What’s the most important part of a bicycle? That’s kind of a trick question. Unlike automated forms of transport, nothing on a bike is extraneous, and the device as a whole won’t work if you take away any parts.
But spare a thought for the crank arm, the length of material that connects a bike’s pedal to the crankset and converts energy from your pedaling to torque that rotates the chain. You push down on the pedals, but all your kinetic energy goes into turning the crank arms.
That makes bicycles perfect candidates for design innovation. Bicycle-parts manufacturer SRAM has designed the SRAM crank arm by tapping into the creative potential of generative design.
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