Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => Racing => Topic started by: Redlight on 18 September, 2010, 01:49:17 pm
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Someone might have posted this elsewhere. If so, sorry for duplication. But it is rather intriguing.
BBC - Norfolk man to set land speed record on wooden bicycle (http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/norfolk/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9009000/9009634.stm)
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Six weeks to design and build the bike and have a go at the record?
That's ambitious. At work it sometimes takes me that long to get around to fabricating my timesheets. A simple project might take several years.
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Michael will be designing and building the bike in his eco-shed made of soil
What is the land speed record for a bicycle made entirely from wood?
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"We're going to be throwing down the gauntlet on this one" - which might imply there's no official record yet (?)
"Anything between 25 and 30mph is going to be good for us" - seems quite modest and doable, if six weeks is enough.
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Are they allowed to grease the bearings, or would that count as non-wood content?
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Are they allowed to grease the bearings, or would that count as non-wood content?
I'm sure there must be a tree with a suitable sap.
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If there isn't, it wooden go.
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leaf it out, your taking the pith now.
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Are they allowed to grease the bearings, or would that count as non-wood content?
The bearings will be self lubricating.
They used wooden bearings in the space shuttle arm as well.
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Lignum Vitae works.
Harrison, he who made the first decent clock for calculating longitude, made a very accurate wooden clock.
I reckon a wooden penny would be fairly easy to do.
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You're going to want a nice really very flat road, since you'll be using solid, wooden edged wheels (I suspect wooden spokes wouldn't help the ride much, and would significantly add to the complexity).
Assuming that a direct drive to the wheel isn't attempted (eg a wooden ordinary), then they're going to have to either use a series of wooden cogs, or a wooden chain and pair of gears. That could be fiddly to produce, and probably needs quite large links to ensure that they're strong enough.
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I think it'd be gears rather than chains. Wooden chains would have too many pieces to go wrong, and your tolerances are small. Efficiency won't be very high, though, if you use hard enough woods (heavy), machining can be very accurate.
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You could edge the wheels with hemp rope.
It's a wood-ish product.
To get a usable direct drive like a penny I would be thinking about a prone HPV layout with rear wheel drive.
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To get a usable direct drive like a penny I would be thinking about a prone HPV layout with rear wheel drive.
Direct drive would require a penny sized wheel, and hence a penny layout, otherwise you probably couldn't get that sort of speed.
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You can get a spin bike with a 16" wheel upto about 15mph, they are only quoting 25mph.
A 26" and someone with the brute force to push it, you might do it.
YouTube
- Spin Bike
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjfPp7xgq2k)