On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 11:58:39 +0100, Eiron wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:

While what you quote about the maximum braking force above is all fine
and dandy as far as it goes, it ignores the fact that a bike is tall
with respect to its wheelbase, and any attempt to approach that
maximum will result in it toppling. As I said, at 1g, you will be face
down in the road. Eiron actually tried the experiment and found an
empirical limit at about 0.35g, and my back-of-an-envelope
calculations show him to be pretty much spot on.

I tried it again this morning, and managed to brake in 18 feet from 30kph,
to mix my units in the approved Jute manner, which works out at 0.65g.
This was sitting further back and lower, with hands on the drops.
Still, 0.65g seems a bit high for a pushbike so I'll have to repeat the
test on my next excursion until I get consistent results.

I expect that Jute never did any braking tests at all on his granny bike;
rather he picked 1g as a figure to be proud of and fudged some numbers
to fit.
When challenged, he picked another, believable number . . .

I'm guessing he found it in the same place he found his driver.

d

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Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com