Amphi-Cycle lets you ride the trails, the waves, and back again

May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

amphi-cycle

Hackaday regular [Berto] is always looking for new ways to get around, and wrote in to share his most recent creation, an amphibious bicycle.

He bought an off-the-shelf inflatable boat and constructed a rig that allows him to stably mount the bike on it. Once [Berto] comes across a body of water he wants to cross, all he requires is about 7 minutes time to inflate the boat and attach his bike. Using a modified version of his electric drill-based trolling motor we saw last year, the Amphi-cycle glides across the water effortlessly as demonstrated by his assistant in the video below.

Right now the boat is propelled solely by the trolling motor and a large lead-acid battery. We would love to see the amphi-cycle powered by its rider, though we don’t know how that would affect the “one boat fits all” design [Berto] is aiming for.

[Read more…]

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Rail bike conversion is a success, and a failure

May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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.

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Home brew motorized bicycle is a super grocery getter

April 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[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.

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Add a train horn to your Hoopty (earplugs not included)

April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[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.

[Read more…]

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Self-stabilizing autonomous bicycle

March 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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.

[Read more…]

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Sensor rig finds out if motorists are sharing the road with cyclists

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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!

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