The Ice-Cycle: Engineering a Bike with Saw Blade Wheels for Cruising on Ice

You better trust your seat when riding a bike with giant sawblades for wheels!

Frozen lakes should be perfect places to ride a bicycle. They are wide expanses of smooth, flat terrain. Someone could quickly zip down to a friends house, or all the way across the lake to a shop at the marina. The only issue is, they’re covered in ice, and bicycling on ice has never really worked.

The problem is traction, even the knobbiest of rubber bike tires cant get a grip on an icy surface. You could probably use a bunch of nails or studs to add traction to a bike tire, but that causes all kinds of new issues.  To be clear: I’m sure a Bond villain has attempted it (on a motorcycle), but physics aren’t very practical.

 “The Q” has a fresh idea which just might make biking on ice work.

The Q (Let’s be clear, we are not talking about that “Q”) had a mind-bending idea. He decided to use HUGE sawblades as the wheels on his bike. This obviously created a few engineering situations, specifically how to attach the blades to the hub. The Q achieved this by creating bushings to align the saw blade with the bicycle centerline. He then created and circular hubs and welded them to the bushings, as a means to bolt the wheels on. These bushings also provided a means to attach the disc brakes. Could you imagine those rubber rim-brakes on a sawblade?!

Unfortunately, early tests proved problematic. The bike got too much traction, sawing deep into the lake. The Q came up with a creative solution, welding depth-stops to each tooth of the blade. Nicely done!

There is still the issue of a 26” sawblade spinning very close to sensitive body parts. We’re hoping The Q has also fabricated himself some chain-mail boxer-shorts. He’s gonna need them!