Instructions: This simulation allows you to compare the performance of 2 different bicycles of your choice - conventional bike, recumbents and faired recumbents. Naturally a fairing makes a bike heavier than an unfaired one. Do you think the streamlining will be enough to make it faster on a level track? What about on hills. You can choose different bike types and compare them by clicking on the bike name to scroll through the available choices. You can also enter your own values for the vehicles. You can also switch between metric and non-metric units.
The defaults put you on a .5 mile oval track with hills up to 15 ft high, with maximum grade (slope) up to 10% (about 6 degrees). To start the race, press the "Run" button (press it again to stop at any time). Which bike gets ahead first? Does it stay ahead?
"Restart" will put both vehicles back at the starting line at zero speed, while preserving all of the inputs that have been made to change the track or vehicle variables. "Refresh" will set all variables back to the defaults and vehicle velocities to zero.
After you've answered those questions, you can experiment with changes to the track - length, height and slope of the hills. You can change the amount of power that the riders are putting in and the speed they start out at (the "Trim" button will stabilize them at their current condition). After that, if you have the data, you can try changing the characteristics of the 2 bikes to see how they affect the race outcomes.
Click to view Terrain Model