Rowing quad

Joined
Sep 30, 2013
Messages
24
Location
columbus, ohio
Has anyone built a 4 wheel rowing machine? Some time ago I acquired a "Kick-N-Go" scooter that has what I would describe as a lever that you pump up & down with your back foot to propel yourself. While I haven't taken it apart yet to see how it works, it seems to me that instead of stepping on the lever I could duplicate the action by pulling it repeatedly with a cable. This would be different from the traditional "Irish Mail" where the handle that propels it is always in motion. (Sometimes you just want to coast without moving your arms back & forth.) I am open to any ideas anyone has about building one of these.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2012
Messages
2,384
Location
Wakefield, UK
It would need to operate in a similar manner to any linear pedal system via cables, pulleys, chain and freewheels. These have a drawback in that a lot of the effort is lost in bringing the linear mechanism back up to the speed of the rotating parts on each pull or push before that effort can apply any force to create motion. In other words only a small fraction of the total effort goes into creating motion. They work ok at slow speeds but get increasingly less efficient as speed increases. With using arms instead of legs you then have the issue of how to steer whilst powering. Not insurmountable but certainly a major challenge. If you search linear pedalling or similar you'll get a number of ideas.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2017
Messages
102
Location
australia
I built a rowing trike. It was a fun experiment. I would recommend doing it for novelty and the joy of building, but I'd rather hop on 1 foot as a way to get places. But you may be a much better engineer than me so I'd love to see you disagree.
I slowly found many pics n vids of different format rowbike creations out there on the net.
 
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