Abstract
A road bicycle’s dynamic comfort relates to its capacity to filter vibration generated by the road surface. Typically, four quantities have been used to assess a road bicycle’s dynamic comfort, acceleration, force, power, and energy; however, little has been done to compare the effectiveness of these in distinguishing between impact events. The aim of this study was to assess the ability of these four quantities when measured at a cyclist’s hands, to discriminate between small changes in the level of an impact load applied at the front wheel of a road bicycle. With a rider seated on a bicycle, acceleration and force time signals were recorded at the left and right hands using instrumented brake hoods during a series of impacts at the front wheel on a bicycle treadmill. Six derived parameters of the acceleration, force, and power time signals were considered: discrete values: maximum, peak; mean values: root-mean-square, root-mean-quad; ratio values: crest factor, shock content quotient. Integral values were used for the energy. Various criteria were developed to assess the performance of these parameters and whether they should be recommended as road bicycle dynamic comfort metrics for impact events. The criteria were related to three characteristics: the consistency of the measurements, the parameter’s statistical discrimination power, and how well changes in the parameter matched corresponding changes in impact level. The energy and root-mean-square value of power were found to be the top performers and are recommended as road bicycle dynamic comfort metrics for impact events. All acceleration-based parameters are not recommended. The remaining parameters demonstrated mixed results.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lépine J, Champoux Y, Drouet J-M (2015) The relative contribution of road bicycle components on vibration induced to the cyclist. Sports Eng 18:79–91
Ayachi F, Dorey S, Guastavino C (2015) Identifying factors of bicycle comfort: an online survey with enthusiast cyclists. Appl Erg 46:124–136
Vanwalleghem J, Mortier F, De Baere I, Loccufier M, Van Paepegem W (2012) Design of an instrumented bicycle for the evaluation of bicycle dynamics and its relation with the cyclist’s comfort. Procedia Eng 34:485–490
Champoux Y, Vanwallenghem J, Drouet J-M (2015) Dynamic calibration of an instrumented bicycle brake hood in measuring power absorbed by the hands. Procedia Eng 112:225–230
Caya A, Champoux Y, Drouet J-M (2012) Dynamic behaviour and measurement accuracy of a bicycle brake hood force transducer. Procedia Eng 34:526–531
Vanwalleghem J, De Baere I, Loccufier M, Van Paepegem W (2015) Dynamic calibration of a strain gauge based handlebar force sensor for cycling purposes. Procedia Eng 112:219–224
Petrone N, Giubilato F (2013) Development of a test method for the comparative analysis of bicycle saddle vibration transmissibility. Procedia Eng 60:288–293
Thite AN, Gerguri S, Coleman F, Doody M, Fisher N (2013) Development of an experimental methodology to evaluate the influence of a bamboo frame on the bicycle ride comfort. Veh Syst Dyn 51:1287–1304
Lépine J, Champoux Y, Drouet J-M (2014) Road bike comfort: on the measurement of vibrations induced to cyclist. Sports Eng 17:113–122
Pelland-Leblanc J-P, Lepine J, Champoux Y, Drouet J-M (2014) Using power as a metric to quantify vibration transmitted to the cyclist. Procedia Eng 72:392–397
Lépine J, Champoux Y, Drouet J-M (2016) Test protocol for in-situ bicycle wheel dynamic comfort comparison. Procedia Eng 147:568–572
Lépine J, Champoux Y, Drouet J-M (2013) A laboratory excitation technique to test road bike vibration transmission. Exp Tech 40:227–234
Mason G, Larson M, Deng R, Reed D, Pahlmeyer M, Wright N, Wu Z, Yahata J (2016) A robust low cost device for measuring road induced vibrations. J Sci Cycling 5:13–17
Petrone N, Giubilato F (2011) Comparative analysis of wheels vibration transmissibility after full bicycle laboratory tests, 40̊ Convegno Nazionale AIAS, Palermo
Giubilato F, Petrone N (2012) A method for evaluating the vibrational response of racing bicycles wheels under road roughness excitation. Procedia Eng 34:409–414
Olieman M, Marin-Perianu R, Marin-Perianu M (2012) Measurement of dynamic comfort in cycling using wireless acceleration sensors. Procedia Eng 34:568–573
Pelland-Leblanc J-P, Lépine J, Champoux Y, Drouet J-M (2014) Effect of structural damping on vibrations transmitted to road cyclists. In: De Clerck J (ed) Topics in modal analysis I, conference proceedings of the society for experimental mechanics series, vol 7. Springer, Cham
Drouet J-M, Covill D, Duarte W (2018) On the exposure of hands to vibration in road cycling: an assessment of the effect of gloves and handlebar tape. Proceedings 2:213
Marcolin G, Paoli A, Panizzolo FA, Biasco G, Petrone N (2010) A method for the analysis of cyclist shorts with different pads for perineal area protection: comparison between drum and road tests. Procedia Eng 2:2831–2835
Hölzel C, Höchtl F, Senner V (2012) Cycling comfort on different road surfaces. Procedia Eng 34:479–484
Litzenberger S, Christensen T, Hofstätter O, Sabo A (2018) Prediction of road surface quality during cycling using smartphone accelerometer data. Proceedings 2:217
Taylor M D, Edgar A, Raine M (2018) Scottish cycling pavement assessment using hand–arm vibration exposure. Infrastructure Asset Management, pp 1–16
Bíl M, Andrášik R, Kubeček J (2015) How comfortable are your cycling tracks? A new method for objective bicycle vibration measurement. Transport Res Part C Emerg Technol 56:415–425
Nuñez J Y M, Bisconsini D R, Rodrigues da Silva A N (2018) Combining environmental quality assessment of bicycle infrastructures with vertical acceleration measurements. Transport Res Part A Policy Pract
Richard S, Champoux Y, Lépine J, Drouet J-M (2015) Using an alternative forced-choice method to study shock perception at cyclists’ hands: the effect of tyre pressure. Procedia Eng 112:361–366
Drouet J-M, Guastavino C, Girard N (2016) Perceptual thresholds for shock-type excitation of the front wheel of a road bicycle at the cyclist’s hands. Procedia Eng 147:724–729
Ayachi FS, Drouet J-M, Champoux Y, Guastavino C (2018) Perceptual thresholds for vibration transmitted to road cyclists. Hum Factors 60:844–854
ISO/TS 15694:2004 Mechanical vibration and shock—measurement and evaluation of single shocks transmitted from hand-held and hand-guided machines to the hand-arm system
Efron B, Tibshirani RJ (1993) An introduction to the bootstrap. Chapman and Hall, New York
Wood M (2005) Bootstrapped confidence intervals as an approach to statistical inference. Organ Res Methods 8:454–470
Gardner MJ, Altman D (1986) Confidence intervals rather than P values: estimation rather than hypothesis testing. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 292:746–750
Lee DK (2016) Alternatives to P value: confidence interval and effect size. Kor J Anesthesiol 69:555–562
Hinkle DE, Wiersma W, Jurs SG (2003) Applied statistics for behavioural sciences, 5th edn. Houghton Mifflin, Boston
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Drouet, JM., Covill, D., Leroux, M. et al. On metrics to assess road bicycle dynamic comfort during impacts. Sports Eng 25, 1 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-021-00366-x
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-021-00366-x