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Old 05-31-2009, 09:46 PM   #1 (permalink)
theunchosen
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Cookeville, TN
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Bicycle powered by. . .a chainsaw?

Alright, this is odd.

I happened to be repairing one of the chainsaws( I live in the woods so cutting up dead trees and burning them as firewood is cheap heating(Its a complicated wood burning system not just a straight up fireplace because that sucks air in from outside, I know)).

I noticed that the drive on the chainsaw happens to mate almost exactly with the chain on my road bike. This got me thinking, since I only really need one of the chainsaws(No one ever helps out lol) and since the weather is pretty nice. . .

How do we feel about powering a bicycle solely by a chainsaw?

The roadbike is very light and I'm pretty confident I can switch out the assembly with not alot of effort if I just want the bike back. Its a 4-5ish horsepower chainsaw(its a little older and I suspect the compression ring isn't all there, but it still works fine to chop stuff up.

Fuel consumption at full tilt is substantially less than a gallon per hour(as much as I can estimate it uses about a half gallon for an hour WOT). Obviously on a total weight of less than 200 lbs(me and the bike) I'm not going to need WOT for my morning commute. I'll need WOT uphills, and thats about it.

This is a goof off project that I am only likely to spend about an hour. As of now all I would have to do is move the throttle control to the handle and mount it.

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