Posted on 06/16/2024 7:12:48 PM PDT by Jonty30
I tend to be impatient by nature. When I was in college, many of the students went on a canoe trip. My partner just wanted to float down the river and just use the paddle to steer. I was paddling twice as hard to try and move the canoe to the head of the line.
My wife and I have competitive natures as well. When I met her she was the Aerobics Dance Instructor Champion for the Northwest. I had never even heard of such a thing, but it turned out that she was in excellent condition with an impressive power to weight ratio on the back of a tandem, far better than any other female stoker that I had ridden with. I knew that I had to marry her.
We got hit by a car on our road tandem and a year later the frame broke where it was straightened by the bike shop. That was a few days before we were scheduled to ride her first century ride. We were invited to participate with a group of fairly completive riders all on single bikes. We brought our folding tandem which was set up with mountain bike handlebars, a frame that weighed ten pounds more than a standard steel tandem and some wonky cheap components that looked like they belonged on a Walmart bike.
The leader of the group took one look at us and gave us a map because he didn’t think that there was any way that we would be able to keep up with them. I had a large hydration pack with nearly a gallon of ice water, and a large jersey pocket full of carinated Cliff Bars. I instructed my wife to eat half a Cliff Bar every ten miles and drink lots of water.
It was good that they gave us a map because we ended up setting the pace the entire time with the rest of them strung out behind us. When we got to the restaurant at the halfway point my wife and I still looked fresh while the rest of them were looking pretty haggard. They kept saying that they could not believe this was her first century. I had ridden double centuries on previous occasions, so it was no big deal to me. But she was a good example of how a combination of being in good shape and proper hydration and caloric intake can keep you feeling good even on longer rides where your muscles glycogen stores have obviously become depleted.
So, after eating a good meal and sitting in the restaurant for an hour we were feeling re-energized and hit the road at the same pace that we had been riding. The entire group fell to pieces and we had to slow up. The guy who invited us started having some sort of blood sugar problems so we had to help nurse him back to the start point.
We were never invited to go riding with the group again.
I think being competitive also helps. If you have a goal in your mind that you must achieve, you’ll achieve. When I was running, I would keep track of landmark along my route and I would memorize the time that it took to get to that landmark. I found it really helped when I divided my route based on the landmarks and try and beat my time at each landmark.
We have been married 34 years and that story was from about 30 years ago.
You need an ignition source for that to happen. Hydrogen does not go aflame without one. If two hydrogen cars crash into each other, and their fuel tanks are pierced, they empty immediately.
The Hindenburg went up in flames because it’s paint that they covered the dirigible was highly flammable. If it hadn’t been, they hydrogen would have just gone up in the air.
I worked at Amazon recently as a retirement job operating all of the different warehouse equipment. All of the equipment at this warehouse was liquid hydrogen powered so I know it is highly flammable, but being contained as it is it’s safe enough to use as fuel. An e-bike filled with liquid hydrogen just might have a crash that causes a spark setting off one hell of an explosion.
Unlikely? Maybe... Maybe not, only time will tell.
As somebody earlier pointed out, we’ve used hydrogen vehicles for about 150 years and there has been no explosions, Hindenburg aside.
From my research, you need an ignition source for their to be a risk or else it just combines with oxygen in the air almost instantaneously.
So you think an e-bike crash couldn’t possibly create a spark quick enough to ignite liquid hydrogen? Gee, I wonder what all those precautions we had to take when we refilled the hydrogen tanks on the warehouse equipment was for then?... And there were many.
Liability. You work in a shop with open electrical plugs and electric tools and flammable fuels.
It doesn’t mean that there is absolutely no risk, but there hasn’t been any hydrogen vehicles, for as long as hydrogen vehicles have existed, where an accident caused a fire. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it likely wouldn’t if it’s just a kinetic event absent a source of flame.
I am not sure that my memory is as good as yours.
The technology has become much more advanced now, but in the mid 1980s I purchased the first Polar Heart Watch which had internal memory that could record your heart rate at 5 second, 15 second or 1 minute intervals for up to 2 days. The unit was used in both medical settings and by serious athletes.
When you pressed one of the buttons it would record the time. So on my training routes I pressed the button at designated landmarks such as at the bottom and tops of hills and other places that had significance on my route.
At home I uploaded the data using an adapter that plugged into a serial interface on my desktop computer. I had software that I used to analyze and graph this data and to me it was very interesting to see the progress that I made during the season. I designed some of the programs myself. I helped teach a class on Lotus 123’s very capable macro language which was extremely useful for this type of analysis.
Of course, these days there are software packages that work with relatively inexpensive cycling computers with GPS which records your position and altitude and connect to heart rate sensors, speed and cadence sensors and even power output sensors. They automatically record all of this data and upload it to numerous software packages that can analyze everything about your work-out and keep a detailed record.
I have one with a 2.6 inch black and white lcd screen that is visible night and day with built in GPS that I use with three different ant+ sensors (HR, speed, and cadence). It weighs just a couple ounces. It cost $48 on Amazon and has 5 different customizable screens that you can switch between with the push of a button.
A couple years ago most people bought an expensive Garmin, Polar or other name brand cycling computer to get these same features. I used cycling programs for years on a cell phone (the Samsung S5 sport) with the Ant+ communications protocol built in. The battery life using the programs used up the battery quickly; it was hard to see the screen in direct sunlight and it was not as waterproof as advertised.
Now these new Chinese cycling computers are very cheap and they perform pretty well. The sensors are also cheap and interchangeable between different brands.
I bought a G-Shock that does that. It is very consistent for its distance, because it uses GPS satellites. Well worth the $800CDN that I paid.
First you need to educate yourself, so you do not sound foolish... no one is using liquid hydrogen in cars, trucks, forklifts, bicycles, or at Amazon... it is compressed. Liquid hydrogen is used as a fuel in submarines, rockets, and other very specialized applications.
The problem with using hydrogen as a fuel is not the safety. It has an excellent safety record... far superior to lithium based battery powered devices. The problem is that hydrogen is very expensive compared to other fuels, and the equipment that can handle it costs a lot of money as well.
The advantage to hydrogen as a fuel is that it has a high energy density. My two electric bicycles both have 15ah 48v batteries which comes to .72kwh; the batteries weigh approximately 10 pounds.
The batteries used in my electric bikes store energy that is the equivalent to 1/4 cup of gasoline or about 28 grams of hydrogen. The bikes that are being discussed in the article are fueled by 20 grams of hydrogen that is produced through electrolysis using electricity at home. That gives these bikes approximately 37 miles of range with pedal assist up to 14mph from electricity from a 180 watt fuel cell. If you would have actually read the article you might have realized that the amount of hydrogen is so tiny that if it all leaked even into a bedroom, the hydrogen which weighs approximately 1/16th what oxygen does would end up seeping out of the ceiling in a very short time with only a very remote chance that it would cause a problem.
When I was a child my friends and I used to make hydrogen balloons using lye and aluminum foil. We routinely made far more than 20 grams of hydrogen. We taped firecrackers to the balloons. We bundled them together and wrapped toilet paper around that and lit it on fire when we let them go. We lit small balloons on fire while we were holding them in our hands. Do you want to guess how many injuries my friends and I experienced in years of this type of Tom Foolery? How about None! Hydrogen is not as dangerous in tiny quantities as you seem to imagine.
With hydrogen if there is a leak it dissipates extremely quickly unlike spilled gasoline which creates a hazard which remains dangerous for an extended period of time.
I want to thank you for the thread and the discussion. I agree that the bikes are not ready for prime time. but the concept is quite interesting since using hydrogen for fuel saves a lot of weight as compared to lithium based batteries.
My folding electric bike which has a 750w/100w peak motor and 15ah 48v battery weighs approximately 80 pounds, nearly twice what the bikes in the article weigh. But of course, it will get to 28mph on the flat with no problem and was built with comfort and toughness in mind.
The batteries on my bikes weigh approximately 10 pounds and contain approximately the same energy as 28 grams of hydrogen. This system is all about saving weight. People do spend a lot to save a few grams of weight on a bicycle.
I am curious about your G-shock watch.
Jeeze, everybody turns this into a science thread? Over a simple little quip I made?
F off.
You have a good night as well.
The first two things you said to me were insults, so what did you expect?
BTW, that’s where I stopped reading your reply, so I have no idea what you said and I never want to either.
I replied in kind, so have a good night as well, and quit being such a shmuck to people you don’t know.
I do not have a clue what you are talking about. A correction is not an insult. You were making a fool out of yourself by claiming that you worked with liquid hydrogen at Amazon. Your insults mean nothing to me because you clearly demonstrated your level of education and intelligence before I responded to one of your posts the first time.
Hou have my apologies, sir. It seems that I was the one making a fool out of myself. Amazon is apparently using liquid hydrogen in some of their operations. I am never afraid to admit when I am wrong.
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