πšƒπšŠπš›πšŠπšœ π™Άπš›πšŽπšœπšŒπš˜πšŽ πŸš‡Nov 21, 2022

"The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created. Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of 3,000 miles per gallon."
β€”Bill Strickland

Chart ranks energy efficiency from low end (mouse, plane, car) to supreme (human on bicycle).

Show threadπšƒπšŠπš›πšŠπšœ π™Άπš›πšŽπšœπšŒπš˜πšŽ πŸš‡Nov 21, 2022
β€œ[A bike is] a merger of a toy, utilitarian vehicle, & sporting equipment. A person pedaling uses energy more efficiently than a gazelle or an eagle. Triangle-framed bike can easily carry 10x its own weightβ€”capacity no automobile, airplane or bridge can match.”
β€”Bill Strickland
~J.A~Nov 21, 2022
Show threadπšƒπšŠπš›πšŠπšœ π™Άπš›πšŽπšœπšŒπš˜πšŽ πŸš‡
Here's the original chart from Scientific American.
Nov 21, 2022 at 2:51pmWeb
Show threadredthunderNov 21, 2022

@straphanger How cool is that!

#hcit
#mtb #singletrackworld

Show threadScott ReddNov 21, 2022
@straphanger I’d like to see where a train falls into this. The industry likes to tout the one ton of freight at 500 miles per gallon metric.
Show threadMartin TSNov 22, 2022
@scottredd @straphanger I came here to say this, but I was thinking about electric trains. Ooh and trams too while we're here..
Show threadRobertNov 21, 2022

@straphanger
Not sure i get why bodymass is the x axis. Isnt it already factored into the y axis?

Also i'm assuming the mass of vehicles includes vehicle+passenger+baggage? Might be interesting also expressed using only the mass of passengers.

A zero-mass vehicle would make a good theoretical baseline to measure efficiency of real-world vehicles.