engineering and biomechanics in cycling
From an ergonomic point of view, a bicycle is the ideal instrument for studying and researching open questions in biomechanics and occupational physiology. Due to the fixed contact points with the sports equipment, countless and reproducible states can be simulated and evaluated. However, the question of an optimum usually ends with the existing measurement technology. In the outer periphery, many parameters such as pedal forces, cwA values, VO2max, etc. can be determined. But the correlations with the organic conditions such as muscle forces, contraction speeds, and frictional losses are not easily measured because their interactions cannot be viewed in isolation. Basically, the selected sitting position acts like an orthosis on our musculoskeletal system. Your range of motion thus limits our muscle strength and torques.
An essay by Richard R. Neptune, Craig P. McGowan and John M. Fiandt, which appeared in the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering in 2009, describes the existing interactions between sports equipment and people in a very revealing way.
In the search for the optimum of mechanical possibilities, a wide variety of products such as oval chain rings, pedals with sprag freewheels, Vario seat posts, Smartcranks, etc. have emerged in recent years. However, if you take the (bio) mechanical possibilities of the human musculoskeletal system as a basis and take them all into account significant influencing factors under the aspect of optimal use, you end up with a drive that optimally implements the pedaling work. Roland Pawlik set himself this task in 1992 for his doctoral thesis. He then realized the prototype in private diligence. When you see the wheel, at first you think it will break your legs. If you drive it, you definitely feel the way it works and the difference to the conventional UCI-compliant drive. Average 5.2% increase in performance, brilliantly done!
