Strange Bicycle With Weird Wheels

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Some guy in China spent 18 months building this thing. Without seeing that contraption in motion there’s no way to tell how well it works. It looks like it would beat your kidneys right out of your back, doesn’t it?
 
Its a spin of Mazda's rotory enginer, this is they bike version
 
Damn chinese and their tea addiction... he probably had some of that god awful brazilian "VHS Tea" and he came up with this design... ewwww xP ...
 
I don't think those are wheels, but treads. You can adjust the "wheels" depending on how much tread you want in contact with the road. Smooth roads, you rotate it so little tread contact. Off road you rotate to get more tread contact.
 
I think it is a bit misleading of a picture/idea. I have a feeling those wheels do not actually turn. I think the treads are actually belts that wrap around the odd shaped "wheels". The only thing is this would be horribly inefficient. The drag would be much worse, the added weight would be pretty bad, and the lack of tubes or shocks would make for a rough ride. I think it is supposed to act like the old tri-wheel set-up used in the old sci-fi movies... When you hit an obstacle the triangle wheel will actually rotate over it. Neat, but really a waste... of 18 months and a bunch of money.
 
I don't have the time to play with the geometry of it, but it's been mentioned that at no time while riding it do the "wheels" rise on, or drop off of a point[of the tire]. The ride is supposedly the same as any bike. You can see in one picture, the rear wheel is at the apex of the angle, but at the same level as the front tire on the "flat". Offhand, it would appear to work, but the question is why? It won't re-invent the wheel.

Although, I've seen plenty of people do things for no apparent reason, so why not?
 
It took him a year and half to accomplish that??? I really don't see the point. It may be different but different doesn't mean its better.
 
Yeah those are definitely treads or tracks. You can tell by the chain going from the pedal to the back wheel. It would be horribly uncomfortable riding if it was an actual "wheel", and difficult to pedal due to the small size of the gear attached to the wheel.

The gear looks to be spinning something else within the armored enclosure. I'm willing to bet larger gears or ball bearings that turns the tread. The actual "wheel" doesn't move. The rubber does, like tank tracks do.
 
This is what should have been on top of the front tire:
beijing-olympic-tank.jpg
 
Azhar said:
Yeah those are definitely treads or tracks. You can tell by the chain going from the pedal to the back wheel. It would be horribly uncomfortable riding if it was an actual "wheel", and difficult to pedal due to the small size of the gear attached to the wheel.

The gear looks to be spinning something else within the armored enclosure. I'm willing to bet larger gears or ball bearings that turns the tread. The actual "wheel" doesn't move. The rubber does, like tank tracks do.
Click to expand...

FAIL.
Take a look at the two pics, the rear wheel is in different positions.
These wheels DO rotate, and DO provide a smooth ride.
Those pieces on top of both wheels aren't for decoration.
 
You can see in picture 4 that the "rubber tread" doesn't leave the tire.
 
tannin said:
FAIL.
Take a look at the two pics, the rear wheel is in different positions.
These wheels DO rotate, and DO provide a smooth ride.
Those pieces on top of both wheels aren't for decoration.
Click to expand...

Education is much more fun when people don't act like jackasses and write FAIL or anything like that.

But otherwise, thanks for the enlightment. Now that you mention it, the position of the wheel does seem to make for smooth rides. The gear for the back wheel should be bigger though or it'd require much more pedaling to move.
 
Azhar said:
Education is much more fun when people don't act like jackasses and write FAIL or anything like that.
Click to expand...

It's true. I just get half amused, half irritated with people stating as fact their vague guesses. From what I can see, the bike rests on top of the two wheels, and merely anchors through the center of each for steering and propulsion. This would need some form of articulation, because the distance from that point to the ground will vary as the wheels turn.

Monkey34 still has it right though. It may work, it may be interesting, but seriously, why?
 
Look real close at where the tread contacts rollers on the bike itself... both the front and rear have "suspension".

When a point of either tire is touching the rollers, it raises the frame of the bike since a flat on the tire is touching the ground.

When the flat of a tire is touching the rollers, it lowers the frame since a point of the tread is touching the ground.

The effect of the way this works should give an overall smooth ride as well as make it easier to go over obstacles as well as not feel bumps/humps/holes in the road as much.

With it only having a 1:1 gear ratio, I bet it doesn't go very fast at all... looks like it would be fairly easy to climb stairs though.
 
tannin said:
This would need some form of articulation, because the distance from that point to the ground will vary as the wheels turn.
Click to expand...

No it will not. Look up Reuleaux polygons, the whole concept is that you will see these weird polygon wheels turning, yet the ride will be smooth. It is not about efficiency of course, just the cool factor. A video would be nice...
 
ecuador said:
No it will not. Look up Reuleaux polygons, the whole concept is that you will see these weird polygon wheels turning, yet the ride will be smooth. It is not about efficiency of course, just the cool factor. A video would be nice...
Click to expand...

The entire wheels have fixed heights as they rotate, but the center points, where the drive chain and steering fork reach, do not. The distances from any point along one of the arcs to the opposite vertex are equal, the distances to the center vary, further at the points, closer between them.
 
Obviously the ride remains flat (pivots on both wheels to counter the unique shape), though I would like to see a video of the center of the wheels in motion during this whole process...
 
this is no doubt to help with the fertility issue in china.... ride a few miles on that thing and your nuts will be in your nostrils....
 
SelousSizzle said:
And the US is worried that Asia's engineers will overtake ours.
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China graduates some 200,000 engineers a year. American educated Chinese are far different than their Chinese mainland counterparts. There are good engineers and bad ones. Most Chinese engineers aren't that great. But they do have numbers on their side.
 
Methadras said:
China graduates some 200,000 engineers a year. American educated Chinese are far different than their Chinese mainland counterparts. There are good engineers and bad ones. Most Chinese engineers aren't that great. But they do have numbers on their side.
Click to expand...

Yes numbers count but when in this case it's like dividing by zero.;)
 
jellisii said:
Reminds me of a weird implementation of the BioPace setup from Shimano: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopace
Click to expand...

That was my first thought too. Incidentally, I had a bike with those, and much like the one in the article here I have to agree with the wiki comment "a solution looking for a problem". In the case of the Shamino, any added torque I may have put into the chain just went into flexing the Cro-Moly steel frame, and I doubt that the bike in the article has the frame rigidity of Shamino's simple triangle of tube steel.

Plain and simple, if you want a bike to take off like a rocket, get a frame that doesn't flex!
 
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