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I now really want to try! You mean without anything to look at? I think it’d have to be a DH bike and it would take waaayy too long as I’d get very detailed with it!!
There's an art exhibition i saw at the Hobart Mona gallery that works on this concept.
When you enter you're asked to draw a bike and put the drawing into a box.
In the next room are artist versions of some of the sketches... and they've even made some of them.
It was very good.
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More details on the concept here:
https://mona.net.au/museum/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/gorillas-in-our-midst
I could draw any type of bike you asked me too as I have been obsessed with bikes since I was about 4 years old and I am quite good at drawing.
Guessing a lot of the people tested didn't even own a bike or if they did have no real interest in them as drawing a double diamond frame and getting things like cranks in the right place is very rudimentary isn't it.
I’ve seen this before and I find it disconcerting. I can’t imagine not understanding something so simple as a bike, but I can’t work out if that’s just because I’m into bikes.
Is there an alternative everyday item that I might not be able to draw?
Most people don't have a concept of the double triangle structure of a normal bike frame, which gets you a long way. Add in a very small idea about head and seattube angles (almost vertical, not quite) and chainstay length (bit more than half a wheel) and it becomes pretty easy. As long as it's singlespeed, f'nose what a derailleur looks like.
Ask me to draw a tandem, I'd have no chance.
Or indeed, a badger's face. Which was given as a task at a wedding I went to (aka, a "badger off") Basic structure fine, but which bits are black and which white?
Yes.
I could draw any type of bike you asked me too as I have been obsessed with bikes since I was about 4 years old and I am quite good at drawing.
Ok get a piece of paper and pen and draw one of these (I’d choose the easiest):
Moulton Tsr8 (extra points for isometric projection 😉)
Raleigh Chopper
Raleigh Twenty
Dursley Pedersen
Whyte prst-1
How did you do? (No cheating)
(I imagine the above being almost as difficult to imagine/draw if unfamiliar as would be the double diamond bicycle for any regular citizen?)
I think it’s safe to say that a bicycle is a confusing abstract array of tubing and danglies for those who haven’t spent much time in their lives putting one together/taking apart/poring over brochures?
Drawing accurately from memory is difficult of course. It’s kind of a school-kid trick to pretend that you haven’t practised drawing the same thing over and over and then turn up to school and wow your peers with your lightning ballpoint rendition of ‘fat person bending over’, or a ‘wot, no big nosed face peering over a wall?’, or ‘three Mexicans peeing in a bucket’. Or a ‘Raleigh Chopper’.
I’m certain that I can draw a tree fairly well (most cannot), or some shoes, or a building or even a human face, but ask me to draw a certain car and I’d be stuffed. Any car, actually!
Hang on some bold claims in here about "most people". Is there a study to back up your assertions please?
Also exhibition relies on people being crap at drawing bikes.
Also exhibition relies on people being crap at drawing bikes.
Yes. They mostly are. Hence exhibition. 😉
I’m both an artist and bicycle obsessive. Ask me to draw a bike from memory on a piece of paper with no tools other than a pen and it would be mostly correct but still a series of lines and circles. In fact let me try. I’ll attempt a Raleigh Tomahawk. (My first bike.)
Shocking 🤣
Challenge: Name and then quickly sketch your first bike, and then post it before the comment edit window closes.
See-through tubing?
Radial-lacing?
Collapsing slacktastic geometry?
Tubes in wrong places?
Semi-snowflake-lacing?
Bent bananas?
Zero-stack (in fact just zero) stem?
Diaphanous vestigial brake calipers (minus cables)?
Spoke-tyre intrusion?
#ownit
Disappointing so far!
Yes I can, because I know of the 'double triangle' of the frame.
Many years ago I watched a telly programme with Terry Wogan. Every person was given a piece of paper and pencil in a large theatre. The theatre goers were asked to draw a bicycle.
Every single female in the audience could not even come close and only a fraction of the males. This made me a little sad.
Can't remember my first bike so here's a picture of a trials rider in a hook position. Enjoy.
Yes, i just had a go on my ipad, (worked fine)
And it’s recognisable as a bike, but I’m massively into bikes, so it’s a slightly flawed question to ask on here.
I asked my wife, who is only slightly into bikes, she was less certain of success.
However, i suggested a horse, neither of us are interested in those, and she, within 5 seconds, said ‘you can draw a horses head using 2 different sized circles then connecting them.’
I asked if she’d heard that somewhere before and she said no.
Interesting to hear other folks responses to random questions eh.
Try and get people to draw other people's faces, makes some of the bike pictures at the top look pretty accurate
https://twitter.com/RhinoFive/status/1270654914071535618?t=-C6r-zRBJW-DSO9wt2OKiA&s=1 9" alt="gnarpoon" />
Cambridgeshire Highways love a gnarpoon
I could draw any type of bike you asked me too as I have been obsessed with bikes since I was about 4 years old and I am quite good at drawing.
Without looking or searching, I’d like to see your drawing of a Paris Galibier, a Baines Whirlwind TT flying gate and a Bates cantiflex. Throw in a Dursley Pedersen and a Moulton F type for good measure.
Without looking 😉 special points for the Flying Gate.
Try and get people to draw other people’s faces, makes some of the bike pictures at the top look pretty accurate
Its not about being good at drawing its about creating a basic working schematic - someone might not be able to produce an accurate likeness of a facet they'd get the basic ingredients of a face in the right configuration
For the experiment referenced its not about being able to convey verisimilitude its about the working explanation people have in their head about how things work and what their basic functionality is.
@sirromj I can tell it’s a bike! 10/10 for showing up + 1 for adding a rider. I’d like to score you more for the rad trials/trick angles, but 11/10 is already the biggest number ever.
I really wanted to find my felt tip + crayon drawing of Danny Macaskill on his trials bike I made for my son - it was better 😀
_ _
O<\>\O
No.
@wordnumb that is art, and if they painted those on every road, people might actually take notice! Whilst people can't draw bikes, they do know what they DON'T look like - witness the space left when I'm on my trike. Never dismiss the WTF reaction, it's real.
And a hint: Baines has a vertical "seat" tube plus an additional short one to take the seat post. It was designed to shorten the wheelbase.
I’ve seen this before and I find it disconcerting. I can’t imagine not understanding something so simple as a bike, but I can’t work out if that’s just because I’m into bikes.
Is there an alternative everyday item that I might not be able to draw?
I sort of feel the same, I can't really imagine not being able to draw a basic bicycle knowing where key components are in space and how it's typically laid out.
I suppose It's a familiarity and attention thing, I bet more people can draw a car with more accuracy/detail...
Lots of people just aren't mechanically minded, I do get that, but wouldn't that sort of admission, especially in the form of not being able to draw an everyday mechanical item like a bike, make you feel a bit useless as a human being?
I suppose It’s a familiarity and attention thing, I bet more people can draw a car with more accuracy/detail…
Yes. Plus the fact that a car is basically a rectangle with wheels near the end. A bicycle (unless concealed within a fairing) demands that one produces an ‘engineering’/‘mechanical’ drawing, simply by virtue of it’s design.
The act of drawing is also akin to torture for many people. As you say, a drawing is also revealing, in many ways. It can reveal what we understand/don’t understand about something. I obviously have very little to no recollection of how Raleigh arranged the tubes of my Tomahawk, for instance.
@cookeaa would you post a quick sketch of your first bike? (No reference/cheating)
Or (if too easy), what about a Raleigh Chopper?
Yes.
But I sometimes forget bits when I make them (was never allowed to race this in the local cx league for some reason....)
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/dtZJXQ0q/Screenshot-2014-10-01-at-18-17-21.pn g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/dtZJXQ0q/Screenshot-2014-10-01-at-18-17-21.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
was never allowed to race this in the local cx league for some reason….
No pedals. 😁
This is my effort just now, fun game, I think everyone should draw one from memory, no cheating!
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51886341782_dc5269ff98_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51886341782_dc5269ff98_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2n424HG ]2022-02-17_03-55-10[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/186296265@N03/ ]matt mmm[/url], on Flickr
I can’t really imagine not being able to draw a basic bicycle knowing where key components are in space and how it’s typically laid out
That's the key. If you put the wheels, saddle, pedals and handlebars in roughly the right place it is pretty hard to draw it wrong. You've only got to know that forks exist.
Ok get a piece of paper and pen and draw one of these (I’d choose the easiest):
Moulton Tsr8 (extra points for isometric projection 😉)
Raleigh Chopper
Raleigh Twenty
Dursley Pedersen
Whyte prst-1
How did you do? (No cheating)
I did very well and drew them all thanks. Apart from the Whyte as when I started to draw it I got vomit on the paper which put an end to it.
Sort of missing the point though isn't it. My point was "drawing a double diamond frame and getting things like cranks in the right place is very rudimentary isn’t it." which it is but to someone who doesn't observe bikes and cannot draw from memory is going to fail.
My wife has no interest in bikes and won't even know if I have changed the frame to a completely different colour frame sometimes. The fact she has looked at my bike many times when passing it in the garage just doesn't register as she has no interest in them.
did very well and drew them all thanks
From memory? Any chance of posting a snap of them onthread, as that is actually beyond impressive in my (humble non-engineer)opinion.
I didn't frame them and put them on the wall!. Just quick sketches that are now in the recycling. For someone that can draw and has an obsession with bikes for 50 years I hardly think it is impressive. I was drawing short sci-fi comic books when I was 12.
For someone that can draw and has an obsession with bikes for 50 years I hardly think it is impressive
Take it from A N Other old artist and bike obsessive, it would be impressive. Sort of savant-level impressive.
I didn’t frame them and put them on the wall!
Neither (I assume) did the rest of us. It’s a fun opportunity to see how difficult it is even for us cyclists to draw unfamiliar bikes, not too see how artistic/frameable it is! (Although that penny farthing has a certain convincing air about it)
now in the recycling
‘Thread, I ate the evidence 😉’
I did very well and drew them all thanks. Apart from the Whyte as when I started to draw it I got vomit on the paper which put an end to it.
Proof required, Jpeg or PNG is fine 😀
All from memory 🤓
In answer to the thread title; yes, I can.
(All shamelessly reposted from the STW art thread)
All from memory
Believable 😉 (as the Pedersen was way off)
Yr Flying Gate was almost perfect though. You must own one? (and a Moulton/and/or the mind of an engineer)
It was indeed. That’s the deliberate double bluff. Truth is I turned one down a few years ago (a real one) and have regretted it ever since.
The galibier has a bit of a kink in the seat tube if I’m being pedantic too.
I told a lass in my GCSE art class the bike she drew all wrong. But she correctly pointed out she was the artist and I was the cyclist and she could draw it in an interpretive way how the **** she wanted. Fair point well made. And she was fit so I double lost.
Is there an alternative everyday item that I might not be able to draw?
I was pondering this today. The nice thing about the example of a bike is - as said - all its engineering principles are on show, a car is just as ubiquitous but all the workings are hidden - so a drawing of a bike is really a drawing of your understanding of a bike - where a drawing of a car is just a representation of the superficial aspects of a car - although I'd expect most people would draw a 'three box' design - the traditional saloon car: a box for the engine, a box for the people, a box of the luggage - so a representation of the three functional spaces of a car.. Where as most car people see everyday are two box and one box designs even though inside they still have those three things - an engine, people and their stuff.
There are a number of items that as are ubiquitous across borders and generations and bikes : The shipping container and the oil barrel being two of the most numerous. But I can't really think of another thing where a drawing of it would display an understanding of how it works.
Scissors maybe
Yr Flying Gate was almost perfect though. You must own one?
I have plans. Debating a vintage or Trevor Jarvis new frame. Not seen a 1945 TT in my size yet. I’ve come close a few times. I’ve owned and broken a Moulton too.
I didn't do so well at school. My parents recently gave me some of my old school books, they are full of pretty accurate doodles of bikes. I can even identify which geography lesson I was in when I first started drawing a Lava Dome, a bike I still have 30 years later!
I'm not very good at drawing either, I just found bikes more interesting than school work.
in an interpretive way how the **** she wanted.
Ah yes good old artistic license. Hang on...
^ Bicycley! You didn’t by any chance design the sculpture on the British Sea Power bike-themed video?
(Around 2min10s)
I can’t freehand draw worth a damn! Which was fine when I worked as a graphic artist, because my technical drawing skills were a lot more useful.
I did, however, have a go at sketching a generic bike about five minutes ago, and I think it gets the idea across.
Proof required, Jpeg or PNG is fine
Not really. If you don't believe me I can live with that.
I did however get my wife to look at them at the time who had to Google them as other than the Chopper see didn't know what any of them were. She confirmed they looked correct but wasn't surprised as she has lived with me for 25 years so knows all about my idiosyncrasies (read high functioning autistic!)
Why has nobody drawn the paper clip bike yet - without looking please/?
Why has nobody drawn the paper clip bike yet – without looking please/?
Good one! How was your effort? (Pic, or it didn't happen 😎)
Seems that I can't even (quickly) draw a paper clip from memory
but wouldn’t that sort of admission, especially in the form of not being able to draw an everyday mechanical item like a
bikepaperclip, make you feel a bit useless as a human being?
That’s certainly one way to look at it!
Can you see it....?
On the side of todays porridge bowl 🙂
Seems that I can’t even (quickly) draw a paper clip from memory
I have just drawn one that was correct, from memory. Yeah, yeah, you don't believe me.
I have also just applied to go on Britain's Got Talent as I seem to be good at this but I fear my previously mentioned autism may not help with my stage presence...
I have just drawn one that was correct, from memory. Yeah, yeah, you don’t believe me.
Just post your sketch of the paperclip bike! Also, I did suggest that if drawing (say) an accurate PRST-1, or Dursley Pedersen (or even Raleigh Chopper) from memory is a trivial task then one may be ‘savant-level’ in the recall-skillz dept. Interestingly, would you say there is any bike/machine/shape you think that you couldn’t draw from memory? How would you fare, with, say, a Strandbeest?
I love drawing bikes. People often get me to draw there's. I do like to get them right 🙂
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Cmon binners, post a quick pencil sketch from memory, not a tracing/referenced vector done on PC.
Your first bike. Go!
Mk I Nomad
I did suggest that if drawing (say) an accurate PRST-1, or Dursley Pedersen (or even Raleigh Chopper) from memory is a trivial task then one may be ‘savant-level’ in the recall-skillz dept. Interestingly, would you say there is any bike/machine/shape you think that you couldn’t draw from memory? How would you fare, with, say, a Strandbeest?
Yes I have pretty good recall, verbal and visual, remembering numbers and so on.
I haven't tried drawing a massive list of bike/machines/shapes from memory but as I didn't even know what a Strandbeest is I may struggle with that. Just looked it up and no I would not get that technically correct but it is hardly a bike or a paperclip is it.
‘depositphotos’
ISWYDT
I’m pretty sure I could draw the paper clip bike and a PRST-1 from memory, I’m just ready shit at drawing…
@tomhoward it isn’t about artistic merit, it’s if you can draw it at all without getting parts/angles in the wrong place (and without omitting key elements)
Just a collection of lines and simple shapes.
So if you can draw even a stick-figure PRST-1 from memory, then I’d suggest that your basic drawing skills are quite well-developed.
I've since realized I can't actually remember what the paper clip bike looked like! I've resisted googling for it so far, but have no idea where to start to drawing it. It didn't actually look anything like a paper clip did it!? Did it bend this way or that way!?
^Welcome to most (non-bike-obsessive) people’s minds when confronted with the task ‘can you draw a bicycle?’
Try drawing your first bike instead? (Just remembered you don’t remember!) Try drawing even a simple paperclip (not the bike*)
Trying to draw just a paperclip blew my (seemingly very) tiny mind! 😎
* ‘paperclip’ bike is seemingly both a meme from a fugly pic of some homebrew frankenthing and also a (different) design-award-winning utility bike from Batavus. So it’s confusing. (But still not as confusing as an actual paperclip 🤤)
It was turquoise wasn't it?
’ve since realized I can’t actually remember what the paper clip bike looked like!
For you.(and everyone else)
I can hear the calls at home. 'What's happened to all the paperclips ?, I thought we had a box'
Looks like the image of the green paperclip bike has disappeared, I can’t find it for the life of me
Edit, wait, no, found it 😊 I’m happy with my memory, will share if other don’t mind
Will do PRST-1 on my lunch break, If no one else does one, might take a bit more concentration.
Can always turn the question on it's head too:
Seeing as no one has offered up anything better, here is the actual paperclip bike. Or what I assume every is referring to.
The nice thing about the example of a bike is – as said – all its engineering principles are on show, a car is just as ubiquitous but all the workings are hidden – so a drawing of a bike is really a drawing of your understanding of a bike – where a drawing of a car is just a representation of the superficial aspects of a car
ask them to draw a car with a level of detail to include doors and windows (physical moving parts that they will interact with) and I think just as many people will fall down.
on bikes, it depends on what you would call a passable drawing. A double diamond that fits wheels, has cracks and a drive train that is in the right place?
My first proper MTB was an Orange crush, 2011; so quite an easy one. Lord knows how you post your own picture on here though.
Correct - double diamond frame, head angle slacker than the seat, front to rear centre about right, 2 wheels of the same size, cranks, drivetrain.
Incorrect - its either a 24 incher, or has a 1600 wheelbase; and seems to have a 12 inch travel fork. Even with the saddle slammed to the frame, its barely below the bars.
Indian Ink, I did sketch the bike in woods with it front of me.
Nice!
I’d completely forgotten the ‘paperclip’ bike! Certainly not the most attractive bike design, that’s for sure!
And while I understand the principles of perspective, proportion, etc, I just don’t have the skill to freehand draw things.
I once worked with a graphic artist who would sit smoking ‘herbal inspiration’ roll ups, while absent-mindedly sketching steam locomotives, in perspective, with detailed drive-trains and everything! How I envy those who can create a beautiful, recognisable sketch of something with just a few strokes of a pen.
I've taken my 4 year daughter old out on a mac-ride on my MTB over the south downs a few times.
After one of the first trips she drew this afterwards...
Seeing as looking at bike while drawing it is allowed (I can draw one without looking, honest) … heres one I’ve done on me ipad… wasn’t happy with the background, but the bike came out ok
There's some properly talented people on this here forum.