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Old 06-23-11 | 10:19 AM
  #9  
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BCRider
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Joined: Mar 2008
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From: The 'Wack, BC, Canada

Bikes: Norco (2), Miyata, Canondale, Soma, Redline

Bicycle, sulky or wheelchair wheels are not designed to be all that strong for side loads such as you'll find in driving over that sort of rough terrain course. Especially not at any sort of speed. That's why NASA used the style of wheels that they did on the actual moon buggy. Bicycle, sulky and wheelchair wheels are just too narrow for the spokes to be able to have enough of a cone angle to give you the sort of side load strength you need for a vehicle that is going to carry two people and the motors, batteries, load, etc that is needed.

To get a better idea of what you need look up spoked wheels as used on cars. Especially the spoked wheels used on early sportscars. Note the far more extreme cone angles of the inner and outer spokes that permit the wheels to resist the side loads. You need something more along those lines for your buggy so it will be able to resist the side loading when tipped over high on one side while traversing the terrain obstacles. But where you'll get the hubs, rims and spokes needed for such a project I have no idea. Smaller motorcycles use rims and tires that are probably suitable but the hubs are not wide enough. Frankly you can make it run on smooth ground with bicycle stuff but nothing used on bicycles will be strong enough for the total weight of 2 people and vehicle weight AND still resist the punishing side loads. If they do it would be only by driving carefully and reducing the side loading.
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