#TOTW Can you draw a bike?

Many people can’t, it seems.

From a study conducted by cognitive psychologist Rebecca Lawson. https://t.co/x2oKRwlFzj

— The Prepared (@the_prepared) February 15, 2022

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.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49250969308_07edd9066c_b.jpg

More details on the concept here:

https://mona.net.au/museum/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/gorillas-in-our-midst

@reeksy – very impressive

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!

Came back from my travels to find that a family member has chalked this random message on our kitchen “blackboard”. No one in our house is under 18. And yet that is the best bike anyone can draw, it seems. pic.twitter.com/8KEUHL7HCx

— Ned Boulting (@nedboulting) February 14, 2022

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

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.

LOL @wordnumb

@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 😀

_ _
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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….)

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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!

2022-02-17_03-55-10 by 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 🤓