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Welcome to Velo Vision magazine, covering specialised bikes, cycling as transport and human power. It's a quarterly dose of cycle inspiration.The current issue is Issue 16. The next issue is out early March 2005.
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Human Power Institute launchesThe latest issues of HPV News and Human Power are out - with news of the newly-formed 'Human Power Institute', promising to make human power information, scientific and otherwise, freely available via its website.  Velo Vision recently received the latest issues of HPV News and the technical journal Human Power from the HPVA - to receive copies you'll need to use the membership form here. Much interesting stuff in Human Power in particular - including a response from Rohloff to the hub gear efficiency tests carried out by Chester Kyle and Frank Berto, and featured in an earlier issue (Number 52, Summer 2001). They had found hub gears ranged from 86-95% efficiency, while derailleur systems were from 87-97% efficient. Rohloff had found higher efficiencies for both types, with their Speedhub matching a derailleur system at 95-98.5%. But Rohloff had used higher power inputs for their tests (400W as opposed to Kyle and Berto's 100 and 200W) which will tend to raise efficiency. A counter-response from Kyle stands by the original test results as more realistic for most riders. This issue (No. 55) of Human Power was the last for editor Theo Schmidt, as he's leaving to help form the Human Power Institute or HuPI. Fellow HuPI founders are Brian Wilson, David Gordon Wilson, Richard Ballantine, John Snyder, and 'Elrey' John Stephens. According to the note in Human Power 55, "the HuPI has been formed in order to promote the development and use of human power for an environmentally sustainable and socially responsible society". It will principally use the internet to promote communication and knowledge exchange, and "is to be a locus for research and development in all areasof human power in a science and engineering context". But alongside purely scientific material, the HuPI is also "devoted to exploring and understanding how human power technology benefits society across a wide range of areas, including economics, agriculture, social rubric, psychology and general well-being." One of their first projects will be to make past editions of Human Power (containing a huge treasure-trove of articles and research) freely available online at the IHPVA website as PDF files, as well as on sale on CD-ROM for nominal cost, plus a searchable index. In mid-2004 they also plan to start the Human Power International Journal, a 'web-based open journal' initially edited by Theo Schmidt. It will be available free of charge via the HuPI website. Velo Vision wishes the HuPI the best of luck in its work - we share many of their aims. There's not much up on the HuPI website as I write this, but I'm sure all offers of contributions and help would be gratefully received. Email contacts can be found here. The HPVA will apparently continue to publish Human Power under a new editor, yet to be named. Posted on 25 March 2004 Your comments ...
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