tomjasz said:
majornelson said:
So far my personal leader is a FF Electra with disc brakes.
tomjasz,
Does Electra make the FF? I think I may have missed something earlier in this thread...
Maybe my miss use of FF. Flat Foot in another forum. What is it here?
I believe that 'Flat Foot' is just Electra's attempt to define and appropriate their own 'leadership' profile for the crank-forward design. That's my view anyway. It's not a major crime or anything - just standard 'marketing speak' and spin.
My personal view is that it's more correct to adopt long-held terminologies. Better for everyone in the long term. If your use of 'FF' is referring to the key feature of most Electras - the location of the BB a few inches in front of the seat post alignment - then you are talking about a 'Feet Forward' bike. The same terminology is used in the motorcycle world.
Personally I'd not previously heard FF used as shorthand for 'Flat Foot'. I'd always known the Electra as a 'crank forward' design because the cranks are in front of the seat tube termination. But given getting your feet flat is
one effective outcome of this design, I suppose it would be a reasonably valid use of the term and not one I'd argue with.
However there are at least two other good reasons for sticking with reference to 'Feet Forward' as a better description of the design (despite there being at least two approaches, differing simply on whether the seat tube terminates at the BB, like a Flying Pigeon, or behind it as on the Electra).
One reason for FF is to allow a wider range of rider-leg lengths to fit a given bike size. Examples of this might be those bikes with very 'slack' but conventional seat tube alignments, like the Rans semi-recumbents, the Danish 'sofa' bikes and some childrens 'grow' bikes. The 'higher' you raise the seat and move it away from the pedals to allow for longer legs, the longer the cockpit becomes to allow for corresponding long arms!
The other (and my personal favourite) design objective for many Feet Forward designs is that - by retaining
both an upright position
and facilitating a bit more bend at the hips - you get an upright, relaxed bike that you can still pedal vigorously against a headwind or up a hill without getting out of the saddle, the increased angle of the hips allowing the powerful gluteal muscles to contribute effectively even though the rider is not in 'racing' position. That's the theory anyway and the reason why very old bikes from the 1900s and many modern Indian, Dutch, German and other traditional designs (and even some early mtbs) also have ultra slack seat tubes. It's a very sensible approach if you don't go much faster than 20km/h on the level most of the time and don't have to worry about wind resistance. Or if you don't have a bit of 'assist'...
I too have thought the Electra would be a good candidate for electric-assist, especially with a proper torque-sensing PAS system.
Sorry - another rant I'm afraid. I'm a frustrated physicist!
Savvas.
ps; 'Bicycle Science' has a good chapter on seat tube angles and 'FF' outcomes.