Motorized Trailer Pushes Bicycle (Nov, 1937)
I would hire this guy to sharpen my knives in a heartbeat just for the joy of seeing him put-put up the street.
Motorized Trailer Pushes Bicycle
An itinerant knife grinder has devised a “cart-before-the-horse” rig to ease his labors on long-distance bicycle journeys. When he tires of pulling his trailer, with its motor-driven grinding machinery, he hitches the motor to the wheels and the trailer pushes him.
Surely, an actual car would have been less trouble then this rig.
Sure, maybe in your “real” world a normal car would be better. But in my fantasy 1937 world knife sharpeners all sound like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and drive rickety motorized bicycle contraptions.
“Sharpen ya knife guvna?”
And they tap dance between tasks!
For a moment I thought it said “AN INTERNET knife grinder” and thought that Al Gore was a few decades too late…
I would have like to have seen an entire story with plans on this one just to determine if the push cart was actually effective over the long haul. I would have loved to see his plans also.
In Home Power Issue 97 October/November 2003 on page 98, R. Sparks Scott has an article on a diesel-powered trailer adds range to an electric VW conversion.
It’s basically a the engine compartment of a A/T VW Rabbit turned into a trailer that pushes a EV through a standard trailer hitch. Control cables were run into the control car for the accelerator, transmission controla and the brakes.
It was registered as a normal trailer.
http://www.homepower.co…
Yesterday’s eye catcher,today’s gas saver.
Were going back in time.
http://www.motoredbikes…
To stupid person number 1. Steve M. who wrote, “Surely a car would have been less trouble????
How do you know that it actually is trouble?
I doubt you would know a spanner from your bumhole. – You stupid opinionated man.
Personally – as as a genius constructor of trailers, bicycles and aircraft, this man has made an absolutely gorgeous trailer….
It carries the engine, the grinding wheels – at a good working height, and his swag…
And I bet he is as fit as too….
I am not sure of the exact weight balance – or the center of gravity over the trailers axle… but just by the looks of things… and my expereince in building bike trailers.. that I have carried 3 or 400 pounds on… it looks like it puts a tad too much weight onto the bicycle…
You want a bit of weight on the drawbar, but not much…
The poor man probably couldnot afford a car—also he needs to be in the open–when i was a kid the knife guy went up and down the streets calling out–toroto ontario 1953′he had to hear and be heard
I’ve seen bike-powered knife sharpeners. That saves having to haul around the gas powered engine in the first place.