an offcentered bike?
 

In an episode of Three Stooges, Curly is riding this bike that has one of the wheels with the spokes meeting off centered.. so.. not directly in the middle of the wheel, but meeting to one side of it. To ride it you *stand* on platforms and pump the platform up and down.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I would really like to find out if anything like this still exists! Any direction from anyone here would be extremely helpful.

Thanks

I know what you are talking about. It was a scooter, not a bike. The rear wheel had an eccentric hub and the scooter was driven by "pumping" up and down with the legs. The Stooges, if I'm not mistaken, used it in a couple of their shorts. I think they were commercially available under the name of "epicycle" though a Google search doesn't give good results for that name, so I may be mistaken. I'm fairly sure no one is manufacturing them now. They were cool though. An original would be a good find, and a repro would be a great project.

Good luck!

Here's a page from a guy who built one...looks like the rear wheel is smaller than the Stooge's used.

http://supersoda.bavetta.com/detail.php?id=00000000035

For some reason, and I'd have to do some book searching, I seem to remember that Sear's sold them way back in the '40s.

OK...Here's one commercially available...

...in Asia.

http://yuanyangpremier.en.alibaba.co..._Scooter_.html

Hey that's pretty sweet. Yeah the back wheel looks a bit smaller. I'd like to see about creating one pretty close to the one in the Three Stooges. You have been so helpful you have no idea. I appreciate it!

Got it!

It was called the Ingo-cycle. It was made in the 30s and 40s by Borg Warner Corp. of Chicago. There is a good picture of it on page 112 of The American Bicycle by Jay Pridmore and Jim Hurd, Motorbooks International, 1995.

I just say a book at the public library that was about the constructruction of trick bicycles, and noticed the off centered wheel bikes. Let me see if I can come up with a title, give me a bit... it was in the 629 section in the Dewey decimal system, not the usual 700 something or whatever most bike books are.

Wow you guys are great! This is just making my day.

Got an online pic of it here:

http://www.bicyclemuseum.com/Html/bike7.html

My last post, and then I'm hitting the rack. If you do a Google search on "Ingo bike" you will come up with more pictures and information. There is a rusted out shell of an ingo bike for sale at $8000.00! I guess they were made for only a couple of years.

Heckuva coincidence, but 5 minutes before reading your posting I had been looking at a page devoted to the recumbent also shown on the page you linked to.
http://bikerodnkustom.homestead.com/rileyped.html

I've been building recumbents for 20 years, and I'd never heard of the Pedi-Plane. Then I see 2 totally unrelated references to pages containing it, within minutes of each other.

I'm going to go to the library tomorrow, I'll check out the book if its on the shelf and bring it home.

I believe in synchronicity.

Everything is always happening at the same time.

Clown bikes are often built using off center hubs---use a 24" rim and start lacing in spokes for 26" wheels--the trick is how to cut the spokes and keep the wheel running tru.Road one once that had both wheels done---road funny at very slow speed but bucked you off at higher speeds! was great fun to see how fast you could stay on---bike rodeo---sam

This book had a little bit about off centered wheels and how to build them:

How to Build Unicycles and other Artistic Bicycles by Jack Wiley, 2nd ed 1985, Soliplaz Publishing, Lodi, CA

Dewey Decimal 629.2271
Library of Congress #85-62526
ISBN 0-913999-13-X


This book was more about building funky unicycles and clown bikes that pull apart at the top tube, etc. There wasn't anything specific to the sprung Ingo bike but had some helpful hints about building up the off centered wheels.

mostly about bending them at the hub to form the butt end of the spoke.
also some stuff about wheel jigs instead of a truing stand.

2 inch offset was mentioned as being a good medium. Also that you should already know how to build wheels.

those f***ers got those eccentric wheels DIALED. Check that out!! HulaCADS, indeed...

Ingo bike, 3 Stooges
 

"Yes We Have No Bonanzas" is the movie you want. and I 've made 120 Whymcycles which are sturdy modern versions of the Ingo. You can ride 'em double or triple, and go up steep hills on them, if you're good. (I am)
Have made 3 with 2 x 3 foot Hoosier race car tires, they are amphibious and good in sand. Google 'Kinetic Sculpture Race', or 'Whymcycle' or 'Bounce For Glory' to see. The hula bike wouldn't be much fun, as you stand on pegs, the handlebars are low, you can't ride double or backwards easily. I can lace an eccentric wheel in my lap in @ 45 minutes, free hand. Try a double eccentric bike, both wheels offset, you can get sea sick on those. Easy to build, too. There you go!

fat tire brewing's "tour de fat" has some amazing ones:
http://flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/221132541/
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/62/22...a98e08050a.jpg

http://flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/221134776/
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/69/22...1c047b2a59.jpg

I very much want to build one of those.

The link below takes you to a recent thread in Classic and Vintage, where someone was asking about just such a bike which was in a Three Stooges film. Another guy chimes in who has built (get this) over 100 of these bikes, and has a link to his site. It's gold, I tell's ya!

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=171548

That was I, yup it's "Yes, We Have No Bonanzas". Ya wanna make sumptin' of it? Kidding. Yeah I've been building and riding strange for over 40 years. Just built a new tall bike, a variation on my old up-side down bike, from a rear suspension mtn. bike--- virtually no welding required, and the suspension still works..... UCDavis has one (upside down) in its collection that is @ 100 years old... I've made @ 35 different kinds of alternative cycles 1, 2, 3, 4 wheeled, @ 235 total (so far) and 120 of them have been rear eccentrics like the Ingo. Mine I call Whymcycles. But most people call all the styles of bike I make Whymcycles... Some are on Flickr. S'pose I should catalog them all, huh? Oh, I do Kinetic Sculpture Races, too--pedal powered(or bounce) that will do ANY hill,sand, mud and cross water. Joins us, we do all 6 West Coast races, and looks like we're going to the Boulder, CO. race 5/5/07.. We have lot's of machines to spare--We brought 6 to Ventura (CA) to race and we were over half the field of racers... Rah!

Oh, yeah, those two pix with the fat tires are my machine, #114. The bottom pic has a 2nd, hidden by the guy riding#114. That one's #117. #118 has 40" trampoline for the rear eccentric wheel...... Hmmm? What to build next.....? Look up 'Kinetic Choo Choo' on Flickr... that one has 2,268 forward gears, and 324 in reverse...a propeller by 'V' drive via chain, the tranny uses a figure 8 chain, to drive the input backwards, relative to the pedal direction. 8 chains total, 7 deraillieurs. Slow, but reliable. 60 to 1 lowest gear, 60 turns of the pedals to one turn of the rear (40" trampoline) wheels. Whew!

:eek: :eek: :eek: