The Q Makes Bladed Bicycle You Can Ride on Ice

Spring may be fast approaching, but it’s still pretty cold in a lot of parts of the world. So while the bodies of water in your area are still solid, why not enjoy and ride a bladed bicycle on them?

Okay, let me back up a bit: a few weeks ago, DIY enthusiast The Q decided to go cycling in the cold weather. But thanks to his imaginative mind, what was going to be just another boring bike ride turned into an idea that will enable his bike to tread solid ice.

Using his bike’s rubber tires as a basis for his measurements, The Q builds his own bladed tires out of solid metal so they can dig into the ice. He doesn’t need the entire bike to make his blade tires; he just needs the wheel hubs. After removing a tire from the bike, he disassembles the hub from the rubber tube and spokes.

The Q takes the hub apart, ball bearings and all, so he can weld a wide cylinder around it. This will allow the hub to hold the modified tires without them damaging the rest of the bike.

He does this again for the other wheel and with the connecting parts done, he can now focus on making the coolest and most dangerous parts of his modified bike: the wheels. Sadly, it seems The Q had his metal wheels custom-made off-screen; so we won’t be seeing as much heavy metal cutting as we would like to.

He does, however, show us how he makes the inner parts of the wheels that fit onto the hubs. Using his own measurements and a lot of drill bits, The Q creates two custom circular metal pieces which will allow him to screw the wheels onto the bike.

He uses the holes on these pieces as stencils on his giant bladed wheels so he can draw and drill the appropriate holes in them. With the holes in place, he can fit the appropriate nuts, washers, and bolts through them.

Meeting the bolts on the other side are the circular pieces he made. These allow the fasteners to be bolted on tight and prevent them from moving. Just to be sure there won’t be any accidents (as if there could be any with a bladed bike), The Q welds one more wide cylinder on the other side of the wheels so the metal pieces won’t fall apart mid-ride.

The only thing left to do now is put the bladed wheels onto the bike and take it for a test spin… or so The Q thought. As it turns out, the blades on the wheels cut too deep into the solid ice. This causes the blades to dig into the surface instead of letting the bike glide across.

To remedy this, he adds a couple of rectangular metal bits onto the cutting sides of the blades. These reduce their overall cutting power and make it easier to tread ice without breaking it. Thankfully, he doesn’t show the welding process on screen, as this must have taken a crazy amount of time to do.

With the final pieces in place, The Q takes his bike back onto the ice, and…  it works! Sure, you wouldn’t want to see this bike rolling towards you but I’m pretty sure as long as the rider isn’t intoxicated or blind, then pedestrians are safe.

The driver, on the other hand, is another problem. One false move and you could be looking at a trip to the hospital. It also doesn’t help that the surfaces this bike is made to ride on are super slippery, but I guess it means The Q will only be using this bike in the winter.

You can find more of The Q’s DIY goodness on his YouTube channel.

The post The Q Makes Bladed Bicycle You Can Ride on Ice appeared first on SolidSmack.

Read more about CAD, product design and related technology at SolidSmack.com