Alt Bike Culture - motor power

I was struck by possibly the most stupid idea in the history of cycling one winter night when it was 18 degrees and I wanted to get home faster: put a motor on a bike.

By motor I don't mean an electric/fuel powered motor, I mean a motor as in hobby rockets. Yeah, it would only give you a burst of speed, but it would be a rather good speed to attain, but where would it mount?

So far rocket-powered cars have been highly unsuccessful, but does anyone have any ideas about how to pull something like this off? Would the force of the motor kill the bike? Would there be too much flameage for someone to safely ride it? I'm to the point of putting training wheels on my bmx bike to do an unmanned test...

Even a D size engine wouldn't do anything to make you go faster. That is, until your pants caught on fire, then you'd really move.

From the R. Q. Riley site of quirky homemade vehicle plans. It burns propane gas and was designed to mount to helicopter rotor blade tips as the thrusters to make them spin. Pity the car that tailgates this guy, eh?

http://www.rqriley.com/imagespln/jetbiketest.jpg

If you do a serch back on bikerodnkustom.com you will find some rocket bikes people have built.---sam

Don't even bother. It wouldn't be cost effective to start, and even if you DID find a rocket motor capable of pushing you, such an engine would be rather dangerous to mount on a bike! A trike, maybe, it would at least have a little more balance.

You could mount a half-dozen fire extinguishers and rig them up to all open at the same time when you push a button...

each d motor has i think 3 pounds of thrust or is it 7. Ither way youd need alot of them. Infact me and a friend who was in to rocketry put 3 large coffee cans packed with d motors. All we managed to do was make him wreck. All the engines went off but it just managed to make him fall over sideways. The bike was a diamond back bmx that was under 10 pounds. Total rockets on it was around 40 or 50 the bike on its side with all the engines pushing it didnt even move a foot.

If you look at even th biggest model rockets they have at most a cluster of 5 engines. Simply put thats about the largest number you can use and have any stability in flight.

I once saw on Discovery Channel some guy who built and mounted a jet engine to the back of his bike. Pretty Crazy Stuff.

each d motor has i think 3 pounds of thrust or is it 7. Ither way youd need alot of them. Infact me and a friend who was in to rocketry put 3 large coffee cans packed with d motors. All we managed to do was make him wreck. All the engines went off but it just managed to make him fall over sideways. The bike was a diamond back bmx that was under 10 pounds. Total rockets on it was around 40 or 50 the bike on its side with all the engines pushing it didnt even move a foot.

If you look at even th biggest model rockets they have at most a cluster of 5 engines. Simply put thats about the largest number you can use and have any stability in flight.

Was that just the frame? How much did the whole bike weigh?

You do not need a Rocket, I recall as a kid that haskell Mullins broght a moterized bike back here 20 years before mopeds was around and it would burn the tire off if you did not get going prior to engaging the motor. It would clock out at 60 as well.

I just seen an old motor from 50 years ago as well on ebay but am sure this is common in newer bikes and possibilities ??? or is it?

I once shot a homemade G engine rocket off into the pacific ocean. It went at least 3 miles in 4 seconds, leaving a ridiculous trail of smoke. It must have scared the (insert obscenity) out of the hang-glider that just wouldn't get out of our way. That rocket was made of PVC and only weighed about 6-8 pounds, but its easy to imagine what a G engine could do if you were to somehow mount one on a bike.

You can also get even bigger engines, but I think these days you might need to talk to the BATFE first. I'm not really into this big rocket stuff, but these guys are: www.nar.org

I was struck by possibly the most stupid idea in the history of cycling one winter night when it was 18 degrees and I wanted to get home faster: put a motor on a bike.

By motor I don't mean an electric/fuel powered motor, I mean a motor as in hobby rockets. Yeah, it would only give you a burst of speed, but it would be a rather good speed to attain, but where would it mount?

So far rocket-powered cars have been highly unsuccessful, but does anyone have any ideas about how to pull something like this off? Would the force of the motor kill the bike? Would there be too much flameage for someone to safely ride it? I'm to the point of putting training wheels on my bmx bike to do an unmanned test...

The folks at Vision Recumbents put a turbine on one of the high performance Saber recumbents and brought it to trade shows. It had 20 lbs thrust and a throttle. It was never available to the public.

Craig Arfons, son of former land speed record holder Art Arfons, has a turbine powered barstool in the Guiness record book for the worlds fastest barstool:
http://www.turbinegroup.com/page2.html

The fellow with the Penny Farthing World Tour site also was building a jet powered Penny Farthing. He has pics of the jet project in progress including test firings of the rocket:

http://www.pennyfarthingworldtour.com/pulse-je.htm

I was struck by possibly the most stupid idea in the history of cycling one winter night when it was 18 degrees and I wanted to get home faster: put a motor on a bike.

By motor I don't mean an electric/fuel powered motor, I mean a motor as in hobby rockets. Yeah, it would only give you a burst of speed, but it would be a rather good speed to attain, but where would it mount?

So far rocket-powered cars have been highly unsuccessful, but does anyone have any ideas about how to pull something like this off? Would the force of the motor kill the bike? Would there be too much flameage for someone to safely ride it? I'm to the point of putting training wheels on my bmx bike to do an unmanned test...

Jet powered bike:
http://www.jetwebb.com/content/frames/jetwebb.asp?link=http://www.duckteam.fr/

Some Unusual Jet powered vehicles:

http://www.jetwebb.com/content/unique_intersting/unique_main.asp

My new favorite, the jet powered outhouse:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/1ae60e0796b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html


Here’s a couple of jet powered outhouse pics at Lowes Motor Speedway:

http://www.lowesmotorspeedway.com/handler.cfm/article,display/art_id,491679/cat_id,41022

http://www.lowesmotorspeedway.com/news_photos/photo_gallery/sf4463.html