Welcome
to the HUMAN POWER Digital Library
UK Mirror Site
by David Gordon Wilson
The main purpose of this collection is to present all previous issues
of the journal Human Power in an easily accessible and searchable
form. Human Power has been the technical journal of the
International Human Powered Vehicle Association (IHPVA). Chet
Kyle describes in his essay Human Power's First Issue how he and Jack
Lambie started the IHPVA in California, USA, together with a
group of enthusiasts who wanted to race streamlined and otherwise
unconventional cycles outside the strict rules of then-accepted bicycle
racing.
Human Power started out as a
casual newsletter of this group, with a mix of race and meeting
announcements and some technical articles relevant to their activities,
often eight pages per issue. Later the group decided to produce
HPV News to carry the announcements and race results and similar
information of immediate interest, and to reserve Human Power for
technical articles of longer-term interest. This change in
direction was given more significance because of the sad folding of two
other journals, Bike Tech and Cycling Science, devoted to
similar topics. "HP" also broadened its scope somewhat to
include articles about human-powered tools, for instance the analysis
and design of a human-powered brick-making machine in India.
At the time we are putting this collection together (2004),
Human Power has been published for over 25 years, producing a
storehouse of priceless information. As Richard Ballantine
discusses in his contribution, Dave's Ragtime
Boogie-Woogie Band, a
small group of enthusiasts has come together to put out this
collection, to preserve this information and make it accessible by
present and future enthusiasts.
Most of us remember starting in the human-power area without having a
library of information on past work available. Experimenters in
human power in general, and perhaps in human-powered vehicles in
particular, didn't publish much. In a world where people seem to
have lost their balance with regard to using high-powered vehicles and
tools of all sorts, as against using their muscles, and where global
warming is producing serious changes in the earth's climate, and where
obesity in adults and young people is becoming an epidemic, we want to
make sure that a valuable resource like the past issues of Human
Power are available to anyone who is interested.
May 14, 2004
