/\/\3qq3/\/\
Likes Dirt
COSMOS Bicycle
Ripped straight from http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1952528.htm
COSMOS bicycle has a planetary crankshaft system that creates a unique alternating pedal rotation.
About the Inventor
Peter Bortolin is a ‘seventy something’ ex-builder who’s fascination with bicycle mechanisms has lead him to experiment with his own systems of cranks and gears for more than 40 years.
He came out from a country town in North Italy in 1953, and stayed in Lithgow with cousins. He has his own grown up family now, and is retired from the business of concreting and formwork that established the family in Sydney. His son runs a fitness centre.
Peter spends his time in one corner of an engineering workshop in Silverwater where he and Norm the owner have a gentleman’s agreement. Peter is currently working on developing protoypes for a new kind of engine that will use the planetary gearing system to run at an extra high engine compression of 20 to 1. He already has one prototype running (on the workshop bench) and hopes to put together another.
Peter has put in almost as many patent applications for his devices as old Tom Edison! The most recent 40 or so are listed in the IP Australia current up-to-date system.
How it works
The COSMOS uses a ‘planetary’ drivetrain (or gear system, or sprocket system). For the purposes of clarity we’ll call them sprockets and hope to reduce the confusion (not to zero confusion – there will be some confusion about this invention – guaranteed).
The pedals in the COSMOS drive a small planetary ‘18’-size sprocket that revolve around an 18 ‘sun’ sprocket . The largest sprocket is a 150, and is attached to and driven directly by the ‘sun’ sprocket.
This ‘150’ is a huge sprocket – you’d never see one on a track simply because you’d never get the thing moving. But with the COSMOS system, it is no harder to pedal than a regular high gear on a racer.
The way the COSMOS drives this huge sprocket is that it takes two revolutions of the pedals to drive one revolution of the large gear. However, and this is the unique point of difference of the COSMOS, those revolutions alternate between a large and small revolution.
This seems odd when first you ride the bike, but soon becomes accepted by your legs.
Why does this happen? If you look at the pedal in the photograph above, you see it fully extended. But because there are TWO axes (centres) of rotation, the pedal traces both the largest and the smallest rotation.
It is not necessary to run such a huge gear – the COSMOS system could apply equally well to a smaller drive sprocket. In fact, Peter hopes to develop the planetary system as a retro-fit for any type of bicycle; maybe one day we’ll all be enjoying the benefits of the COSMOS alternating pedal rotation!
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1952528.htm
Click on the link above to watch the video
Just wondering what you guys think about it.
Ripped straight from http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1952528.htm
COSMOS bicycle has a planetary crankshaft system that creates a unique alternating pedal rotation.
About the Inventor
Peter Bortolin is a ‘seventy something’ ex-builder who’s fascination with bicycle mechanisms has lead him to experiment with his own systems of cranks and gears for more than 40 years.
He came out from a country town in North Italy in 1953, and stayed in Lithgow with cousins. He has his own grown up family now, and is retired from the business of concreting and formwork that established the family in Sydney. His son runs a fitness centre.
Peter spends his time in one corner of an engineering workshop in Silverwater where he and Norm the owner have a gentleman’s agreement. Peter is currently working on developing protoypes for a new kind of engine that will use the planetary gearing system to run at an extra high engine compression of 20 to 1. He already has one prototype running (on the workshop bench) and hopes to put together another.
Peter has put in almost as many patent applications for his devices as old Tom Edison! The most recent 40 or so are listed in the IP Australia current up-to-date system.
How it works
The COSMOS uses a ‘planetary’ drivetrain (or gear system, or sprocket system). For the purposes of clarity we’ll call them sprockets and hope to reduce the confusion (not to zero confusion – there will be some confusion about this invention – guaranteed).
The pedals in the COSMOS drive a small planetary ‘18’-size sprocket that revolve around an 18 ‘sun’ sprocket . The largest sprocket is a 150, and is attached to and driven directly by the ‘sun’ sprocket.
This ‘150’ is a huge sprocket – you’d never see one on a track simply because you’d never get the thing moving. But with the COSMOS system, it is no harder to pedal than a regular high gear on a racer.
The way the COSMOS drives this huge sprocket is that it takes two revolutions of the pedals to drive one revolution of the large gear. However, and this is the unique point of difference of the COSMOS, those revolutions alternate between a large and small revolution.
This seems odd when first you ride the bike, but soon becomes accepted by your legs.
Why does this happen? If you look at the pedal in the photograph above, you see it fully extended. But because there are TWO axes (centres) of rotation, the pedal traces both the largest and the smallest rotation.
It is not necessary to run such a huge gear – the COSMOS system could apply equally well to a smaller drive sprocket. In fact, Peter hopes to develop the planetary system as a retro-fit for any type of bicycle; maybe one day we’ll all be enjoying the benefits of the COSMOS alternating pedal rotation!
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1952528.htm
Click on the link above to watch the video
Just wondering what you guys think about it.
Last edited: