
Velocipedia - modernerd
http://www.gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html
======
salmonellaeater
The first bike is missing its chain stays, the bars connecting the bottom
bracket to the rear axle and the ends of the seat stays. Wikipedia has a nice
diagram with the names of all the parts of a bicycle [1].

There are real bike designs that have a monofork (a one-sided fork, e.g. the
Cannondale "lefty"), a monostay, or a solid body instead of top & down tubes
(e.g. many folding bikes or the extremely aero Ventum One [2]). The Giant
Halfway [3] folding bike has all three features!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bicycle_diagram-
en.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bicycle_diagram-en.svg)

[2]
[http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/First_look_at_the_elusive...](http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/First_look_at_the_elusive_Ventum__4912.html)

[3] [http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-
in/bikes/model/halfway/1905...](http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-
in/bikes/model/halfway/19053/76916/)

~~~
J-dawg
Another fun fact about chain stays is that modern bikes are not symmetrical on
either side of the vertical plane. The drive-side chain stay is noticeably
thicker on the right hand side (drive side) to deal with the very high
stresses in this area.

This photo shows this asymmetry quite clearly:
[http://velonews.competitor.com/files/2010/09/IB2010_cervelo1...](http://velonews.competitor.com/files/2010/09/IB2010_cervelo14.JPG)

~~~
msandford
That looks to me like the non-drive-side is thicker, rather than the drive
side.

It also depends on the bicycle. I've got a '53 Schwinn three speed that's made
out of what seems like gas pipe and it's perfectly symmetrical. A number of my
old steel road frames look similarly, and so does my current titanium road
frame.

~~~
J-dawg
That's a good point! I completely got it the wrong way around and didn't look
at the image properly before posting it. The _non_ drive side must be thicker
because of the torsional force on the frame when pushing on the pedals. Too
late to edit my post!

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userbinator
_bicycles facing left: 75 %

bicycles facing right: 25 %_

That's unexpected. For some reason I'd think more would be facing right than
left, and if I were to draw one it would probably be facing right too. I don't
know why but it seems to feel more "natural". I just Googled images for
"bicycle" and 32 out of the first 40 were facing right.

I noticed all the renders were facing right as well, even if the original
drawing wasn't.

I wonder if the dominance of right-hand-traffic countries is related.

~~~
mapleoin
I would draw it facing left and I think that's because of the way I learned to
mount a bike: the bike-stand is on the left side so you need to have your last
foot on the ground on the left side in order to pull it up.

~~~
Moru
Yes, this is my guess too. Are all bikes mounted from the left even in areas
with left traffic? Haven't thought about that before.

~~~
Piskvorrr
I believe this goes all the way back to horse-mounting - mounting from the
left is easier, as your primary hand weapon (sword, mace, club, whatever) is
likely to hang at your left side, where you can easily reach it with your
right hand; this makes mounting from the right considerably harder, as the
weapon gets betwween . (It would probably reverse for left-handed fighters;
this had very little impact on today's bike mounting and kickstands, however)

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vilhelm_s
For the psychology research he mentions, there is a paper, Rebecca Lawson,
"The science of cycology: Failures to understand how everyday objects work",
[https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~rlawson/PDF_Files/L-M&C-2006.pd...](https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~rlawson/PDF_Files/L-M&C-2006.pdf)

> The participants were given a single sheet of paper, folded in half. The
> bicycle drawing task (see Figure 1) and the forced-choice task (see Figure
> 2) were on the top and bottom of the first side, respectively, and a
> questionnaire was on the other side. First, the participants were asked to
> rate their functional knowledge of bicycles on a scale from 1 (“I know
> little or nothing about how bicycles work”) to 7 (“I have a thorough
> knowledge of how bicycles work”). Next, they were asked to draw the pedals,
> chain, and extra frame onto a sketch of a bicycle (see Figure 1). Then, they
> were asked to select which of four alternative pictures was correct for the
> bicycle frame, pedals, and chain (see Figure 2).

> Over 40% of nonexperts made at least one error in both the drawing and the
> forced-choice tasks (see Table 1). In this and the subsequent experiments,
> error scores were almost as high on the forced-choice task as on the
> freehand drawing task, indicating that production problems were not the
> primary cause of people’s deficiencies.

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stygiansonic
This is a great art project, and I especially enjoyed some of the stats at the
end. The motivation seems to be thus:

" _There is an incredible diversity of new typologies emerging from these
crowd-sourced and technically error-driven drawings. A single designer could
not invent so many new bike designs in 100 lifetimes and this is why I look at
this collection in such awe._ "

I wonder what rendering software was used to generate the drawings?

~~~
hbosch
From the gif in the article, looks mainly like just some clever (and
impressive!) Photoshop. Reading on my phone, I suspected Keyshot and a 3D
modeling program at first, so that was a big surprise!

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rukuu001
I couldn't draw a bike until I started fixing them. And I rode every day :/

Besides that, the renders are beautiful.

~~~
ajuc
For me the most impressive thing is - these are not renders. (S)he had done it
in photoshop.

~~~
logicrook
Renders also mean drawings. Scott Robertson's book "How to render" does not
explain how to press the render button in Blender, it explains how to actually
draw (render) a concept art.

~~~
rawTruthHurts
We already had grammar nazis. I guess it's time for the semantics nazis!

~~~
obj-g
How dare he correct someone who already tried to correct someone else (and was
wrong). Why does calm clarification threaten you?

~~~
tgb
I truly believe that the renders -> photoshop clarification was genuinely more
useful than the 'renders can mean any kind of drawing (even though it's clear
from context that the writer meant computer 3D rendered)' clarification. Not
that the second one was useless, but calling the photoshop point 'wrong' is
way over doing it.

~~~
logicrook
> renders -> photoshop clarification was genuinely more useful

Except 'the clarification' is wrong. If you have a render, it doesn't mean
it's 3D. It can be 3D, 2D, a mixture of both (last is probably the most
frequent). It's a render.

This question can be more important than you think, since people may have the
wrong expectations when they get a 'render' from the industry. Good post-
processing (color balance, a bit of motion blur and other small effects) can
work wonders to show off a product (e.g. video-game), while not being so
representative of the end result. Which explains then the disclaimers on
trailers and screenshots, which are not there to be pedantic.

Anyway, I'm off sending Wittgenstein to the camps.

~~~
tgb
I disagree that it was wrong. A render is clearly a term with multiple
meanings, depending on context, and in the context and audience here most
readers will take it to mean 3D rendering . That there is a context where the
statements are true does not mean that the statements weren't making the wrong
impression in the readers here. Check out the author's reply, clearly
indicating that they were surprised at the clarification.

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jameshart
These have great metaphorical power for software engineering slidedecks. Not
sure whether they best illustrate 'emergent design', 'the difference between a
pretty UI and a good UX', or 'the difference between giving the customer what
they asked for vs. what they need.'

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LoSboccacc
it's hard to imagine people getting a bicycle this much wrong
[http://www.gianlucagimini.it/wp-
content/uploads/2016/03/Gian...](http://www.gianlucagimini.it/wp-
content/uploads/2016/03/Gianluca_Gimini-Velocipedia-5.jpg)

not that I'd draw it with perfect mechanical fidelity, but there are bicycle
defining parts missing there.

~~~
buro9
That's not very wrong, it's just missing things (rear triangle, drivetrain).

At least you could ride downhill on it (though stopping may be an issue).

~~~
amadvance
I would say it's one of few that could not break as soon you get on :)

It really looks like as a history bicycle, where you used foots to push.

[http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/064/812/iFF/hobby-
hors...](http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/064/812/iFF/hobby-
horse.jpg?1397180995)

~~~
skykooler
Also known as a "Velocipede".

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lazyant
This is exactly the same as in a Brain Games episode where the host had some
college students draw a bike, only one got it right.
[http://natgeotv.com/ca/brain-games/about](http://natgeotv.com/ca/brain-
games/about)

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lucb1e
Though being biased by this article, I do think I could have drawn one
correctly. It's fun to ask peers though, surprising things go wrong. I even
saw the double-chained one, surprised by that! (Chain attached to both front
and back.)

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atdt
What is wrong with the topmost bike?

~~~
gggggggg
No frame between rear wheel and front chainring. No strength.

~~~
amelius
But the front wheel is also missing that beam on a correct bicycle.

Edit: implying: if the front wheel doesn't need it, why would the rear wheel?

~~~
Piskvorrr
I would like to see you turn a bike with front-wheel chainstays. Straight-only
driving, turns are obsolete! :D

Also, the front wheel is connected to the frame in a very different way than
the back wheel: single strong tube, only diverging further on; and there is no
requirement for the front wheel to be powered - therefore the front wheel can
(and does) move WRT the frame, something the back wheel must not do. Yes,
they're both wheels, but that's where the similarity ends; the rest of the
requirements are very different.

~~~
Zarel
You can actually turn by leaning in the correct direction. This is actually
the usual way to turn if you're no-hand biking.

[http://www.wikihow.com/Ride-No-Handed-on-a-Bike](http://www.wikihow.com/Ride-
No-Handed-on-a-Bike)

~~~
ranko
It's the usual way to turn when using your hands too - in fact, you
(subconsciously) turn your handlebars the "wrong" way when cornering on a bike
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering)).
This is very counterintuitive and discussing it is a good way to start
arguments...

~~~
ccozan
I thought that countersteering is only for motorcycles?

But then , cite "The entire sequence goes largely unnoticed by most riders,
which is why some assert that they do not do it", end cite, is most probably
true.

~~~
randlet
You definitely countersteer on bicycles too!

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aidos
Here are some labelled pictures to help everyone with the terminology when
discussing various missing bits of the frame:

[http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/2899038/](http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/2899038/)

[http://www.eandsweb.com/trails/info/bike_buy.html](http://www.eandsweb.com/trails/info/bike_buy.html)

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barnabee
Great little project. Some of them clearly wouldn't work but some would be fun
to try and make

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gggggggg
I was looking on my phone and didn't actually see the one by the doctor. Was
it there?

~~~
shultays
I would say 8th one on the right. it could pass as his handwriting or a bike

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arxpoetica
I was so disappointed when I realized these images were not real! Awesome
project.

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deprave
I'm curious, why does he call them "men's bicycle"?

~~~
andreamez
I think because in Italy the different models are called "man bicycle" and
"woman bycicle" ("bici da uomo" and "bici da donna", respectively). How are
they called in English?

~~~
slight
Men's bicycle and women's bicycle in the UK.

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ashitlerferad
Disappointed this isn't about velociraptors :(

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kombucha2
Brooks saddles are a nice touch :)

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colanderman
A similar challenge: draw an ant.

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fiddyschmitt
What software does he use?

~~~
helb
Photoshop, probably. These are image montages, not 3D renders.

