Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Trikes


In a post the other day I mentioned an adult tricycle. Well, Worksman Cycles has them and they've been in business right here in the good ole US of A since 1898. They've got several different models, starting for under $400.00 and going up, depending on what your needs are. They've got the Good Humor ice cream man version with the insulated box in front, the heavy duty industrial basket front and rear kind, plus some nice looking jobs for touring around the trailer park on the way to the shuffle board match. For the money, I'm thinking it would be a lot easier to just buy one rather than try building one but there's not much of a challenge in that.

In addition to an adult trike, we need to build the Super Mileage Challenge machine at the school this year. We're already in the planning stage. The rules allow either three or four wheels but not sidecar type of construction. You can't build a motorized bicycle and hang an outrigger wheel on it. The last two years we ran one wheel in the front and two in the rear. We had about the only car constructed that way. Seems like a good idea. Small frontal area= less drag. Long missile shape like Bonneville guys run should be pretty efficient. Rules changes this year limit wheelbase to 72 inches and the track width has to be a minimum of 36 inches. This was always a fun project but it was hard to keep the momentum going because we never had a designated time slot for working on the project. It usually had to be worked in and around as part of my Vocational Welding class. This year things are different and we should have two hours every week set aside exclusively for this.

In addition to the adult trike and Super Mileage Challenge machine, let's not forget the sidecar for the 900. So it could be the year of the Volkswagen and the year of the three wheeled vehicle. It will probably end up being the year of the half finished project, like it normally is, but let us hope for the best.

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