Re: Who can travel farthest on a tank of compressed air. I looked a little into this and there are certainly two ways to go about it. It would appear a turbine is more efficient than a motor (http://cyclery.com/lists/power-assist/power-assist-archive-hyper/power-assist.199704/0028.html) but, as the NERDS can probably attest, bodging a turbine is a tricky proposition.

-- ChanzReed (uncleniblz@aol.com), February 02, 2001

Answers

Perhaps one could use a turbine out of a air tool. I believe air tools have been around longer than electric motors so the motors (turbines) in say a large air drill might do the trick. I don't know how much they value efficeincy but it's worth a try. A narrow toothed belt could be used to couple to a large diameter pulley connected to the spokes on the driven wheel. This pulley could be another smaller bicycle rim with a matching piece of toothed belt bonded to the center of the rim.

-- Lorne Campbell (lorne@btigate.com), February 05, 2001.