tow behind attachments
 

Hi All. This is my first post on the site. I began bicycling for recreation earlier this year, and want start looking at my bike as more of a tool rather than for a leisurely cruise. Specifically, I want to try and start using my bike in the yard and garden. I have seen people using tow behind reel mowers, and one guy who invented a recumbent lawn mower that may go in to production soon, but I was wondering if anyone has used their bike for tow behind attachments similar to what you would use behind a garden tractor. Things like broadcast spreaders, lawn aerators, dethatchers, leaf sweepers, etc. I would love to hear anyone's ideas on this because it would be much cheaper than buying a tractor and would give me some exercise. Has anyone used their bikes like this? It seems most people are using them for commuting and towing trailers. how much weight can you tow? Thanks for your comments in advance!

I started out in my working career as an Agricultural/Horticultural Engineer and was in the industry for 25 years; beginning as an apprentice Tractor Mechanic and working my way up to being a Research & Development Endurance Engineer for the world's largest Construction and Agricultural equipment manufacturer so I can understand what you are trying to achieve. However, there seems to be a few problems: being able to generate enough continual energy to complete the task, weight (remember that the operator is going to have to move the weight of the implements and still generate the energy to power them), Mechanical losses through bearings, gears, belts, sprockets and chains, etc. and being cycling related, quality, hard wearing and durable components are not cheap.

Light duty applications are doable: top dressing, spraying, thatch/moss raking, leaf sweeping, even light snow clearance, and minor tipping trailer work but that's about it.

Thanks for the reply. I didnt expect my bike to replace a tractor, but from your input it seems that i may be able to do what I am looking to do with it. Aeration may be pushing it, but ill probably try it anyways. I just wanted to see if anyone had any experience using a bike in the way I described. I'd be happy to use it as a glorified lawn cart, but I wanted to see how far I could push it. Thanks again.

I have an awesome design for a pedal powered combine harvester, all I need now is a cyclist that can put about 130 horsepower into the pedals. :D

I have a human powered lawn mower.

In principle, using a 4 wheel (quad) cycle as the primer mover could be the way forward, if battery powered implements are used. After all that is the usual manner that ATV mounted implements are powered ... ... although the trailed ones usually have a small Briggs & Stratton, Honda, etc, petrol or diesel engine.

My years of engineering experience tells me that a pedal powered recumbent lawn mower is only going to work on firm, level, already short, and well manicured dry lawns.

I own and hire out 3 ADV electric assist pedal vans with a rated payload of 250 KG, and I build quad, flat bed pedal powered trucks and pedal racing cars. But I am currently looking into pedal powered street sweepers, an electrical assisted pedal powered 30 inch wide snow plough with rear mounted 12 volt salt spreader for pavements and pedestrian areas, and row crop cultivation hoe and transportation work in glasshouses: all seem to be very feasible.

I am one of the true believers that we can do an awful lot more with pedal powered vehicles: I've staked my living and future on it. However, there is an awful lot of prejudice out there, but I am now slowly gaining ground with my products from being a novelty, to serious low life time cost, green alternatives.

I googled it and found lots of people playing with pedal powered machines. I remember a book called Pedal Power by Rodale Press and they even had a pedal powered plow. One person sat and pedaled as the cable was reeled in and the other person controlled the plow.

I've been working on designs for two bike/pedestrian path sweepers that can be towed by bicycles. Both would be mounted on the belly of a B O B trailer (Ibex model trailer might be better with its suspension). One would be traction drive from the trailer's rear wheel to a rotary tube broom. The other would house a small motor in the trailer that would drive the rotary tube broom. Seems like the motorized broom would be significantly easier on the person pedaling in spite of the additional weight.

I had a career spanning 25 years in the agricultural engineering industry, with 9 of those years as a Research & Development engineer; and some of the things that I did or worked on where outstanding marvels, or completely off the beaten track assement projects.

Regarding pedal powered machinery applications my mind keeps gravitating towards a well over 50 year old concept of mid mounted impliments. Weight distribution for traction would be almost ideal, and the operator would have good vision of the tool doing it's work.

Something along the lines of the Allis Chalmers G3:

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sshow09017.jpg

or this one believed to be a prototype Barfords of Belton or an Aveling Barford row crop tractor (same company: different divisions):

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...cles/r2-11.jpg

The real trick would be to design and build a viable low cost, small, lightweight, robust and reliable chain driven differential unit, that had the option of a mechanical locking function built into it; not a simple or straight forward task, as I have been working on one on and off for the last 2 years.


In the meantime, although not towed behind attachements I like them. I did find these pedal powered snowploughs from Canada on the net.

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/a...12ba7eeca1.jpg

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/a...rt-snow-81.jpg

And I particularly like this one as it ticks a few of the Cargo Cycles development project criteria boxes: Tadpole trike, fixed gear, 20 inch wheels, etc. :lol:


http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/a...PedalPlow1.jpg

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/a...rSnowPlow1.jpg

I like the idea of the snow plow bike, but I would have to see an actual trial with more than 1/2" of snow that that kid is pushing! :lol:

We used to have one of those and I regret selling it to this day!

I have a feeling that pedaling plows is going to be a young man's work. However electric assist has my attention.

I often wondered about converting something like that AC to an all electric configuration. I have been sizing solar charging systems for the farm, mainly just as an exercise, but the potential is there.

Aaron :)

You could make a pedalled lawn-mower as long as you had low gearing. After all, there are push-along lawnmowers that are entirely human powered. However, it would have to be quite small and/or slow and so would take a while to get the job done. One option would be to have a pedal-powered 'prime mover' towing a mower/other implement, with the trailer machinery being pedalled and controlled by a second person on the trailer.

Awesome thread. I love those plows! I saw blogs about pedal powered washing machines, power generators (well, duh...), shop tools, blenders etc, but I've never seen a pedal powered garden machine or a plow! Cool:)