Physics question: wings on a bicycle + wind

[loic2003]

so... imagine you have some very lightweight wings (balsa/ expanded polystyrene, etc) that you attached to your bicycle. These would cause lift, of course, but would it make you able to cycle faster? Would the reduction in effective weight be negated by increased wind resistance? Different scenarios include:

Cycling into a head wind.
Cycling with a tail wind.
Cycling with a tail wind strong enough such that even with your velocity, wind is still going past you and you have the wings facing backwards.
Cycling downhill.
Using a recumbant bike so the resistance of your body is significantly less than a regular bicycle + above possibilities.

I was just contemplating this last night when I couldn't sleep. I figured added wind resistance would screw up any advatages given, but see what you guys think...

 

[DivideBYZero]

Some questions:

- What speed? 200mph?
- What caliber bullet are we firing?
- How long is the Conveyor Belt?
- What type of comercial aircraft is being used?

 

[Calin]

I'd say you would have to pedal harder.
On a bicycle, the resistance you face when going on level land (no slopes) come from several places: air resistance, energy lost in rotating elements, tire deformation on the pavement. Between them all, I'd say wind resistance is the greatest (one reason - speed record for recumbent bicycles at around 80+ km/h, speed record while pedaling behind a "pace car" at around 200 km/h).
Adding wings will simply add air resistance - all the other counter-productive resistances are reduced at minimum possible on performance bicycles (things like Tour de France, La Volta etc).

A tail wind strong enough to push you? you should add all the wings you can, and orient them to block as much airflow - this would be like windsurfing.

By the way, there is a sport using three- or four-wheeled "bikes" and sails. They can reach huge speeds, much more so than yachts (as wheels rolling offer less resistance than anything on water)

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: Calin
By the way, there is a sport using three- or four-wheeled "bikes" and sails. They can reach huge speeds, much more so than yachts (as wheels rolling offer less resistance than anything on water)

Yeah, land yachts. They used to sail them over here IIRC, but some woman wandered onto the race track on the beach with her two kids and was promptly killed by one of them. IIRC they can nearly hit 100mph... impressive. But that's going sideways to the wind which is much, much faster than having wind directly behind you. It's kind of like squeezing a bar of soap in your hand and it flying out ~90 degrees to the forcs on it...

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: loic2003
so... imagine you have some very lightweight wings (balsa/ expanded polystyrene, etc) that you attached to your bicycle. These would cause lift, of course, but would it make you able to cycle faster? Would the reduction in effective weight be negated by increased wind resistance? Different scenarios include:

Cycling into a head wind.
Cycling with a tail wind.
Cycling with a tail wind strong enough such that even with your velocity, wind is still going past you and you have the wings facing backwards.
Cycling downhill.
Using a recumbant bike so the resistance of your body is significantly less than a regular bicycle + above possibilities.

I was just contemplating this last night when I couldn't sleep. I figured added wind resistance would screw up any advatages given, but see what you guys think...

It would always make you go slower. Weight doesn't affect top speed much, it's almost all wind resistance.