Motion Analysis of a Bicyclist


We measured the kinematics of a bicycle and rider during typical riding maneuvers on a treadmill using motion capture technologies. Our main findings came from analyzing the data using principal component analysis to characterize the dominant motions in control.

Publications

  • Moore, J. K., Human Control of a Bicycle, University of California, Davis, 2012.
  • Moore, J. K., Kooijman, J. D. G., Schwab, A. L. & Hubbard, M., Rider motion identification during normal bicycling by means of principal component analysis. Multibody System Dynamics, Springer Netherlands, 2011, 25, 225-244.
  • Moore, J. K., Hubbard, M., Schwab, A. L., Kooijman, J. D. G. & Peterson, D. L. Statistics of bicycle rider motion Procedia Engineering, 2010, 2, 2937-2942.

Data

Motion capture data from three subjects performing a variety of maneuvers and different speeds can be downloaded from Figshare.

Moore, Jason; Kooijman, J. D. G.; Schwab, A. L. (2014): Motion Capture of Bicycling on a Treadmill. figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1082512

Software

The software used to process the data for the publications can be found here:

https://github.com/moorepants/MotionCapture

It includes Matlab and Python analysis scripts and an interactive Matlab GUI.

Presentations

  • MAE Exit Seminar, May 15, 2012, Davis, CA, USA, Human Control of a Bicycle
  • U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame, October 19, 2011, Davis, CA, How We Ride Bikes with Luke Peterson, Mont Hubbard, and Ron Hess
  • UCD Tahoe Environmental Research Center, May 12, 2011, Lake Tahoe, NV, How We Ride Bikes with Luke Peterson and Mont Hubbard
  • UCD MAE Seminar, October 29, 2009, Davis, CA, A First Look at Rider Biomechanics while Controlling a Bicycle
  • UCD MAE Qualifying Exam, October 9, 2009, Davis, CA, Human Control of a Bicycle
  • Mulitbody Dynamics 2009, July 1, 2009, Warsaw, Poland, Rider Motion Identification During Normal Bicycling By Means of Principal Component Analysis
  • TU Delft Mechanics Colloquium, June 4, 2009, Delft, Netherlands, A First Look at Rider Biomechanics while Controlling a Bicycle

Media

This video shows an animation of the markers while one subject rides without their hands on the handlebars.

This is a video of a run.

This is a video of a Dutch television show that did a piece on the work: