permaculture

["Steve T" <stracy@jps.net>]

Hi Lawrence,

I've had a book called "Pedal power in work, leisure, and transportation" 
published by Rodale Press in 1977, which I can't seem to
locate now, but it is still in my local library and for sale on amazon. It 
has alot of good ideas.

One I can remember is that if you have a second person available to help, you 
can take an excerise bicycle convert it to a winch and
place it at the far end of the raised beds, then the second person can help 
by pulling your 4wheel device with a cable.

I had an idea this morning, that one way to make your vehicle, would be to 
use one complete bicycle, in the center with outriggers
attached to either side of the bike, with your tillage tools coming down from 
the outriggers. To balance things, you would probably
only want to do 1/2 bed, either side. Would need experimenting to see how 
much force(pedal power) it is going to take to get your
tillage tools thru the soil. The outriggers wouldn't necessarily have to be 
wheels. This arrangement requires no work to try and
make some kind of driven axle!

I was also thinking that you probably would want to have your tillage tools, 
hinged, with some kind of floating plate or follower
wheel, so that variations in the path heights would not cause the tool to 
leave the surface.

Come to think of it, you could make a three wheel trailer w/tillage tools 
that could be towed by a regular mountain bike. I made a
gardencart, simialar to the old gardenway carts by taking the rear end of two 
bikes and welding a piece of muffler tubing which fit
perfectly into the empty crank housing of each frame. It was a slip fit, so 
it would be easy to extend to three wheels. This pipe
would then span two raised beds, could be located as high as the top of the 
wheel and could support the tillage tools. The whole
trailer could be designed to rock forward/backwards also, to give you the 
soil following ability also.

I just reread a couple of your messages and am a bit perplexed. In one you 
say you need this soon and cheap, and in another you say
you want an existing mfg to make this for you?(long lead time and $$$$$$)?

Hope my thoughts help, anyway.
:)steve tracy


-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Lawrence F.
London, Jr.
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 3:21 PM
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [permaculture] Looking for pedalpower resources - any
bicycleexperts in the list?



I need to construct a 4 wheeled device I can ride on, steer and pedal with an 
18 speed (maybe less)
gear train. I will mount adjustable-height static tillage tooling below the 
frame and drive this along
raised garden beds to scarify the soil and loosed existing weeds, prior to 
winter planting of spinach and a number of
other crops. It will be too wet to get a tractor in the gardens until late 
Spring and I need to plant throughout January
and February. All parts of the frame, except the tillage tool, will have to 
be at or above the height of the wheel
axles. The 4 wheel bikes I have seen on the web are expensive and their 
frames are too low to the ground.

Any ideas or pointers to resources will be much appreciated, especially from 
anyone who has done any bicycle
modifications or built human powered devices from recycled bike parts and 
components.

LL
--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
Venaura Farm
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://market-farming.com/venaurafarm
http://venaurafarm.blogspot.com/
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech


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