bicycle

230 Articles

Rail Bike Conversion Is A Success, And A Failure

May 1, 2012 by 40 Comments

There is a long tradition of hacking transportation to work on the rails. People have done it to all kinds of things for many reasons. Some are for rail maintenance, others are simply to enjoy the tracks. With as much unused railways as we have, it seems a shame to waste them. This hack turns a bicycle into into a rail bike with the use of some conduit, a cut up razor scooter, and a fork from another bike.  After some tinkering with spacing to make the whole thing a little smoother on the rails, the whole thing seemed like a success. That is, until the front rail guide caught a railway tie and the rider was tossed. Not only that, the impact destroyed his bike frame.

So, does this wreck mark this as a failure? Or is this simply another step in the iterative process we all tend to use. The only difference is if he carries on to build another.

Home Brew Motorized Bicycle Is A Super Grocery Getter

April 28, 2012 by 14 Comments

[Thor] sent in an awesome motorized bike build he found coming from the fruitful workshop of [Jim Gallant]. It’s an incredible piece of work built nearly entirely from scratch.

[Jim] welded the frame together on a home-built jig that keeps all the chrome-moly tubes in alignment before they’re pieced together. With the jig, the frame was kept extremely straight making a bike that turns very well and can be ridden no-handed.

All of [Jim]’s previous motorized bikes used small Honda engines, but after hearing Robin Subaru engines are more reliable he decided to give one a go. The motor is attached to the derailleur gears with a continuously variable transmission usually found in scooters. [Jim]’s earlier motorized bikes didn’t have indexed shifting and disc brakes like modern motorized bikes, but he decided to throw them in anyway. Everyone who rides his new super grocery getter comments on how smooth the ride is with these additions.

While [Jim] doesn’t have an official speed or MPG rating, he’s guessing this bike can carry three bags of groceries at 30 mph at 170 miles per gallon. A very efficient mode of transportation that is much safer than the other motorized bikes we’ve seen before.

Add A Train Horn To Your Hoopty (earplugs Not Included)

April 13, 2012 by 14 Comments

[TheChadster] was kind enough to explain that the air horn he attached to his bicycle is not actually as loud as a train horn. This one can only be heard from a half a mile away. But we’re sure the ringing in your ears will seem the same… the video after the break proves this thing is way too loud.

You don’t need much for this, just a pair of air horns and a source of compressed air. [Chad] has a ten gallon air tank strapped onto the luggage rack on the back. We’d bet he can lay on the horn for quite a while before depleting that reservoir. The hardest part of the build (other than sourcing the parts without breaking the bank) is going to be attaching everything to the bike. This is why he recommends using a cruiser bicycle because they often already have a rack on the back. For the horn holder [Chad] found a leather cup holder worked almost perfectly.

We think he needs to turn this around and add some compressed combustibles for a fiery and noisy flame boost.

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Self-stabilizing Autonomous Bicycle

March 25, 2012 by 52 Comments

For [Gunnar]’s diploma thesis, he wanted to build an autonomous bicycle. There’s an obvious problem with this idea, though: how, exactly does a robotic bicycle stand upright? His solution to balancing the bicycle was a reaction wheel that keeps the bicycle upright at all times.

A bicycle is basically an inverted pendulum; something we’ve seen controlled in a number of projects. To balance his driver-less bike, [Gunnar] used a stabilizing wheel and an IMU to make sure the bicycle is always in the upright position. The bike measure the tilt and angular velocity of itself, along with the speed of the stabilizing wheel. To correct a tilt to the left, the stabilizing wheel spins clockwise, and corrects a rightward tilt by spinning counterclockwise.

While [Gunnar]’s solution of a bike wheel used as a gyroscope is clever – it uses common bicycle wheel, hugely reducing costs if someone wants to replicate this project – there’s not a whole lot of ground clearance. The size of the stabilizing wheel could probably be reduced by replacing the 7.4 kg steel wheel with a Tungsten, Osmium, or Lead disk, possibly becoming so small it could fit inside the frame. Still, though, a very nice build that is sure to turn a few heads.

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Sensor Rig Finds Out If Motorists Are Sharing The Road With Cyclists

March 7, 2012 by 120 Comments

Apparently there’s some cause for concern when it comes to bikes and automobiles sharing the roads in Austin, Texas. [Christopher Stanton] wrote in to tell us there’s a law on the books now that requires motorists to give three feet of space when passing a cyclist. This is pretty difficult to enforce as there’s no solid proof like the radar gun provides when it comes to speed limits. The hardware above is seeking to help by collecting data on passing habits. It measures and records the distance of each vehicle that passes you while on the bike. The goal isn’t to ticket more drivers, it’s to collect statistical data that might help change dangerous driving habits.

As you can see, a front equipment rack hosts the hardware for easy installation on a bike. It has an arm that extends to the side the same distance as the handle bars. The HD camera with wide-angle lens is set to snap a photo which can be used to determine the bike and vehicle positions in the lanes, along with the distance readout from the sensor.

We’d certainly be interested in seeing the numbers for average passing clearance in a heavily traveled urban environment. Even with bike lanes, things can feel pretty tight on a busy day!

Easy Workout Logging With Ethernet-enabled Exercise Bike

March 3, 2012 by 6 Comments

It will be easy to keep your exercise routine on track if you don’t have to do anything at all to log your workouts. [Reefab] developed this add-on hardware for his exercise bike that automatically logs his workout on the Internet.

He’s using RunKeeper to store and display the workout data. They offer a token-based API which [Reefab] implemented in his Arduino sketch. The hardware to grab data from the exercise bike is quite simple to set up. A rare-earth magnet was added to the fly-wheel with a reed switch positioned next it in order to measure the number and speed of rotations. This is exactly how a consumer bicycle computer works, needing just one accurate measurement corresponding to how far the bike travels with each revolution of that wheel.

In addition to the networked-logging feature [Reefab] included a character display so you can follow your speed and distance data during the workout.

3D Printed Lugs For Your Custom Bike

February 24, 2012 by 39 Comments

We haven’t heard much about 3D printing using stainless steel as the medium, but that’s exactly what’s going on with the lugs used to assemble this bicycle frame. They’re manufactured using LaserCusing, which is a brand name for parts produced using Selective Laser Melting. The video after the break gives you an overview of what it takes to clean up each of these parts.

The laser melts metal power to solidify areas needed in the final part. Just like the hobby printing we’ve seen on the RepRap or Makerbot there are structural supports necessary to complete the print job, and these need to be removed after the laser has done its work. This is where the majority of the labor comes in. You’ll see a ton of waste material pulled out of the cage-like lug, and we’re sure there’s no shortage of filing and polishing to finish up. But wow, what an interesting result. We just need to figure out if anyone has found a cost-effective way to hack together one of these metal-powder printers.

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