Naah...if I was trying to do that, then I've been doing it all wrong all these years :-)


It's OK to do both ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

I think it would be interesting. Since it's an idea you are trying to convince us of, I think we would be swayed by a combination of compelling test data of existing systems, math showing the possibility of improvement with a new system and a conceptual design.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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I’m mostly sharing my enthusiasm for the subject with fellow Slowtwitch nerds, but I hardly have incentive to convince anyone. Although it is perplexing to me that nobody seems to agree haha.

By the time I share something like this I’m essentially converged on the solution, which by my experience tends to manifest true in experiments. I would not have said such bold things in my youth, but the professional and academic success rate I have for forming a controversial hypothesis which results in positive outcomes is outstanding.

I’ll share some data after June, no doubt, as I pre-ordered the Runscribe Red gait analysis kit.

As for implementing this into a bike design, it sounds fun, but it is not on my short list of priorities. I’m hoping someone in industry reads this and produces it so I can just buy it eventually :)

You might forget (or not realize) that triathlon has already gone through an "Is suspension faster?" phase. This was part of the whole marketing idea of softride beam bikes and the like (well, in addition to the comfort attributes...I DO recall some manufacturers claiming speed gains, but never seeing any data)...not to mention that Cannondale made some road/tri bikes with a Headshok fork with ~1" of travel :-)

edit: And back then, EVERYBODY was running 20-22mm wide tires pumped up to high pressures, so if the "suspension" had some additional speed benefit, it would've been quite easy to figure out

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

I've no doubt many things have been tried before, it's hardly a novel idea to put a suspension on a bike, per se.

Considering the rather fledgling state of even current CdA and Crr testing, I'm guessing this technology came and went as less ugly and lighter (sexier) designs took their place, but likely had zero technical challenges to meet or fail. The Headshok in particular (1992) precedes Martin et al (1998). :) Which, by the way, poses the question:

:)

Even road cars (particularly American ones) were woeful dynamical systems until sometime after the year 2000, despite the existence of literature outlining optimization developed in the aerospace industry. Heck, Douglas L. Milliken, a co-author of Martin et. al.'s "Validation of a Mathematical Model for Road Cycling Power," wrote THE BOOK (that most mechanical engineers love to love at least) on supposed Race Car Vehicle Dynamics and not once did he actually do anything that resembled it within its covers! Bicycles didn't have a chance.

As I've said elsewhere, the "we've tried X before and the result was Y" very often ends up not having been a test of X and the results can barely be spoken of without a blush from the authors. When relevant results do exist, they are usually not quite Y.

Even there, energy absorption is a consideration. Even with the damper, a suspension system is minimizing how much of the bike+rider gets deflected, and while it cannot return 100% of the deflection back to forward motion, it's not necessarily always a total loss. An underdamped suspension system isn't necessarily going to do any better (if the energy ends up getting dissipated as bouncing rather than returning to forward motion), and a rigid bike will have to contend with the inefficiency of forcing more of the system to deflect in the first place.