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Archive: Bicycles

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September 3, 2009

YikeBike - The world's first super light electric folding bike...

Meep meep... dev site here.

September 1, 2009

Custom-built planetary gear unicycle transmission

Wrapping up my trifecta of epicyclic gear posts today (1, 2) is this practical application from Greg Harper, a resident engineer at the University of Washington's Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics, who put together a custom epicyclic gear train for his unicycle hub. Designed for speed, the hub gives 1.5 rotations of the wheel for each rotation of the pedals.

August 29, 2009

Planetary Gear Old-Fashioned Bicycle

Where do I start with this thing? It has some many elements of awesome! It's a model of an old-fashion Penny-farthing bicycle that has been brought in to the modern world with the incorporation of 3 cutting-edge technologies:

It was built, layer-by-layer, using laser sintering (SLS) rapid prototyping. It's a demonstration project by Italian firm CRP Technology to demonstrate their capabilities.
It's made out of WindForm XT, a carbon-fiber reinforced polyimide material that's usually used to craft high-performance motorsport racing parts.
It incorporates a planetary gearing system. Penny-Farthings have large front wheels so that they can travel further on one pedal stroke; by using this gearing, the front wheel can be a more-comfortable 20% smaller. Planetary gears are used in some 3-speed bicycles, but their beauty is hidden within the rear hub.

I love the options that rapid prototyping allows the designer - these handlebars are simple, elegant, and formed as a single piece.

The material used was flexible enough to make the seat, suspension spring, and the body all one piece, too. Alas, it's just a model - just 16 inches long. Here's hoping that someone builds a rideable version.

More details:

August 27, 2009

Ask MAKE: Back to school bike light

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to becky@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

This week's question comes from back-to-college student Andrew:

My class schedule this semester has me riding home at night, so I need some safety lights. The lights at the bike store are not only expensive, but unattractive. How can I make them myself?

I can't imagine a better combination than bikes and LEDs. You could build your bike light from scratch, or you could hack a dollar-store gadget to blink a few LEDs. We have lots of bike light projects here on MAKE to get you started. Be sure to keep an eye on our bicycle archives for the latest bike projects, too!

Battery-powered lights:

Blinky lights! Use a 555 timer chip to make your rear light blink:

Alternative energy bike lights:

Style points:

Show us your bike lights! Post up a link to your styling safety lights in the comments.

This week's Ask MAKE has been sponsored by Jameco Electronics.

August 21, 2009

3D printable bike handlebar mount

Mount your gadgets on your handlebars with this printable handlebar mount by aylr on Thingiverse.

August 19, 2009

Flashback: Tips for bike scrounging

Above: An old ten-speed with a rusty chain and a few missing parts. A perfect project bike for personal use or for donation. Below: A reincarnated Raleigh road bike ready to ride for many miles.

Abandoned, neglected bikes are by no means a rare sight. Seeing one sticking out of the bushes behind our parking lot made me think of Thomas Arey's "Bike Scrounging" article from MAKE Volume 12. Thomas offers up some great tips and resources on how to recover discarded rides and even donate them. Here's the full article for you.

Bike Scrounging
How to fix a castoff bike and give it away.
By Thomas Arey

I'm going to venture a guess that many makers' earliest experiences working with tools and trying to figure out machines involved a bicycle. Even today it's the rare kid who hasn't tried to fix or even modify their bike. It's one of the reasons I still have great hope for humanity.

Cycling is good basic transportation, a boon to the cardiovascular system, and most of all, fun! But have you ever considered that cycling can also be free?

In the course of the trash picking and dumpster diving I do to bring these occasional articles to MAKE, I often run across bicycles left at the curb with other signs of our society's tendency to toss away what might be repaired or repurposed.

I've taken many of these rejected rides, turned them back into working bicycles, and donated them, either locally or through service organizations, to folks whose lives can literally be changed by owning a bicycle.

My general experience shows that the parts from 2 or 3 disposed bikes can make for 1 good bike. Any leftover parts from each scrounging venture go into storage to support future bike recovery operations.

Bicycle recovery is the perfect "learn by doing" process. Beyond stripping some threads (also repairable) you can't really hurt anything. Mixing and matching parts from different bikes will make you more adept at repair. This can even turn into a marketable skill with enough practice. Good bicycle mechanics are hard to find.

Your public library and the internet will turn up dozens of books and websites to help you get beyond the basics quickly. A good book that covers just about everything you need to know and more is The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance and Repair: For Road and Mountain Bikes by Todd Downs.

Sheldon Brown (sheldonbrown.com) is a well-known cycle mechanic who shares tons of information free on the web. A good source for odd and hard-to-find parts is Loose Screws (loosescrews.com).

Older bikes and most consumer-grade cycles can be worked on with common hand tools. The only specialty tool you may need from the start is a chain tool, required to remove and replace the chain on most multigear bikes. This tool can be found for as little as $10, but if you plan to do this a lot you should invest in high-quality tools.

When you come upon a bike leaning against a trash can, don't assume it's being trashed. I always knock on the door and check. More often than not I hear, "I got a couple more around back, you want them, too?"

When you get your bike(s) home, go through these steps:

1. Check your find over. Why was this bike tossed? I am always surprised to find that a few small problems led to the trip to the curb: a flat tire, snapped brake cable, or rusted chain being the most common.

2. Once you fix up the obvious problems, go over every nut, bolt, and bearing to tighten things up and check for more subtle problems that may require further disassembly.

3. In most cases, if it moves, lubricate it! Extremely neglected bikes may require greasing the bearings, but a little chain oil will get most bikes back on
the road.

4. Replace bad or worn parts with other items from your trash-picking efforts. Get friendly with your local bike shop. They have trash bins, too!

5. Even if the tires inflate, check both tires and tubes for signs of dry rot. Well-cared-for tires can last a long time but this may be the one place you need to spend money.

6. Broken spokes and bent wheels are intermediate-level repairs. Until you master the skills for this task just keep an eye out for other good wheels on your scrounging route.

7. Double-check all matters of safety, especially the braking system.

8. Enjoy the ride. It may be a little rough and rusty, but it rolls and the price is right!

After you've built a bike or two for your personal needs, why not think of getting your rebuilds into the hands of folks who can use them? Check your local social-service and faith-based organizations.

If you want your bikes to go beyond your local neighborhood to help the world, one clearinghouse website for bike donation is the International Bike Fund's page at ibike.org/encouragement/freebike.htm. This site lists organizations throughout the United States and other countries, and includes details about how your efforts to repair and reincarnate castaway cycles can truly work to change the world.

You can still pick up a back issue of MAKE Volume 12 in the Maker Shed.

August 17, 2009

Maker Faire Africa Flickr pool

Congratulations to the MFA 2009 crew!

From the Maker Faire Africa Flickr pool

Bicycle hacksaw [above, top-left]

Plastic recycling press [above, top-right]

Air food cooler [above, bottom-left]

Local chlorine production [above, bottom-right]

August 16, 2009

Amazing chopper bikes

Dan says:

These folks dragged their bikes from all over Europe and many overseas even. The detailing is pro level and goes well beyond just the frames - there were a lot of hand made pedals, shifters, rims, brakes. There was a week of chopper bike events with up to 30 mile (!) rides but there is not any hills there.

The gathering of choppers was hosted by the Chopperdome in Amsterdam. Their site has some more amazing photos. Via Star

August 15, 2009

EXTREME FAT TIRE BICYCLE

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Marple200 writes-

I've wanted to build a custom bicycle for many years. I started wondering how fat of a tire I could accommodate on a bicycle. I had seen pictures of the Hanebrink Technologies extreme terrain bicycle, but wanted something still more extreme. The problem I considered was one of drive train alignment. With the fat tire, the chain had to shift too far outside of the normal bottom bracket to rear wheel alignment, in order to clear the tire width. I also wanted to make this work with gears, as I new the large tire would weigh a lot. Originally I wanted to spoke up a fat tire rim with a standard bicycle hub, but this proved impossible due the the small rim size with the large tire.

Make ice cream with your bike

This would be a fun way to make a snack for your next picnic or party. I'm always forgetting to make something to bring to a friend's house, and would love to be able to just load this up and head out! I might try mounting it over the back wheel though, it seems like it might be more stable there.

Some tasty ice cream recipes you could try: Oatmeal Stout and Heath Bar and Salted Butter Caramel.

Posted by Matt Mets | Aug 15, 2009 02:00 PM
Bicycles, Gadgets, Mods | Permalink | Email Entry | Suggest a Site

Human powered hovercraft

Steam Boat Willy has an amazingly detailed account of the technical details on this human powered hovercraft.

Via MITers

August 14, 2009

Riding with the tall bike crew of Yogya, Indonesia

Photographer Tod Seelie has great shots and tales of recent travels to Indonesia on his blog. The set that really caught my eye is of the tall bike crew in Yogya. They remind me of an Indonesian Cyclecide, and they certainly have no shortage of modded rides.

Seelie also posted a video of riding tall bikes in Jakarta. Love the perspective as vehicles cruise by. Being tall is clearly a safety plus for visibility.

Elegant wooden bikes by Renovo

A family-owned and operated company, Renovo sells custom-built frames forged from two halves of hollowed out wood that are bonded together. The result is strong and absolutely stunning!

From their website:

Some folks view these frames as works of art, too nice or delicate for daily use, but they aren't your Brigitte parks oh-so-carefully ... mom's dining room table. We chose wood for it's ride quality and sustainability, and got beauty as a bonus; but it's not a weakness. An impact that will dent and ruin a butted metal or carbon frame merely bounces off the Renovo frame leaving a small dent.

Wood is tough stuff; a good example is the walnut stock of the 1903 Springfield rifle. Used in warfare from WW1 through the Korean conflict, they were thrown from trucks,dragged through sand, rivers and hell, used as pry bars, clubs, crutches and occasionally, rifles. But after the wars, civilians bought these battle-scarred relics and refinished the stocks into gorgeous sporting rifles.

Calling them Functional Art is fine with me.

Renovo (via Inhabitat)

More:

Long Live the Bicycle

Wooden Bike

Wooden Bicycle from China

August 12, 2009

Flashback: Solar-powered bike GPS

"During the summertime, I'll disappear for hours on long rides to nowhere and back. But I have to admit on some rides I've gotten so lost I have trouble finding my way home. Happily I was able to build a solar-powered GPS mapping machine, mostly from old computer parts and software I had sitting around my office." Author Brian Nadel's words in the introduction to his DIY Outdoors piece, "Solar-Powered Bike GPS," from the pages of MAKE Volume 10, are further testament to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention. Brian's homespun bike GPS cost him next to nothing to make because he had most of the parts on hand already (ah, the endless parts bin for that maybe-someday project do come in handy). He estimates the project would run about $150 total by combing through eBay and closeout retailers. Naturally, with the abundant varieties of bike, PDA, GPS receiver, and solar panel, you likely have to improvise for your personal combo but seeing how Brian set his up is the insight you need.

Here is the full article in our Digital Edition. No better time than a sunny summer day to get crackin on this project.

You can still pick up a back issue of MAKE Volume 10 in the Maker Shed.

Bicycle pr0n

Boutique Cycles is a site out of Australia featuring user-submitted pics of tricked-out custom bicycles. Shown above, "Glowing Batavus" fixie by Netherlands user Kars, with an antique frame, Miche hubs, and custom-painted rims. The frame glows in the dark.

Jordan Hufnagel: Bike builder

Check out this video for an insider's look of Custom Bike builder Jordan Hufnagel's workshop. Filmmaker Jared Souney created this segment for Level magazine. I always enjoy seeing where people work, especially makers. Be sure to check out the photo gallery too!

Watch the video of Jordan Hufnagel: Bike builder [via NotCot]

August 6, 2009

Grocery getter bike project

Via Mister Jalopy and Dinosaurs and Robots (by way of Lenore Edman's Twitter feed) comes this amazing bike project to create a cargo bike that actually comes apart so you can take the front assembly and basket into the store. Ingenious. And the build is well documented.

Grocery Getter Contest Submission

August 4, 2009

Student makes Bike-in-a-wheel

Student makes bicycle which folds into 26-inch wheel circumference, wins James Dyson Prize

Dominic Hargreaves's bike, The Contortionist, has been shortlisted for this year's James Dyson Award for innovation. It may bag the young inventor £10,000. The 24-year-old, from Battersea, London, said he wanted to create a decent folding bike after the one he was using collapsed. "I couldn't find a folding bicycle I liked," he added. "I wanted something that could take a bit of punishment and that you could have fun with. "So I made one myself."

New York's Puerto Rican Bike Men

Bill Gurstelle is a Contributing Editor for MAKE magazine. His most recent book is entitled Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously. You can follow Bill on his danger-quest at twitter.com/wmgurst. He is a guest Make: Online author for the month of August.

My friend Zina Saunders' beautiful illustrations show a part of New York many people never see, in her wonderful website called Overlooked New York. There are brightly-rendered drawings of cricket players, urban astronomers, and rooftop pigeon keepers. But my favorite is one particular group of accomplished makers.

They are the Puerto Rican Bike Men. Zina explains who they are on her website:

"The Puerto Rican Bike Men .. .. have their own aesthetic, one that the mainstream culture knows nothing about. Their bicycles are their personal vision of beauty and art that they are always tinkering with, perfecting and adjusting and planning and applying, and then riding down the street for everyone to see."

View all the bikes at http://www.overlookednewyork.com/schwinn/

July 30, 2009

Del Cruiser's "junkfiets" project

Del Cruiser has been working on building a "bakfiets" (box bike/cargo bike) from junked bikes and parts. He's keeping a photojournal of his progress on Flickr.

This project was inspired by the "Carrier Pidgeon" , which is a chinese-made imitation that has a shorter payload.

By nature, bakfiets take some time getting used to due to the elongated front payload. I liked the Carrier Pidgeon because it wasn't as long as traditional bakfiets and should be easier to maneuver.

Junkfiets Project