arimajol

I found video footage of people ice cycling on the Milwaukee River at a winter festival, in 1917:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJUaHSe2JnE



Has anybody ever heard of this before? Anybody tried it?

Wildwood 

We do some crazy things in the dead of winter.

JWLeach

As a cyclist with metalworking skills...could sure use some details on how those blade-forks are made...

Slash5

Looks pretty simple. Stub going into steering tube to stabilize it, axle welded on. I was trying to figure out why they had the stirrup looking thing above the blade and then realized it's probably a pivot above the blade so the blade always stays on the ice over humps and bumps. Any air time and you're on your butt.

rhm

It doesn't look very complicated. There are basically two parts; at the bottom, the skate bit is welded to something like a front hub, with an axle, and presumably it pivots a bit to deflect over bumps. The axle attaches to the stirrup-like thing, presumably with axle nuts. The stirrup is brazed or welded to the vertical tube. The vertical tube has an axle that mounts to the fork dropouts and presumably it also mounts to the brake bolt .

Ha, @Slash5 types faster than I.

JWLeach

@rhm, are we talking fore and aft pivoting/deflection, or side to side? Or both?

JWLeach

Hmmm...

New Ice-cycle Gives Cycling Thrills on Lakes in Winter | Modern Mechanix

rhm

I'm thinking the blade pivots on an axle very much like a wheel, though obviously it doesn't spin all the way around. So not side to side, but something like fore-aft-up-down. When the front goes up, the back comes down.

JWLeach

This needs to be done. Michigan will have a new winter sport. To hell with the fat bike craze.

RobbieTunes

Looks like they are not using tires, either, probably some kind of spikes on the rear wheel?

= boredom injuries.

Still, pretty darn cool. Wisconsin is known for innovation/creativity during long winters.
1-We used to screw machine screws (hex end) into the knobbies of our dirt bike tires to ride on ice.
Only problem: when riding significantly below zero, the engine block tended to expand at different rates than other parts, i.e. seizure.

2-We would run a garden hose from the top of the silo (65') and let it run until we had a 3' icicle running up the silo, then we climbed it with pitons, etc.
Only problem: Silo's such as this are cement block, which is porous. A 65' 3 ft thick column of ice is, uh, heavy. Use your imagination. Angry father.

3-When the drift got to the eave of the barn, the gambrel roof was perfect to wet down until it froze, ride the toboggan off the top, down the barn into the yard.
Only problem: Barn roof was tin, with 1x4 spaced boards to nail the tin to. It dented. A lot. Angry father.

4-"Progressive Smear" on frozen ponds. Start with one person "it," and the crowd crosses the pond, avoiding a tackle; the "its" grow as more are tackled, last 1 wins.
Only problem: The nearest ER was 8 frozen miles away. Angry parents, several of them over the years.

5-"broomstick hockey" with rubber boots, no skates, tennis ball fora puck. Same ER problem as with the smear game.

My brother was one of those guys who mounted a small board and a sail to 3 skates and went on the lakes. Tremendous speeds, wicked "ice rash."

RobbieTunes

Probably easier with a suspended MTB fork.

Henry III can probably build your rear wheel and skate.
oddjob2 can likely organize it and get the Continental girl to come over.

rhm

I'm kinda hoping it doesn't get cold enough here in NJ!

Okay, so for the rear wheel... I suspect if you took an old steel rimmed wheel, removed the tire and tube, and rode it on rough pavement for a mile or two, you'd rough up the surface enough that it would get excellent traction on ice.

RobbieTunes

Or spike it like Joan Jett's collar.

rhm

That's a lot of effort, and may not work. My solution may not be elegant, and may not work either, but it's fiendishly easy to do.

Velognome 

Copake sold one of those a few years ago....wasn't cheap if I remember

2manybikes

I do it as much as possible every winter. For the last couple of decades. A wheel with a studded tire is better than a blade. There is less friction when the tire rolls than pushing a blade. The studded tires of course allow you to ride on pavement or snow if you need to. A big advantage. On flat ice the studs are almost as good as plain tires on pavement. Colder harder ice is stronger too that lets the tire grab better.

Lascauxcaveman 

One nice thing: you don't have to worry about standing up on the pedals to mash your way up a steep hill.

Chombi

Must have come from the German immigrants that populated the area in a big way in the turn of the century. I lived in Milwaukee for some time and none of that ice cycling survived...... and the Milwaukee River and its banks isn't as "friendly" an environment as it might have been, back in those times...
You do that these days on the Milwaukee River and the boys from the Locust Street police station will most likely be scrambling down the banks and have you on your back in a second for transport to jail. for trespassing.
Maybe one might still search for and find these old ice bikes hidden away in attics and garages in old houses in the area though....

arimajol

I actually work for a nonprofit doing conservation work along the Milwaukee River. It's gotten a lot friendlier in the past 15 years!

rm -rf

Studded tires are easier. And see icebike.org

Then, you can ride the Charles River in Boston, if it freezes over again.

RobbieTunes

she's worth it.

RobbieTunes

Or keep any pretense about wiping your nose.