What other things do you use your bicycle for?

Chip - do you use any of your bicycles for purposes other than riding? Like attaching one to a "washing machine" or making a "bike blender"?

This belongs to a guy who visits the nearby market every week - it's a knife sharpener!







I really ought to find a knife that needs sharpening so I have an excuse to take some action photos...

That's great! Talk about stacking functions.

I use my bicycle for inspiriation. I'm writing a fair pile of poetry these days for two different books, and I've found that a nice bike ride (with pen and notebook stashed on board) usually produces a goodly amount of ideas for a bit of writing upon return.

I also use my bicycle to render aid and assist where needed; that is, I do stop and ask people I see along the way if they need help, if they look as though they might. Most don't, but some do. I carry tools to fix most common problems, and I know the area. I was able, a bit earlier, to help four lost souls on bicycles find a place to eat on the other side of town. Thery were from out of state, so they had no idea what was where. I do. Now they do, too.

That's how I use my bike.

I use my Bike to Remove and keep A Fat Gut off of me. I use it to get my Heart Pumping for years longer than it may, If I sit and come up with too many "poor Me" excuses I may never ride my bike again.

Jeremy: BEST. USE. EVER!

I've used a bicycle as a centrifuge to restart ball point pens that stopped working although they still had a reservoir full of ink.  Turn the bicycle upside down, tape the pen to a spoke with the tip pointed towards the tire, crank for 30 seconds at speed, and the pen will start working again.

Also used the bike as a makeshift butter churn.  Strap a container half full of milk to the frame and riding on a bumpy road for a half hour.

The bicycle elevator is way cool! I really want to build one. But I would need to build a tree house, in addition, and I already have too many things on my list. I only pedal to turn my washing machine (https://permies.com/t/90723/Pedal-powered-washing-machine) and that will have to keep me satisfied for a number of years.

I'm long on ideas but short on how tos. I was wondering about pumping water with a bike. Do you know if such a contraption has been devised yet? First water at 10 ft should make it possible but I'm trying to picture it. I'd like to water chickens during the winter, so it would have to be one of these crank pumps that releases excess water when you stop pedaling? [The chicken coop is over 100 ft from the house. I have an electric gizmo to keep the water warm but it first needs to get pumped up].

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:I'm long on ideas but short on how tos. I was wondering about pumping water with a bike. Do you know if such a contraption has been devised yet? First water at 10 ft should make it possible but I'm trying to picture it. I'd like to water chickens during the winter, so it would have to be one of these crank pumps that releases excess water when you stop pedaling? [The chicken coop is over 100 ft from the house. I have an electric gizmo to keep the water warm but it first needs to get pumped up].

Look up pump jacks?

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:I'm long on ideas but short on how tos. I was wondering about pumping water with a bike. Do you know if such a contraption has been devised yet? First water at 10 ft should make it possible but I'm trying to picture it. I'd like to water chickens during the winter, so it would have to be one of these crank pumps that releases excess water when you stop pedaling? [The chicken coop is over 100 ft from the house. I have an electric gizmo to keep the water warm but it first needs to get pumped up].

I finally talked to my husband, who has more ideas than me, about this. His first question was, why do you want to do this? Why not just catch water on the chicken coop roof and have that automatically water them? It could be because of temperature, but, if you have sun (perhaps we do not understand your climate -- here, in winter, we have cold weather and sun, or rain). you can have the snow and ice melt. Out of the manual pumps that we know of, we do not see how we could modify the mechanism to work by pedaling. But we only know of a couple of manual pumps, and neither of us fully understand how they work. The electric pumps that we know of could not work with a pedal-powered motor, instead of an electric one. There just isn't enough to them. So that would mean pedal-powering a generator for them. We can both see mechanical ways to move water with a bicycle, but the ways we see would require a lot of material and space. And would therefore be an un-doable project, in our opinion.

Burra Maluca wrote:This belongs to a guy who visits the nearby market every week - it's a knife sharpener!

My husband wants a pedal-powered knife sharpener and says he is going to do this. How much does the guy charge to sharpen a knife? We have no idea on knife sharpening rates.

I was wondering about pumping water with a bike.  

I would think that any old fashion hand pump could fairly easily be adapted to having that up and down motion activated by a bike.  

How do you like it? Beer bike

Moving an armchair on the cargo trike.