🚀 go-pugleaf

In nz.reg.canterbury.general Col: <Col@xtra.con> wrote:
> On 4 Jul 2004 12:51:25 +1200, Brian Sandle <bsandle@ablatespam.snap.net.nz>
> wrote:

>  
>>
>>Brian Sandle (remembering my fixed wheel bike and down hill riding).

> I don't suppose you remember the feet slipping off the pedals whilst pushing
> into a nor wester ?   Painful eh ?
>  :)

I am a bit vague about some of the pain.

I am trying to remeber if I often relied on the pedals to stop me rather
than the brakes. *If* I was not going too fast it was possible to stop and
unmount as the pedal came to the bottom of the travel. But not if going a
bit fast. Then a straight leg on the pedal was not very helpful,
especially downhill.

But now you have got me wondering about sails on bikes in bike cities. 
Living near the coast is not so good when going inland to the city as the 
afternoon sea breeze would often oppose the homeward journey. So roads 
could be designed so the bikes could tack home.

A danger of the norwester here is the tendency to take the journey home a 
bit too fast.

The next step is to have GPS and a computer on the bike, wind stations on 
each cell phone tower connected to computer. You enter your destination 
co-ordinates and you get a menu for

fastest trip

or

most energy saving trip, as the sails help charge the battery, hydrogen or 
whatever it is

Each bike could also be sending wind speed effects to the central 
computer, and between bikes in a group. Sails could be automatically 
raised and lowered or rotated in some readiness for gusts.

Bikes could be designed for rapid coupling side by side as well as end to 
end. It would be electrical too and a gauge would tell you how hard you 
were working in comparison to the others in the group and perhaps debit 
your battery appropriately. Coupling would increase steadiness in wind.

We already have GPS on buses here, but how many Christchurch drivers let 
you take a non-folding bike on the bus? I have seen it once. Wellington 
used to have side compartments on buses which could take bikes.