Thursday, June 10, 2010

Returning a favor...

Jeff is an ER doc (as well as the brains behind Alchemist) and he helped me out the other day with some gnarly metal that got in my eye - so in exchange, I built him this (prototype) bike mower.

It works pretty well, but the gearing (22x14 fixed) is way too high - I'm thinking you'd want more like 1:1 or even lower. Pretty fun idea, though, even if it's not too practical for steep hillsides or tight areas (though with the fixie, it's easy to back up). I think we can make it into the Daily Camera with this, so we gotta plaster some Alchemist and WW stickers all over the place.

I apologize for not wearing my helmet (in fact, I did almost crash at one point...)

11 comments:

inthewoods said...

Looks like you should set it up for an endomorph tire with ~14psi to save the sod. Keep it "fixed" with a hammerschmidt for 2 speed action. Or I think there is a 3-speed fixed hub available now too.

Walt said...

Yeah, this was just a proof of concept kind of deal - and this was the only fixed frame (other than my track bike) that we had sitting around.

It would be much better with a lower gear (and the Hammerschmidt is a great idea) and a giant low-pressure tire. Even just a 2.3" mountain bike tire at <20 psi would be better than the CX tire we have on there.

There will probably be another version that is quite a bit better, but this works well enough that it might just get used anyway!

uidzer0 said...

Nice! It's a much prettier version of a rig I built for a buddy last year: http://picasaweb.google.com/casey.dentinger/Mower#5370684866016324114

The initial ~1:1 ratio was a bit much so last week I welded a small road chain-ring to a 16t fixed cog to ease things up a bit.

Walt said...

Uidzer - freakin' sweet! Good to hear I'm not just a huge sissy - the gear felt *WAY* too high. I bet a 20x22 or something would be perfect. Or even lower. Spin to win, baby!

http://abebedorespgondufo.blogs.sapo.pt/ said...

Very Good.

Eszter said...

That is...AWESOME!

I still have your yellow tape...doh! I fail.

Ed said...

Oh man, that's great.

Ed

Roosterweight Cimmarien said...

there are no words...

chris said...

sweet. rad. you should ride it on the cruiser ride.

Anonymous said...

I almost fell over backwards in my chair here monday morning....beautiful. Hopefully this does get posted in the camera...it would be some best news shared to date lately.

TheSean said...

Holy smokes! Just stumbled upon this... and if you could make a usable version - geared correctly and with the wide, low-pressure tire - I'd totally buy one for my tiny Seattle yard. Awesome!