhard Rohloff and Peter Greb can be

reached at:
Rohloff, Moenchebergstrasse 30,
D-34125 Kassel, Germany.
Translator Thomas Siemann is at:
Rohloff USA in Berkeley, CA 94707
Reply from Chester Kyle

Dear Editor,
I have read Rohloff's remarks on our
transmission efficiency tests and have
several comments on their discussion.
Our tests were run over a two day
period. It would have been better to test
repeatedly over longer periods, but this
was not possible due to limited time and
funds. However, we feel that the results
are valid under the conditions we tested.
We understand the position of Rohloff,
whose transmission did well in our tests
when compared to other hub gears, but
whose efficiency was about 2% lower than
the derailleur transmissions. It's natural for
researchers to question the test methods of
others when results don't agree with their
own. However, the principle reason for the
Rohloff's disagreement is the difference in
applied power input between the two test
methods. We will comment more on this
later. Rohloff's laboratory efficiencies
were about 2% higher than ours, but this is
understandable given their methods.
All of our transmissions were tested
and compared under the same conditions.
Our test efficiencies were repeatable to
within less than one percent over two
separate test sessions several months apart.
For the conditions we tested under, our
methods were sufficiently accurate to discriminate between transmissions and gears
and to rank order the efficiency of the
transmissions. All of the hub gear transmissions were tested using light oil as a
lubricant. However, the Rohloff was new
and not worn in before testing. This could
have affected the efficiency under low
loads, but probably not under loads of 200
watts or more.

Human Power

We chose to compare all of our transmissions at 200 watts average load or less
and at a constant cadence of 75 RPM.
Ordinary hub gears are never used in
bicycle racing and are seldom even in
recreational cycling. They are, however,
commonly used on European city commuter bikes where speeds are almost always below 25 km/h. Power requirements
for low speed commuting are normally
less than 150 watts. 200 watts average
power is sufficient to propel a bicycle at
over 32 km/h on level ground with no
wind. Therefore except in laboratory experiments, hub gears are almost never subjected to the high loads that derailleur
transmissions are. Rohloff is correct in
saying that efficiency improves as the load
increases. They tested at 400 watts, double
what we did and found efficiencies approaching 98%. We tested only one transmission at more than 200 watts and found
the Shimano derailleur transmission in
25th gear, under loads from 307 to 370
watts input, was about 98% efficient (our
Figure 14).
Because of the high inertia of the bicycle rider system, the speed variation due to
variable torque (pedal force) at the crank
is very small. At racing speeds a computer
simulation shows speed variation is less
than plus or minus 0.13% due to the variable torque of the crank. We therefore felt
that testing at a constant speed of 75 RPM
was realistic. Racers pedal at a higher cadence, but the purpose of our tests was to
approximate more normal riding conditions.
Simulating variable crank torque is not
practical with an electric motor dynamometer and as far as I know, no current or
past transmission test apparatus has successfully used this technique. Rolhoff applied a much higher constant torque than
our average to simulate maximum chain
tension and gear and chain wear, but this
also is not realistic. Transmission efficiency varies continuously around the
crank cycle - it is high under high torque
and lower under low torque. The average
efficiency is somewhere in between. Testing only at high torque as Rohloff did,
does not give an accurate comparison. Unless transmissions are tested on the road or
in the laboratory using a precision research
crank dynamometer with an actual cyclist,
there is really no certainty which of the
laboratory test methods is more valid. Unfortunately highly accurate laboratory
crank dynamometer tests have not yet been
developed.

Human Power

To summarize, we are reasonably

confident that the rank order between
transmission efficiencies that we found
would not change appreciably as load is
varied within a normal range. In other
words, transmissions should rank about
the same at either low or high loads. We
feel that the loads we tested under are
typical of the actual conditions under
which hub gears are used and represent a
reasonable average efficiency. In our article we therefore concluded that hub
gears are about 2% less efficient that derailleur transmissions under typical field
conditions. We see no reason to change
that conclusion.
The Rohloff is an excellent transmission - in fact it is quite elegant in its function - it shifts sequentially from gear 1
through gear 14 easily and logically - unlike triple chainring derailleur transmissions. The Rohloff would probably serve
well for HPV racing since it would much
simplify the chain line.
_ Chester Kyle
[Ed. Comment, also applying to the
article by Vernon Forbes on the next
page: I never cease to be amazed at the
extremely high torques standard hub
gears will stand without failing even
when used in very heavy and sometimes
powered vehicles, such as the 5501400kg Thuner Trampelwurm (described
in HP54), or my Velocity Dolphin
electric bicycle with a normal hub gear
taking up both the torque from a 250 W
electric motor and from a 24 speed
derailleur drive, or various other electric
vehicles.]
ERRATA FOR HUMAN POWER
NUMBER 54, SPRING 2003

Page 6, Eq. 11:

should be p
Page 6, Fig. 3:
Re = pV/(R m T) should be:
Re = LpV/(R m T)
Page 23: first column, lines 16-17:
...seen in figure 5 (not 7), the combination I=1.06 and G=2.0 (not 3.8)
is optimal.
Page 23: second column, lines 27-29:
..G at 2.0 (not 3.8) and I at 1.06 kgm2,
however lowering G to 1.5 (not 2.85)
or even 1.14 (not 2.17) may result in a
reasonable compromise...

Number 55

ANNOUNCEMENT

A new association, tentatively known

as the Human Power Institute (HuPI), has
been formed in order to promote the development and use of human power for an
environmentally sustainable and socially
just society. Launched in January, 2004,
HuPI seeks to establish a website information database and foster the international exchange of information amoung
all parties interested in the technologies
and benefits of human power. HuPI has
primarily a virtual presence on the internet
as the most economic means of making
information and resources available worldwide.
HuPI is to be a locus for research and
development in all areas of human power
in a scientific and engineering context.
Much of this work is technological in
nature and has to do with specific tasks,
such as the design of machines for transport. As well, HuPI is devoted to exploring and understanding how human power
technology benefits society across a wide
range of areas, including economics, agriculture, social rubric, psychology, and
general well being.
HuPIs first project is initiated and
sponsored by Dave Wilson, editor of
Human Power for 18 years. He wishes to
make the wealth of information in previous issues of Human Power more easily
accessible, and to this end commissioned
a compilation of all issues in the PDF
format, complete with searchable index.
This archive is to be made available on the
IHPVA website and on a CD-ROM, which
will be available for sale at nominal prices
from some IHPVA member associations,
in particular the HPVA.
In mid-2004, HuPI plans to start the
Human Power International Journal, a
web-based open electronic journal.
Initially editted by Theo Schmidt, HPIJ
will be available for free via the HuPI
website: http://www.hupi.org
which is also the primary contact to HuPI.
Why was HuPI formed? The IHPVA
and its members are concentrating on HPV
racing, records and events. HuPI wishes to
complement that worthy endeavor with
readily available internet-based information to help foster a greater application
of human power in daily life.
Founders of HuPI are: Richard
Ballantine, Theo Schmidt, John Snyder,
Elrey John Stephens, Brian Wilson, David
Gordon Wilson.

15

by Vernon Forbes
I felt a great sense of loss when I heard
of Sturmey-Archer's closing in 2000. I
remember sitting for a long time after I
heard the news, feeling numb. I had sold,
repaired, championed and ridden Sturmey-Archer gears for 21 years. The first
shop I worked at was a Raleigh shop.
They hired me because I could overhaul
Sturmey-Archer hubs. They had all the
many internal parts for several models of
Sturmey-Archer gears in a wall of metal
and plastic drawers. Such a vast collection
of ancient artifacts bore mute testament to
a long and fine tradition of strength and
durability that stretched to the beginning
of the last century.
Sturmey-Archer's strengths
Derailleur bikes then were relatively
flimsy and in need of constant maintenance to keep them working. Ten speeds
were designed after Tour de France bikes.
If cars were designed the same way they
would all look like Formula One racing
cars. Derailleur bikes, like their Tour de
France counterparts, were not userfriendly. Cyclists then had to switch
between touch and sound modalities to
"find" their gears. Even the most expensive derailleurs required careful installation and a bicycle with a straight frame
and chainline. Mechanics would carefully
position and skilfully bend the front derailleur cage with pliers. Even then it
could not handle more than a relatively
narrow range of high gears in the hands of
someone who knew the overshift and correct shifting drill. One pundit described
the remarkable craftsmanship of a Campagnolo derailleur saying "it will shift
lousy forever".
The metaphor of a derailleur bike
being like a high-strung high-performance
race car pushing the envelope of
technology was viable then. Bicycles were
like radio in the forties, recorded sound in
the fifties or cameras in the sixties.
Bicycle mechanics were like microscope
repairmen.
By comparison, Sturmey-Archer (S-A)
gears were user friendly and virtually
maintenance free. From among the hurleyburley of designs and compatibility
problems Sturmey-Archer emerged as a

Human Power

golden standard. Its design rarely changed

and parts had always been available. The
most desirable feature of S-A gears was
ease of shifting. Instead of shifting while
steering with one hand you just flicked a
trigger on the handlebars. S-A gears were
safe, simple and reliable.
This advantage eroded as Suntour and
Shimano began making derailleurs so reliable you didn't need repair parts. Power
shifters, bar-cons, and self-adjusting front
derailleurs began closing in on the superior simplicity of use previously dominated by S-A. In 1985 Shimano optimized
rear derailleur geometry and introduced
indexed shifting. The final blow came in
1989 with SRAM's twist grip for derailleurs (Berto, et al., 2000) just like those SA had been producing since 1961.
Losing their advantage of being both
user friendly and low-maintenance in the
face of a rapidly improved derailleur a fair
comparison could now be made. Having a
weak engine, bicycles need higher gears
that are closer together and lower gears
that are further apart. Hub gears have
higher gears that are further apart and
lower gears that are closer together (see
Figure 1 below); the exact opposite of
what is needed (van der Plas 1991). This
is just how hub gears work. Derailleur
gears, with their ability to match the
limitations of human effort, were superior
in this regard.
At least in America, few people
seemed to know that the sprocket size on
an S-A hub could be changed so that a
larger sprocket with more teeth gave
lower gears. The gears Raleigh used on
their Sports model came with an 18 tooth
cog that gave a normal "development" of
66.4 inches (5.3m) with a low of 49.8"
Figure 1: Hub and ideal gearing

NominalGearSize

Elegy for
Sturmey Archer

130
125
120
115
110
105
100
95
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30

Hub Gearing

#1

Ideal Gearing

#2

#3

Gear

Number 55

#4

(4.0m) and a high of 88.6" (7.1m). People

buying a bike thought that three-speeds
"didn't have enough gears to climb hills
and were too hard to pedal." Raleigh
Sports bicycles came with fenders,
weighed 36 lbs and needed lower gears.
The gears they came with were too high. I
remember I used to routinely swap-out the
cogs on the over-geared Raleigh Sports. If
Raleigh had specified hubs with 22t cogs
that would have given the ideal gearing
with a medium of 54.3" (4.3m) with a low
of 40.8" (3.3m) and a high of 72.5"
(5.8m). As a result of being over-geared,
hub gear owners found themselves
shifting often between normal and low
with high gear being "way out there".
Probably more than everything else combined, this one detail made most customers prefer to buy ten-speed derailleur
bicycles.
The only explanation I ever heard for
why Raleigh over-geared their threespeeds was that cyclists used to turn
higher gears with longer cranks at lower
RPMs. Still, it never made sense.
Mountain Bikes
Along about this time another seemingly unrelated trend was to unmask one
of S-A's characteristics as a defect: gear
slip. Ten-speeds were built for a full-tuck
riding position and were awkward to ride.
The only accommodations made for
women was to tilt the saddle nose down 23 degrees. To people with chronic back
problems I repeated the findings by
French physicians that the full-tuck riding
position was actually good for your back.
To those with carpal tunnel problems I
recommended gloves. For men with prostate problems I recommended a leather
saddle. Like the ordinary bicycle, or penny farthing it
replaced, the derailleur bicycle had evolved to serve a
narrow bandwidth of young,
athletic, male customers. The
bicycle was difficult to ride
and maintain.
The emergence of mountain bikes changed all this.
With an upright position
anyone could easily ride them,
and with an emphasis on
durability they brushed the
flimsy ten speeds aside. S-A
gears could not be used for
#5 off-road riding for two reasons, the foremost of which

16

was gear "slip". If the hub is not in adjustment and you are riding in either normal or
high, the gear can unexpectedly go into a
"no gear" intermediate position between
the gears. When it does this the gear suddenly disengages itself under load. Gear
"slip" had long inhibited "honking", or
riders getting out of the saddle to pedal up
hills because there is always the chance
that while you are standing on the pedals it
could suddenly slip out of gear. Since
mountain biking required out-of-thesaddle pedaling for climbing hills S-A
gears were not an option.
Another problem was gearing; S-A
recommended that a rear sprocket no
larger than 22 tooth be used (presumably
with a 46 tooth chainwheel) giving a 54"
(4.3m) normal with a low of 41" (3.3m).
Lower than this, presumably the hub
would grind itself to pieces the size of
tooth fillings. Mountain biking needed
these lower gears, especially since honking
was not possible. Think about it: you
couldn't use ultra-low gears but you also
couldn't stand up to pedal. This effectively
shut S-A gears out of mountain biking,
limiting them to road use.
Because the bikes they provided for
road use were all hopelessly over-geared,
the picture of S-A's inevitable obsolescence is more understandable. What is
most curious is that S-A hubs had been
"slip-free" since the 1904-1937 "X" model
hub. Why didn't they just bring back "slipfree" hubs when mountain biking became
popular and why did they ever quit making
such hubs in the first place? The answer
has to do with the series of management
companies that ran S-A.
Sturmey-Archer's Origins
From the beginning S-A was owned by
Raleigh Cycle Company. Frank Bowden,
Raleigh's founder, was in the process of
building what was to become the world's
largest bicycle manufacturer when he was
approached by William Reilly, a poor
Irishman, about a three-speed hub he had
just invented. In 1902, in a series of legal
maneuvers, he swindled William Reilly
out of the patent rights and got rid of him.
Reilly died in obscurity on a curb in
Stockport, near Manchester in about 1950
when he was 83 (Hadland, 1987); S-A was
thus born with Raleigh as the management
company.
A Lack of Innovation

The original 1902 hub Reilly designed

was a fixed-gear three-speed; you could

Human Power

shift gears but you couldn't coast. It had

an external freewheel threaded on, so you
could coast. It had two "intermediate"
no-gear positions between the gears to
prevent simultaneous engagement of two
"fixed" gears, wrecking the hub.
In 1904 the "X" hub replaced the
original design. It didn't need an external
freewheel to coast because inside the hub
it had three sets of pawls, one set for
each speed. If simultaneous engagement
of normal and low gears occurred, the
normal set of pawls was turned faster
than the low gear pawls and over-ran
them. If there was simultaneous engagement of normal and high the high gear
pawls over-ran the slower normal gear
pawls. A loose cable gave low, so if the
cable broke, the hub stayed in low. A
company called BSA continued to produce this Reilly-designed hub for their
bicycles until 1955 when they were acquired by Raleigh who discontinued it.
Bowden took over management of S-A in
1909 after he got rid of Reilly.
Bowden was a brilliant businessman
in the process of building a bicycle
manufacturing empire. He was not as
interested in innovation as he was in
holding down costs. Raleigh allowed S-A
to only just barely survive. Raleigh didn't
want anything but over-geared threespeed hubs and as long as that was all
they produced they didn't care. The
creative genius of S-A engineers was
reduced to cutting costs to
extend their tiny budget. I
always imagined the R&D
department as something
like Hitler's bunker.
WWI, production and
design problems plagued SA from l9l4-1918, when they
designed the K model hub.
This got to the market in
1921. S-A designed it as a
cost-cutting measure so that
if the cable broke the hub
was stuck in high. This was a
step backward. For another
thing the K hub had only two
sets of pawls. One set was
used for both high and normal speeds
and the other set for low. In high gear the
high/normal pawls were fed after being
multiplied by the planet gears for high
gear. In normal the same set was fed
directly without being multiplied by the
planet gears. In both gears the low-gear
set was over-run. For low the sliding

Number 55

clutch "tripped out" the high/normal gear

pawls unmasking the previously over-run
low gear pawls. This method of "trippingout" pawls prevented normal and low from
being simultaneously driven. There was a
danger, however, of simultaneously
engaging normal and high. This was
prevented in the following way. The fronts
of the six clutch arms were square to fit
against tabs on the inside of the gear ring
for normal. The backside of the six arms
of the sliding clutch were ramped so that if
both normal and high were simultaneously
engaged the gear ring was driven by the
high gear. The drive of the faster turning
gear ring drove itself into the ramps on the
backs of clutch arms and pushed the clutch
into full engagement with high. While
clutches were expensive to make and
tended to wear out there was no "no-gear"
position and the hub was always in gear. In
1937 the K hub was replaced by the AW
model with the infamous "no-gear"
position (see Figures 2-7 below). AW
clutches had four unramped arms and were
cheaper to produce. Like the K hub it
replaced, the AW used two sets of pawls
and tripped out the normal/high set to
unmask low, preventing simultaneous
engagement of normal and low speeds. To
prevent simultaneous engagement of high
and normal, AWs had a "no-gear" intermediate between them to keep them
separate (Hadland, 1987).

Figure 2

This figure and also figures 3-5 show

how a hub gear works. This shows the
sprocket fitted to the driver. The gear ring
and ball cup are cut away to show how the
arms of the driver fit over the clutch. The
planet gears all spin around a fixed central
sun gear on the axle.

17

Figure 3

High gear. The driver and ball cup

have been removed and the gear ring cut
in half to show the clutch, which engages
the planet pints protruding from the planet
cage. As the planet gears turn around the
central stationary sun gear (not visible),
the gear ring is turned 33% faster.

Figure 6

This shows the "no-drive" position

between normal and high gear.

Figure 7

Figure 4

Normal Gear. The clutch has been

raised and its arms engage tabs inside the
gear ring, which is therefore driven at the
same speed as the driver.

Figure 5

Low Gear. The clutch is fully raised. It

still engages the tabs of the gear ring but it
also trips out the high/normal pawls so that
they no longer engage the ball ring. The
gear ring thus turns at the speed of the
driver and the planet cage now turns 25%
slower and drives the hub through the low
gear pawls visible in Figure 2.

18

This shows the principle of the ramps

on the back of the clutch arms of the "K"
hub. If the clutch engaged normal and
high gear simultaneously, the gear ring
tabs would run into the ramps and force
the clutch down fully into high gear and
away from normal gear.
It was not so much that S-A was unable to lead the field in market development as it was unwilling to.
S-A continued to patent two
additional different "no-slip" designs in
1948 and 1971. Raleigh patented their
own "no-slip" design in 1972 (Hadland,
1987). Raleigh blocked production of all
these.
Another example of S-A's inability to
lead in product development is hub
brakes. Consider the popularity of disc
brakes now. I recently opened a bicycle
mail order catalogue and counted no less
than six different kinds of disc brakes.
When downhill racing became popular,
S-A announced they felt the disc brake
"had no future in cycling" and stuck with
drum brakes. In l985 when S-A said their
gears were not strong enough for
mountain biking (Hadland, 1987) it was
reminiscent of the 192Os and their
making similar disclaimers that their

Number 55

gears were not strong enough to be used

on tandems. S-A had produced a tandem
three-speed in 1934 but they deleted it in
1941 (Hadland, 1987), giving derailleurs a
niche market in which to get a toe-hold
after WWII.
The circle of Victorian Engineers at
Raleigh, who seemed to run S-A, rigidly
refused to acknowledge that the world had
changed since 19O4. They continued to
make gentlemen's gears for Edwardian
cyclists. They probably figured that mountain bikes, like tandems, were just a fad.
Even in "gentlemen's gears" they
shunned innovation. Just like with the "noslip" three speed, S-A continued to patent
innovations that Raleigh withheld from the
public. Henry Sturmey patented a fivespeed in 1921 and S-A continued to patent
different designs of 5-speeds in 1940 and
1973 and a 6-speed in 1954. Production of
5-speeds did not begin until 1966, a 45
year interval (Hadland, 1987).
S-A was starved and their resources
plundered while Raleigh continued to
grow. With over 7,000 employees in 1960,
Raleigh was purchased by Tube Investments (TI), a manufacturing conglomerate that made everything from industrial
tubing to several highly successful kitchen
pans. Thus S-A had a new management
company to run it and it was Raleigh's turn
to be managed. TI continued Raleigh's
regressive practices of plundering profits
and blocking progress but had their own
cruel twist. Under TI's management,
Raleigh didn't bring out a children's hirise, or Stingray, bicycle until the demand
in America was over. During the 1960s,
Alex Moulton designed a small wheel
bicycle and offered to sell it to Raleigh.
After having his offer rejected, Alex
Moulton made them himself. The bicycles
proved wildly popular and Moulton bicycles quickly became Raleigh's #1 competitor. Raleigh delayed bringing out a BMX
bike until it was too late to develop market
share and got such a late start in mountain
bikes (1984) they lost millions (Hadland,
2000). Now it was Raleigh's turn to have
its hands tied.
One outstanding example of the way
TI prevented innovation involved the
geared Dynohub. The Dynohub was a hub
that contained a generator that powered
bicycle lights. S-A had patented a geared
Dynohub in 1967. While the generator
turned as fast as the wheel, a "geared"
Dynohub generator was designed to turn
faster than the wheel and generate more
power. The Dynohub had been in concontinued on page 20

Human Power

Human Powered
Helicopter,
a retrospective
by William B. Patterson
Introduction

The Igor Sikorsky prize was offered by

the American Helicopter Society in 1979.
Its purpose was to encourage student
interest in helicopters. The prize has been
wildly successful. Numerous flight
attempts have been made. Each one is the
center of intense thought and effort by
many students.
The two recognized hovers will be discussed. Also, we can observe the deadend design that has left most attempts
ground-bound over the last quarter-century. Finally, an additional set of rules will
be proposed. These rules will allow easy
comparison between the next generation
of HPH flights.

hover in the history of the human race.

Future plans were to reduce weight and
increase stability. (4).
A Japanese team at Nihon University
hovered the Yuri III in 1994. Picture and
data see (1). Dr Naito had tried various
configurations over a 10-year period
before trying a multiple rotor system.
These are the only recognized hovers.
The da Vinci flew because it had a
very large rotor and was light for its size.
The Yuri flew because the multiple rotors
reduced the load on each system and the
system was very light. The flight of the
Yuri also pointed out the flight profile of
a successful prizewinner. The winning
design team will need to have a machine
that can act as a hovercraft for say 50
seconds, and as a helicopter for say 10
seconds, in order to achieve the 1 minute
hover duration (any height) and 3 meter
height (any duration) requirements of the Igor
Sikorski prize.

After the Yuri: the Dead End

Recognized Hovers

In 1981 the Leonardo da Vinci was designed. Flight attempts and modifications
continued for 4 years. The drive system
and structure were improved, but lift-off
was not possible. The faculty advisor had
mistakenly directed the students to use a
30 feet per second tip speed (about 10
m/s). His error resulted in a 5-year
delay in achieving hover. The
students contacted numerous
engineers throughout the
country to optimize
tip speed and make
other improvements
to the design.
The Leonardo da
Figures 1 and 2
Vinci II was
designed in 1986
with a more
efficient tip speed
and various improvements. It
achieved a partial
lift off but immediately crashed. The
Leonardo da Vince
III was designed in
1988 with more attention to rotor inplane buckling and
flew for a short
time. It was the first
human-powered

Human Power

Figures 3 and 4 from internet sites

Drawing by Matai Kiraly

Helicopter Leonardo da Vinci II

Number 55

The first ever HPH was a coaxial

system built in Oregon before the Sikorsky prize was offered. The first HPH that
the author observed was a coaxial system
at Westland Helicopters in 1981. Since
those helicopters were constructed, most
attempts have been configured as coaxial
systems. Two teams are currently building
such systems in Canada.
The great majority of HPH flight attempts have been made with the coaxial
configuration. They have all been doomed
to failure. See (2) for early Japanese configurations of a HPH which did not fly.
The design consideration for a HPH is
different from high power machines. The
rotor blades are the heaviest part of the
craft. The number of blades should be
reduced to the bare minimum. The
CALPOLY team seriously tried to design
a single rotor helicopter, similar to
windmills on the Baltic coast.
The blades are also moving very
slowly, so we get no centripetal stiffening.
They are light and flexible; the airflow
near the rotors will impinge on the others
causing unacceptable dynamic reactions.
Efficiency is lost when force is
concentrated rather than dispersed. A
powered hub will lose power and will add
to the weight. Both the Yuri and the da
Vinci used thread to transfer power from
the pilot to the rotor system. Future design
teams should be warned of the pitfalls in
the coaxial system.

19

We see that the coaxial systems have

failed because they have too many rotor
blades for too little disk area. The rotor
wash causes unacceptable dynamic
problems and the drive system is too
heavy and inefficient.

Elegy for Sturmey Archer,

continued from page 18:

Suggested competition rules.

The current rules are set up as an

either/or situation, but need not be
changed. A new set of rules may foster
more competition by providing a method
of scoring various HPH flights.
The induced flow field around a
helicopter is based on Z/R, where Z is the
altitude of the aerodynamic surfaces and R
is the rotor radius.
For the purposes of a human powered
helicopter, Z should be defined as the lowest portion of any aerodynamic surface,
including the rotor, fins or skirt if used.
Current rules specify that the HPH
must stay within a 10-meter box. This rule
supposes that the machine is controlled.
All human powered flights have been with
uncontrolled machines. Therefore, time
should stop when the machine touches the
ground or when it has translated 5 meters
from the take-off position.
Score should be given as follows:
1 point is given for each second off the
ground while the machine remains
within 5 meters of the lift off position.

1 point is given for each 5 cm of Z.

Human powered helicopter recognition

must not be given for a hovercraft. A
hovercraft in this case, is defined as a
machine which generates negligible
induced flow. A true helicopter should
reach a minimum Z of perhaps 0.5
meters for a small period of time.

Induced power OGE is:

Power OGE = W 3/2 / (2 R2)
W

weight
air density
pi
rotor radius

See Ref. 3.
The induced power is reduced to zero
as Z is reduced to zero.
Future judges must take this
information into account when observing
flight attempts.

20

References.

1.
2.

3.
4.

D.G. Wilson. Editorial Human

Power Spring-summer 1994
Akira Naito. Review of
developments in Human Powered
Helicopters Human Power summer
1991.
Gessow & Meyers Aerodynamic of
the Helicopter Ungar 1952
Totah & Patterson Control of a
Human Powered Helicopter in a
hover NASA Tech Memo 101029
Nov 1988

About the author

Bill Patterson is a Mechanical Engineering Prof. Emeritus at CALPOLY, San

Luis Obispo, California 93407 USA
Letter from Chris Roper

Bill Patterson remains forever

respected by me as the designer of the
world`s first human powered helicopter.
However, I cannot extend this respect
to his rules in their current proposed
form.
I don`t like the definition of Z as the
lowest point of any aerodynamic surface.
You could argue forever about what is
and what isn`t an aerodynamic surface.
There is another point regarding this
Z. His own Da Vinci had the rotors not at
the lowest of the craft, whereas the Yuri
did. So by using his Z rather than absolute altitude gained, which of them is
shown the more favourably?
Surprise, surprise, the Da Vinci .
Maybe, with this, and possibly other
slight modifications, his rules could
become recognised.
I would also like to comment on the
proposed exclusion of "hovercraft", but
feel this to be inappropriate as I am a
hovercraft owner myself.
Chris Roper, HPVA Vice President
for Air

Number 55

tinuous production since 1945. TI blocked

bringing out the geared Dynohub. Rather
than coming out with an updated more
powerful model to stimulate sagging sales,
it was cheaper to discontinue it and the
Dynohub was withdrawn in 1984 as well
as its battery-takeover option (Hadland,
1987). This was too bad, because generator hubs are currently made by three
different companies; Schmidt, DT and
Shimano.
Another example of cost saving measures was the indicator chain coming out of
a hollow axle, a feature of all S-A hubs.
Because you couldn't use a quick-release it
had all the disadvantages of both a quickrelease hollow axle and a solid axle; without the strength of a solid axle it was weak
like a hollow axle but without the convenience of a quick-release. S-A patented a
solid axled 7 speed in 1974 (Hadland,
1987). The 1974 patent on the solid axled
7 speed had expired by the time Shimano
began producing S-A's designs and producing gears with solid axles. By the time
S-A closed, Shimano had a solid axled 4
and 7 speed, Sachs had 5, 7 and 12 speed
hubs that used indicator chains, and
Rohloff had a 14 speed in both solid axle
and quick-release versions, before S-A finally came out with the solid axled 7 speed
they had patented 20 years before.
As early as 1984, as mountain bike
sales exploded, S-A, under TI, produced a
"no-slip" three-speed for Columbia Bicycles in America that was not released to
the general public. It had three sets of
pawls and a ramped clutch. In 1984 Raleigh still didn't have a mountain bike. By
Feb. 1987 they had made 60,000 hubs for
Columbia (Hadland, 1987). They were
still in production in 1997 though they had
not been released in the United Kingdom
(Read). Their steadfast refusal to issue
these to the general public is but one of
many decisions that led to SturmeyArcher's increasing obscurity.
Moreover, three speeds, for all their
faults, actually cost slightly more in America than their lighter ten-speed counterparts in the late 70s. For example, the
Raleigh "Record Ace" introductory tenspeed was $265 in 1979 in the USA. By
comparison a 3-speed Raleigh Sports cost
$285. While the emerging mountain bikes
still cost well over $600, prices were
shortly to begin dropping rapidly as they
exploded in growth.
Though British-made Raleigh exports
to the U.S.A. stopped in 1981, there were

Human Power

a lot of three-speed bicycles still around

and I could still find work as a SturmeyArcher specialist.
About this time Sturmey-Archer was
forced to discontinue rather than update a
number of products which had long been
in production, such as the Dynohub with
its battery take-over. They redesigned the
drum brake which they offered in a bewildering array of materials and finishes.
Design Problems

The road to obscurity had not only to

do with mountain bikes and S-A's withholding from the public the same improved designs they provided to manufacturers, but also a history of defective
designs for products they did release to
the public that betrayed the loyalty of
even the most die-hard customers.
In 1980 I convinced a shop to order a
couple of 5-speed hubs. Someone heard
we had them and drove fifty miles to buy
one. But he kept bringing it back saying it
"slipped" out of gear. We ended up giving
him his money back. A few months later
we got a notice from S-A that the hub had
a "faulty" spring. It was too late because
no bike shop in town would take the
chance on selling five-speed hubs. Some
time later I found the shift levers it came
with were also "faulty".
I remember being delighted when S-A
came out with an aluminum-alloy hub
shell five-speed hub in 1983. This was
withdrawn in 1989 when it was found that
pieces of the gears would burst through
the hub shell (Read). Though I never saw
this it must have been spectacular to see.
The 5-StAr hub (the capitalized "A"
playing on the first two letters of the
words "Sturmey" and "Archer") was
introduced in 1991 but was withdrawn
two years later because it tended to break
axles. Though this happened on a relatively minor scale they had the effect of
alienating the finicky and touchy cyclist
market. S-A came out with a series of
triggers that, with their increasing reliance
on injection-molded plastic, bore an
uncanny resemblance to a child's toy. No
serious cyclist would even consider
putting such ugly junk on an expensive
Reynolds 531 frame.
The real tragedy of this is that S-A
didn't have to fail. Recent research by
Frank Berto and Chet Kyle indicates that
run-in and well oiled Sturmey-Archer
hubs are 91.8%-95.6% efficient compared
to a Shimano derailleur's 86.9%-95.9%
efficiency (Berto & Kyle, 2001).
In 1979 S-A completely dominated the
market. The history of bad design choices

Human Power

has its roots in some of their earliest

designs. Before 1922, if a cable broke on
a S-A hub it was locked in low. Under
Frank Bowden they redesigned it in 1922
so if the cable broke the hub was stuck in
high. They brought out the "no gear"
position in 1937 because it was cheaper to
make. In 1954 they substituted the AW
three-speed design with the ill-fated "SW"
model three-speed (Hadland, 1987) with
springless crescent-shaped pawls. How
this hub got into production is curious
because it never worked and slipped in
every gear. What is most surprising is that
it took them three years to withdraw it! I
don't know if they replaced all the
defective hubs they sold but I don't think
they did.
At the time I first started working in a
bike shop, Sturmey-Archer was owned by
Tube Investments which also owned
Reynolds, Raleigh and Brooks. Like a
ship breaking up on its way to the bottom,
Tube Investments sold Raleigh USA to
Huffy, the largest manufacturer of junk
bicycles in America in 1982. Anticipating
a corporate sell-off, Derby, an American
management firm, was formed by a
wealthy American tax attorney expressly
for the purpose of acquiring old Raleigh
holdings as they were sold by TI. Raleigh
of England, Reynolds, Sturmey-Archer
and Brooks came under the management
of Derby, Inc. in 1987 (Hadland, 2000).
TI had pretty much ruined Raleigh/SA. By the time TI was finished Raleigh
went from employing 7,000 employees in
1960 to 700 in 1987 (Hadland, 2000). The
factory was virtually the same as when
they bought it, only more decrepit. Moreover, aluminum was the tubing of preference and Raleigh couldn't do anything
but make steel bicycles.
S-A had their resources plundered and
development choked for 85 years by first
Raleigh and then TI. Derby, their new
owner, would eventually own Raleigh of
England, Raleigh of America, Nishiki,
Kalkhoff, Univega, Gazelle, CyclePro,
Haro and Diamondback and be the largest
manufacturer of bicycles in the world.
Under Derby, S-A began innovating and
was allowed to finally release their "no
slip" three speed hubs, the ill-fated 5-StAr
in 1991 and the solid-axled 7-speed hub
to an optimistic public in 1995 (Read,
2003). Tragically, both these designs were
defective and S-A had to issue replacements. In 1999, after twelve years of
trying to undo the damage and upgrade
the factory Derby quit trying. They sold
the land Raleigh and S/A were on to the

Number 55

University of Nottingham and auctioned

off Raleigh's brand new laser cutting
equipment and robotic machines. They
didn't know what to do with S/A's buildings and patents and so they sold S-A and
Brooks for the price of a three-speed hub
(Hadland, 2000). The buyer was Lenark, a
shady British management firm who had
previously been investigated for fraud.
The law of supply-and-demand was
never so cruel.
The end came abruptly. In October
2000, the employees were called in, told
that Sturmey-Archer was closed and they
had ten minutes to get out. A year later I
still had trouble accepting that SturmeyArcher was closed, the workforce unemployed, the land sold to a university to
train people for a future without jobs, the
buildings knocked down and the machines
put in a ship container for Taiwan where
Sun Race, their newest management company was located [www.sturmeyarcher.com, Ed.] For me, S-A is gone
forever.
Epilogue

S-A's failure had its origins in 1904.

What we have seen now is the dark fruit
of greed: the greed that designed hubs for
cyclists like the SW and the AW with its
"no-gear" position was the same greed
that sold the land S-A was on to a University. Greed and avarice do not serve
society any better than they serve the
needs of cyclists.
My own fortunes followed those of
Sturmey-Archer's. While I continued as a
mechanic I was not hired as a SturmeyArcher specialist after 1985. The bike
shop I work in now is a Raleigh shop. It
has one extra three-speed cable and one
small plastic drawer labeled "SturmeyArcher" containing a couple of frame
fittings.
Acknowledgements

The author thanks Tony Hadland upon

whose research this article is almost
entirely based and for his invaluable
suggestions, also David Gordon Wilson
and Peter Read for their invaluable
comments on earlier versions of this
paper. The author is especially grateful to
Marv Wells, in Columbia, Missouri for
his expertise in preparing the images.
About the author

Vernon Forbes is a bicycle mechanic in

Columbia, Missouri, U.S.A. You can
contact him at vforbes@coin.org
The bibliography is on page 23

21

Green Fleet - humanpowered houseboats

on the Ruhr
Some years ago, Human Power associate editor Philip Thiel from Seattle designed the "Escargot", a tiny pedal-powered houseboat to sleep two or three. I
was fortunate enough to be able to try out
the first one built on the Norfolk Broads
in England. A loveable houseboat,
powered by two "Sea-Cycle" screw-propeller drives. These drives, which are
configured for rather light boats, weren't
ideal for the heavier Escargot and made
for heavy pedalling at low revolutions. In
the meantime, more Escargots have been
built and used in the German Ruhr area.
There should be a total of 5 craft for the
2004 season!
This new fleet is built to Phil Thiel's
orginal plans, but uses custom built pedal
drive units. The houseboats are
constructed and operated by the Hesse
Boatyard in Mhlheim, who let them out
for charter and also operate a floating
boat-caf on the river Ruhr.
The Escargots are also fitted with a
small electric drive which can be charged
up by a small solar panel, although this is
too small to provide direct solar
propulsion. The unconventional craft are
licenced to carry 6 adults and have up to 3
bunks. They are available from April to
October, a three-day charter costing
EURO 230.-. When it is cool, the small
cabin can be heated, using an arrangement
of 8 tea-candles!
A conversation with Ms. Hesse supplied interesting facts about the reaction
of the public to the boats, e.g. it seems
that the Escargots are especially popular
with women, children and families, a
complete contrast to the usual huge motor
boats usually chartered by groups of men!
The Hesse's success-story is also partially
due to support by the local government,
which is promoting low-impact tourism in
this area formerly more known for coal
and steel industries. [ts]
For further information contact:
Bootswerft Hesse
Hafenstrasse 15
D - 45478 Mhlheim/Ruhr, Germany
email: boote-muehlheim@web.de
web:
www.gruene-flotte.de

22

Number 55

Human Power

More pictures of the Escargot, showing the interior with sitting headroom,
the twin pedal-drive units and the propeller they are coupled to, and also the
electric outboard drive incorporated into the rudder.

Continued from page 20:

Annotated Bibliography
Berto, F. and Kyle, C. 2001.
HUMAN POWER, #52, pp. 3-11. Though other
articles have appeared measuring the efficiency
of epicyclic gearing, this is possibly the most
carefully done.

Berto, F., Shepherd, R., Henry, R. 2000.

THE DANCING CHAIN, Self-pub.,
San Francisco. The definitive text on derailleur
design and history.
Imprimatur.

Human Power

Hadland, T. 1987.
THE STURMEY-ARCHER STORY, Self pub.,
s.l. The definitive text on Sturmey-Archer hub
gear design and history. Nihil Obstat. Imprim.

Hadland, T. 2000.
Raleigh in the last quarter of the 20th
century, 11th International Cycle History
Conference Proceedings, A. Ritchie & R. van
der Plas, Eds. Van der Plas publications, San
Francisco. This chronicles the confusing
business dealings that led to Raleigh's leaving
England and Sturmey-Archer's closing. An
unabridged version is at:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hadland/#raleigh

Number 55

van der Plas, R. 1991.

BICYCLE TECHNOLOGY. Bicycle Books. San
Francis, CA

Read, P. M.
STURMEY-ARCHER: "THE END" AND
"NEW BEGINNINGS"; (1902-2000 onwards)
hub gear drawings, diagrams and parts lists,
Fourth Ed., (1997), Self pub., Milton-Keynes.
Peter Read's massive tome is the definitive guide
to repair each S-A design with many small
changes carefully documented. It includes the
many aftermarket improvements that SturmeyArcher cognoscenti have developed over the
years.

23

International Human
Powered Vehicle
Association
IHPVA
PO Box 1307
San Luis Obispo, CA 93406 USA
http://www.ihpva.org