"Ryan Cousineau" wrote in message
]...
In article ,
wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYTJ9v2vsaE

Surely someone on RBT will estimate the rollout (given the size of the
display) and calculate the actual speeds involved.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

You're a horrible person, Carl.

In order to get more precise control of the playback and higher quality
video, I downloaaded the good version, and started counting revolutions.

The odometer in the picture gains 0.01 "km" (eg 10 "m", or what the
movie-maker asserts is actually 1 m, in their notes on the video) every
3-4 revolutions. That would make the circumference of the wheel about 30
cm.

I'm satisfied that given the dimensions of generic hamsters and
cyclocomputers (I couldn't make out the brand name of this one), this is
reasonably close to true.

The one hamster manages a multi-second run at what would thus be about
6.5 km/h (speeds shown between 60 and 68 km/h for a few seconds) that
starts around the 23s mark.

Again, that seems like a plausible speed for a very small rodent moving
very quickly. More impressive was his cadence: the legs are an
unmeasurable blur at top speed.

BTW, the video is even funnier at half speed.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

Ryan,
Working from your estimates, the rim speed is about 10,000 cm/min (6.5 km/h
* 1,000 = 6,500 m/h * 100 = 650,000 cm/hr /60 = about 10,000 cm/min). If one
hamster leg moves in contact with the wheel for 4 cm (about 1/8 of the wheel
circumference) and if it's clever enough to stride so that each leg moves
its 4 cm in turn, the total "stride length" is 16 cm. 10,000 cm /16 = a
cadence of 625 strides/minute!
Don't know if I could stand it at half speed; have barely stopped laughing
now.
Thanks to you, and to Carl,
Kerry