[lev99]

There seems to be two things tested in this exercise. Technical drawing capabilities and knowledge of bicycle mechanics.

I assume most people that drew bicycles have ridden one, but there are a few basic common mistakes. The location of the pedals (closer to rear wheel, very near to floor), the way the chain operate, and the triangle frame are some examples. I did not notice anyone drawing details around the gear mechanisms nor the breaks. Many people demonstrated acceptable drawing technique while getting mechanical details of the bicycle incorrect.

I think this exercise highlights a great amount of ignorance around bicycles. I purpose society would benefit from better bicycle education. Better bicycle education might encourage bicycle adoption (needs testing to verify), and bicycle ridership improves climate change, obesity, traffic, and heart disease. In addition to increased adoption, bicycle education would improve bicycle safety.

Bicycle education as a semester long optional course in high school is a great reach goal. It could mirror driver education where teenagers learn traffic rules and laws, and also basic bicycle maintenance. Perhaps with enough active bicycle riding time it could count as a Physical Education credit.

A good first step would be more high quality videos and pamphlets on the topic of bicycle education.

[Vinnl]

I don't think bicycle adoption could be higher than it is in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, I'm quite sure people would have trouble drawing a bicycle over here as well.

Really, the primary reason for the high adoption here is proper, safe infrastructure. (Being flat helps, but there are plenty of flat cities around the world that are not seeing as much adoption.)

I also don't think you'd need a whole semester of bicycle education. Most children here get a few lessons at primary school and do an informal exam, and that's it. The primary reason for that being enough is, again, safe infrastructure.

[roymurdock]

Was in Amsterdam this past weekend. Nobody wears helmets, even the kids. taxi driver explained that every grows up biking from a very young age. infrastructure is quite good. And driving sucks with the speed traps, tourists, canals, trams, etc.

I don't know why they let mopeds/gas scooters cruise in bike lanes right next to the sidewalk. I imagine the vast majority of accidents are some combo of bike/moped/tourist, and with the speed some mopeds are going it could be very ugly

[Vinnl]

The government just recently allowed cities to decide whether to allow scooters on the bike lanes or on the main road. Presumably, Amsterdam will soon choose for the latter.

[Doxin]

They are in the process of doing exactly that.

[lucb1e]

> There seems to be two things tested in this exercise. Technical drawing capabilities and knowledge of bicycle mechanics.

A lot of people here are saying that drawing is part of the challenge. I very much doubt it.

My drawing skills, including technical drawing skills, are terrible. You should have seen me yesterday when I was looking at an apartment where the owner didn't have a floor plan and I tried to sketch one without a ruler.

However, I tried and can draw a bike that works just fine. Maybe it's because I'm Dutch or because I used to be into BMX biking (when I was 9-14 years old) so I looked at more bikes than the average person on planet earth, but I was surprised when friends also couldn't draw one properly. I guess I am just one of a few who ever paid enough attention to the construction to get it right?

In any case, my drawing is absolutely awful. Out of a class of 30 in high school, I was the only one who the teacher just gave a passing grade out of pity. Most others couldn't draw amazingly either, but it was passable. Mine wasn't. But I got a passing grade because the teacher clearly saw that I tried and paid attention to his instructions.

I do not think that drawing skills have anything to do with connecting the lines to the right places. Even if it's misshapen and out of proportions, the lines that make up the bike should still connect to the right points.

[lev99]

Missing the basic triangle frame or connecting the chain to the front wheels are clearly not caused by poor drawing skills.

[tabtab]

Re: this exercise highlights a great amount of ignorance around bicycles. I purpose society would benefit from better bicycle education.

You don't have to understand or remember technical details to ride a bike: you just hop on and go (once you learn to ride). It's not like you have to rebuild one every time you hop on: they pretty much stay as they are. Let's not invent problems that are not real problems.

Sure, it's good to know how to lubricate, maintain, and inspect a bicycle, but even such an education won't necessarily make one remember the physical location of all the parts from raw memory.

I suppose in an extreme case the bar between the peddles and the back tire could just fall off, and a typical rider wouldn't notice it's missing until something bad happens. But this is probably a one in a million event such that it's not worth hours of education to prevent. It's like meteor insurance. People tend to skip inspections out of laziness anyhow, even if trained.

[azernik]

> I suppose in an extreme case the bar between the peddles and the back tire could just fall off, and a typical rider wouldn't notice it's missing until something bad happens.

Even that is quite rare; that bar is an integral (usually welded) part of the frame. More common failure modes for frames are cracks (the tube comes loose in one point, usually close to a weld, and starts flopping around) or bottom bracket failure (pedal getting stuck or breaking loose).

The more important skill for dealing with those is not memorizing the geometric structure of the frame, but knowing how to recognize early signs of wear (creaking in the frame, visible spreading hairline cracks, clicking when turning the pedals, etc.) Sidenote: This is a big drawback of carbon fiber composite bicycle parts - they're stronger per weight than metal, but they don't give a lot of warning before failing and said failures are usually more catastrophic (shattering rather than bending - see [1] for a video, and [2] for a more general discussion of the market for lemons that this creates).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxfJ-upYUXQ - note that this is a cheap part, so snapped under relatively low amounts of wear and force, but it was harder for the rider to realize this through inspection and riding before catastrophic failure

[2] https://www.outsideonline.com/2311816/carbon-fiber-bike-acci...

[tabtab]

It would be interesting to see a statistical breakdown of the causes typical bicycle failures, including the results (injury, death, etc.)

[jschwartzi]

Ask people to draw the powertrain or running gear of a car and you'd get much the same result.

[Buldak]

Is that a good comparison? How often does the average person actually see either of those things? The reason it's surprising that people struggle to draw bikes from memory is that most of us see them all the time.

[21]

The brain doesn't work like a photo camera. It remembers strictly the minimum required to do it's job, in a highly abstract and compressed form.

How a bike fits together it's kind of irrelevant for most people, even if you ride one or if you must dodge one.

[macintux]

Which is effectively the point of the article.

[baddox]

How about drawing faces of famous people then? Presumably those results would be even worse. With these bicycle drawings, even the most inaccurate ones are pretty easy to recognize as bicycles. But I don’t think you’d get very many recognizable pictures of famous faces, except for a few subjects with famously recognizable features (like hairdo or facial hair).

[lucb1e]

I think that has more to do with being able to draw. As I argued in another comment here, I think sketching a bike has nothing to do with drawing skills. But sketching a face is not enough: the level of detail that goes into a face is much more sophisticated than a bike. On a bike you connect the lines right and you're good, but in a face... there is no logical, mechanical structure to it that you can easily replicate. The proportions all have to be right, the way skin falls... I think that's different.

[baddox]

I don’t know if I agree with the distinction. Both require you to simplify the actual appearance down to something that will be recognizable. For a bicycle, that’s just a few circles and lines, but skilled artists can draw recognizable faces with the same simple elements.

[Dylan16807]

If you're ten percent off with each bike line, it looks almost perfect. If you're ten percent off with each line while trying to draw a specific person, it won't even resemble them.

A caricature is one thing, and might be doable by an average person, but knowing how to do a caricature is a skill all by itself. A portrait is extremely art skill intensive.

[userbinator]

That would probably be worse. At least the weird contraptions they drew are (even if only vaguely) recognisable as a bicycle.

This also raises the question of what you'd get if you asked drivers to draw what they see when they're sitting in the driver's seat.

[pure-awesome]

I read this as satire commenting on the misguided educational policies that governments tend to adopt.

The other commenters, however, have responded to it in earnest.

I am curious as to the original intent?

[namenotrequired]

I had a mandatory subject on traffic in primary school in Holland, and it was largely about cycling.