Steam powered bike

Joined
Feb 8, 2007
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Location
New Smyrna Beach FL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfGjIUeZR7g&ab_channel=PROFESSORPARDALBRASIL
i guess es needs a new section :twisted:
 
Matt Gruber said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfGjIUeZR7g&ab_channel=PROFESSORPARDALBRASIL
i guess es needs a new section :twisted:
Love it! The built-in barbecue function is PRICELESS ... a ride that even cooks tube steaks ... wow.

Gotta love our old friend Steam! Once upon a time it was the amazing, new, transformational power source ... clean, powerful, and no smell of old horse poop from the technology it displaced.

In it's heyday, late 1800s -- steam bicycles!
The Copeland Steam Bicycle, circa 1884. Top speed ~15mph. Power 3.0kW at 2600 rpm. Single speed. Belt drive. How cool is that?? But sadly, no cooker function for lunches.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeland_steam_bicycle
 
There is a white haired man by the Burbank Airport wearing a jean shirt with a few hangars of stuff with a bit of steam rolled into it but I doubt he be so priveldged as to have a steam bicycle.
 
Old steam technologies are very interesting to me, not just because they're practically catnip to white people like myself. Engines that can run on anything! Traction engines, not "Steam" engines at some points! 20HP and over 1,000lb feet of torque! It's so wild to think about, in todays world of instant gratification.

Even wilder is how common they still are, but just shoved deep into hidden recesses or shadowy municipal buildings. I met this dude randomly at a party I was at pre-COVID, whom was working for a college as a professional welder; his job was re-welding the water jackets on a steam-driven pump in an old power station that had been built in like, 1900. At some point the jackets froze and busted the metal, but the pump itself and all it's workings were fine despite 60+ years of constant use and decades of storage. They were getting it to work again as both a museum piece AND as a pump for the once power station turn distribution center; wild, to think of a machine that literally could work for a century with no replacement.
 
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