Oct 8, 2009: Iscykel

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's October, World Series, Halloween and chilly weather, here abouts.
A reminder that winter is coming, and that means outdoor exercising get curtailed, for those of us that aren't dedicated masochists.

If you don't have chains or spiked tires for your bicycle, you could build an Iscykel.

Instead of wheels it had a front skate that you could steer with ordinary steering handles, and at the rear it had also a skate, inside which there was a moving skate that went forwards and backwards as you pedaled it via a chain. It was used for transportation on frozen lakes."

The drive system might be a bit of a challenge though.

The rear runner has slot in the center running longitudinally. In this slot there appear to be two independent drive skates or claws that slide fore and aft. These are driven by a linkage system not dissimilar to that found on old railroad steam engines.

The difference is that these linkages are designed to operate at a mechanical disadvantage with regard to power so that they have a Long and fast "stride". The power strokes are opposed so that there is always one skate in the power stroke (moving rearward) while the other is in recovery (moving forward). This, I speculate, provides easier mounting and less friction.

Figuring that out, would give you something to do on long winter nights.
Well, something else to do.

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