Bicycle Basics for Dummies

If you've ever visited a children's museum such as the fabulous example in Indianapolis, you've almost certainly encountered an exhibit depicting the simple machines. Kids study these six basic tools – the inclined plane, pulley, screw, lever, wedge and wheel – in elementary school; where it's a common exercise to try to deconstruct complex machines into different combinations of the basic six. Take for instance the bicycle, whose drivetrain consists of toothed wheels (aka gears) in a system of pulleys. On the other hand, don't take the word of the hubbie who calls himself "David Bicycle" in his HubPages article "Everything About The Bicycle Mechanism"...

His pen name notwithstanding, David either knows less about bicycles than he claims or never studied simple machines in elementary school. Why? Because this is what he said:

"Two gears rotate in opposite direction enabling the wheel to rotate faster and many times once it is pedaled. If gear steering mechanism is not there, our bicycle wheel will rotate only once when we pedal it. So we need be pedaling constantly and also the size of the front wheel has to be very big to cover at least a little distance in a considerable time."

Two gears rotate in opposite directions? Our Aunt Sally's hind end! The Antisocial Network's cyclist in chief rode about thirty miles just yesterday, and the gears NEVER rotated in opposite directions! As you pedal a bicycle, the chain ring (front, where the pedals are) and the sprockets (on the rear wheel) rotate in the same direction: forward (same as the wheels). They have to, because they're connected by the chain! The simple machine in action on a bicycle drivetrain is the pulley, not a gear. 
Oh, and for what it's worth (which isn't very much), what David described definitely ain't a "gear steering mechanism." Since David clearly wasn't writing in his native language, we won't hammer on his grammar – but get the facts wrong, and he's fair game. David got the facts wrong in his desperate search for freelance pennies at HubPages (or perhaps Squidoo), and that makes him eligible to be the Dumbass of the Day.

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