🚀 go-pugleaf

"Brian Sandle" <bsandle@ablatespam.snap.net.nz> wrote in message
news:1088915988.522322@kyle.snap.net.nz...
> 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.

The only man on the newsgroup that can change a pushbike into a car without
an engine....