Retractable Sail Could Give Bikes A Boost Of Wind Power
Retractable Sail Could Give Bikes A Boost Of Wind Power
Although there's nothing like cycling with a good tailwind, your bike and your body are only capable of catching a limited amount of that wind. The CycleWing was designed to help, acting as – you guessed it – a sail for your bike.
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@walnutwalrus If you are contemplating one of these, Google “sailing broach”.
Because being knocked suddenly sideways on a bike and spun round by a gust of wind is going to ruin your day.
@goatsarah @walnutwalrus I’ve been blown off my bike even without a sail!
@ajlanes @walnutwalrus So a sail at the back like that will try to make you point into the wind. If you’re using it and the wind is behind you, a gust will impart a big turning force which will also tip you over sideways. The tipping moment will get worse as you turn into it.
My instinctive reaction to seeing this as someone who has sailed in following seas in a force 7 gusting 8 and experiencing exactly what that does to a four tonne boat with a rudder that’s larger than I am is, “deathtrap”.
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@goatsarah @ajlanes @walnutwalrus thankfully the Kickstarter* was a failure (14 backers still raise £2k+ of a £58k goal). Sadly (thankfully?) we do not get to see any (hilarious) videos of unexpected gybeing
* I looked to see whether either of them might have had *any* experience of sailing... they have a diagram at east...
@penwing …or indeed of cycling…