LOW geared bike can tow and climb like a beast! Is this stupid or genius?
We built a custom 74 tooth cog, and mated it to a 24 tooth direct mount chainring. The result was one of the slowest mountain bikes ever made. The gear was so low that we could barely keep the bike upright while riding it. What can it tow? Does it climb well? Find out today on Berm Peak!
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now switch the cog and chainring and we'll watch you fly to jupiter in just 3 pedal strokes
I don't think you would be able to pedal! it would probably be scraping and tearing up the road!
old track bikes go up to 104 teeth
@@cameronjacobi9211 3:1 isn’t that big a gear tho
There's a bike in the Mountain Bike Museum in Marin like that. Crazy.
Check out time trial bikes 😀
You’re about 10 years ahead of Sram and Shimano with this one.
Wassup jared
Facts
@@eugene44569 fuck bro it’s Eugene, can I have mod?
@@keqrou lol
@@eugene44569 hi
Right idea, wrong frame. This needs to go on a Trike for stability. That would work well and you can add ballast.
@Thomas B i need horse
Needs a Bakfiets, or cargo bike
@@wobblysauce what are you, Dutch?
@@Himechinachae Not I
right? i went to see done with wider tires as well
5:42 This is the first time I’ve seen someone do a burnout on a bicycle and I’m impressed
i can do it sort of
I've done it in my apartment lmaoo
It’s pretty easy on not great surfaces like that sorta gravel he was in. But you it’s between that and a wheelie if you have traction.
I've been around Seth's channel for 4 years and this is the first time I've heard him laugh like a maniac with his creation and I'm loving it 😂😂
Facts
go to the video where seth explodes a tubeless tire
Same gear bud! That laugh lol
I want to subscribe to a channel of just people making this laugh. The "Im shocked that this is working!" laugh.
Lol I used to watch him then this monstrosity popped up in my recommendations and I couldn't stop thinking about the thumbnail so I had to come back to it. It's like a few hours after i first seen it lol
That was the most terrifying "doing something little different but kinda the same" I have already heard
Ok, so what would it take to make a tractorcycle practical? - Moving the mount higher would enable the bike to tip backwards under load instead of forwards, improving the traction of the rear tire. Keeping the mount where it is, will improve steering. Ideally a system will be available to move the mount around the center of mass for ideal control - Training wheels, a trike, or wider tires would provide zero-speed stability - A rigid tow line would enable the bike to provide braking as well as acceleration, but increases the risk of getting run over. - The drivetrain needs to be redesigned. If its structural components deform in a few hours of screwing around, it won't survive practical use. - Selectable gears would improve the range of speeds and loads a single tractorcycle can handle. IDK
More improvements, add a mantis claw shaped frame to it with a hinge on the front where the fork connects. The long back will have a rail system that will allow the seat to be moved, which should solve the ballast problem if you move it foreward, and then once you are done towing you can slide it back as need be. The front hinge which holds the fork can be moved front to back as well for optimizing the distance between the hips and furthest pedal so you can maximize your power output/further tweak the ballast. Weight is a non-issue here considering the sheer torque this system has. Idk how a tricycle would be implemented though, either standard or reversed with two weels in front/1 in back, and if it is best to power the single weel or the double wheels
Nerd
id love to see how that rear gear would fair on a motorized bicycle
It'd be a wheelie machine and that's about it. Roughly one mph difference per tooth at the drive wheel. I want to say the engine crank has a 10t gear output, the clutch has a 40t input, the clutch output is 10t. Stock most kits are 44t for the final drive. My bike does 35mph with a 36t final drive on a 26inch wheel and the engines turning around 6500rpm. I can't find my old gearing calculator or I'd get you a better number
I think my Bafang BBS02b would top out about walking pace but have gobs of torque and wouldn't bog down much on just about any hill.
On a tandem, you’d have the weight and leverage to keep the wheels down, as well as extra pulling power.
😲😲😲😲😲😲😲 DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT
SETH PLEASE DO IT!!
Tandem tow bike!
Tandem fat bike!
Make it a tandem trike for the balance as well
Kevin is worth his weight in gold. Never lose that man
That says something, that man is big! But agree with you!
@@Warfer24 He is a nice friend to Seth and Oscar 😊
Worth more than his weight in gold... Infinitely more...
I have wanted to CNC a custom sprocket of this magnitude but never had the brass nuts to follow it thru. Thank you for answering a 30 year old question. Fun to watch you all do this, however painful and expensive to execute. Cheers!
I used to watch you a couple years ago when I was really into mountain biking, recently wanted to get back on the trails to get healthy and tried to find your channel again but I couldn’t! Low and behold, you show up on my recommended the next day!! Glad to find ya!
guy with a 3:1 reduction: "this thing is gonna be geared like a tractor" tractor with 400:1 reduction: "you'll get there"
Imagine having to turn the pedals 400 times just to turn the wheels once
@@brendanblab7508 you still move but slow
@@Christian.987 you wouldn’t be able to keep your balance you’d be moving too slowly
@@desirefusion532 Training wheels...
@@CynHicks he’s a fully grown man………..
“Imagine a world where fitness is optional” My world….
E bikes
@@jj182bass based on his profile pic, DH
ebikes, i dont intend to get fit/lean i just wanna bomb the downhills, bike park or my ebike, the ebike is soo good and ive lost 25kg lol
@@MrSupermugen nah ebikes are generally for people with more money than motivation
@@reboundrides8132 True
I want so see custom bike towing competitions. Really wild stuff getting made then doing some standard tests/competitions
Im not sure why but ive been subscribed for a while now and this is the first time ive seen this. This gives me flashbacks as a kid when we hooked the wagon up to our bikes pulling them around.
“Or you need a custom made bicycle that’s super long” seems like you got your next video right there :)
Like a tandem?
@@thomasoneill6070 No I think like 5 times longer than that😂
I've always thought about making a world record for "worlds longest mountain bike"
@@thomasoneill6070 This is exactly what I was thinking
Get a Salsa Blackborow or Surly Big Fat Dummy.
"This is pointless" Everyone who tries it giggles like a schoolchild. Nah mate, the point is it's a giggle. It's fun, who cares?
i think a setup with this and a faster gear once you get up to speed it would be great for a van or bus type pedal car
@@kanekopoint4273 You're not wrong.
Also: anyone who's ridden the Horrible Hundred in WI or the Hilly Hundred in IN.
Actually did this in our backyard quite a few times...cobbling bike parts together and reversing the gears. Dubbed the result "Slo-Ped bikes"...they were somewhat handy for pulling wooden carts (with bicycle wheels) that we'd load up with 250-300lbs of hay and haul to the barn. Traction obviously becomes the issue when you've only got a single drive wheel though ;-) First one or so we actually Dremeled out the inside of the large sprocket to fit the proper sprocket mounting on the wheel--but then we later just got lazy and stuck the gear into the wheel mounting (bypassing the ratchet) and had a "Johnny one-popper" where you could pedal the bike--slowly--with a single foot. Of course, this had the side effect of unscrewing the sprocket if you tried to slow the bike down with the pedals ;-). Good times.
One of the great videos I've seen. If you've never tried to tow or pull anything with a bike in your child hood (or adulthood), you have not lived. This is nostalgic beyond belief. Great fun video, thanks!
"Hey I got my car stuck can you tow me out" "Yeah sure ill be right over" _Rides in on a bicycle_
_slowly_
@@nickkonkle541_menacingly_
Use a tandem, add slots to carry removable weights on the frame, training wheels, and use a crankset with a front derailleur to give yourself 2 or 3 speeds (one of which is even slower/higher torque than this one). Still not very useful, but way cooler (could actually do all the towing you tried to with this one).
Add a seat belt so you can apply greater force to the crank
yes
He was basically doing "burnouts" at a bunch of points in this video because the weight on the rear (drive) wheel was too little compared to the weight he was towing. So yeah, need that ballast. Pretty silly.
@@MinecraftManSteav or use those fancy cleats the lycra rangers use on their road bikes?
@@julianbrelsford and a fat tire in the back
Have seen a similar take on this which actually had a practical use and worked. A tricycle was used to reposition tool trailers. The nose weight of about 100kg provided the required traction.
I absolutely love this Idea, but you HAVE to make a Part 2 with a 3 wheeled disability bike with 2 front tires. There are Cargo editions of those, that can hold ballast in the rear and front and ballance would be no problem any longer.
This is amazing! I really think this could be a thing, not the 74T but maybe a 50T with an electric motor. It could be used as a really good cargo bike. Im trying to make a bike that can pull a small boat
It's already a thing. There's quite a few cargo bikes out there with motors
I have one of those 2 stroke bike kits on my iron horse, it pulls a double kayak trailer loaded with a days worth of gear no problem, even up some pretty big hills it's a breeze
@@petrolmonkey6891 same. I have a 4 stroke tho with a 50 tooth and it tries to do wheelies at full throttle with a 200 pound load on it
A hundred bucks for a bare minimum-effort chainring... Im in the wrong business
Even a 50t to 24t is a lower ratio than you could possibly need and be practical.
imagine playing frisbee with that 😭
The forbidden frisbee
Killer frisbee
Slice……
Hits off your skull and your dead
LOL
you went about doing this the hard way. when i was younger i used to do a lot of hauling with my bike and built a designated tow rig. running a smaller tire size in the rear helped a lot. i found for most of the stuff i moved a 24" tire did pretty good but there was the odd occasion i would run a 20" tire but the biggest issue with the 20" tire was top speed was not very high even in the fastest gear. it did have tons of torque. i could easily pull my trailer with 400lbs on it up the steepest slopes in town.
thanks for this video i am in a proces of making a skider log Winch. this video is in perfect time for me to understand the mecaniks of geers sistem thanks a ton
for a science project that a buddy of mine did years ago he took all the spokes on his front wheel and made the center offset, we called it the bounce bike. If you put your feet on the front pegs and pumped you could move forward and if you went too fast then it started to bounce the front really aggressively. Would love to see you try something like that for fun!
I love how small Seth's bike looks when Pat is riding it.
i love that you tested this! got my thinking though…what if you hacked up some frames to make a long wheelbase trike…
I would love to see this done again but with training wheels on the bike and see how the results change!
This is an old school Seth Bike Hacks video 👌🏻
Why Arnt u verifyed
Why are you guys here?
from what i remember they can choose whether they want to get verified or stay non-verified from what i remember :p
Please find a tandem to try the cog on towing a load - a long bicycle with way more weight forwards of the axle to not going to wheelie! Also you then have an eccentric bottom bracket to tension the chain!
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
There are a lot of great comments on how to make it work better, we wanna see it Seth!
We used to do this mod on old bikes just for fun and then ride with ease in the terrain, it always lead to the bearings in the wheel only lasting a short while after the mod...
Put it on a trike. Preferably a fat tire trike for more traction. Maybe 20" wheels for an even lower gear ratio. With a delta trike you could put the tow line right to the rear axle and eliminate any tenancy for the front end to rise.
Even better, a reverse trike: two front wheels. Put more weight on the front. Another alternative to keep the front down is to put the hitch for the tow line below the rear axle, so that the tension and weight actually helps it plant the front wheel more firmly. Just not too low, or you might lose traction in the rear.
I don’t think the extra weight on the front is enough to offset the loss of traction from having only one wheel in the back instead of two. Maybe a standard trike with a weight rack on the front? Good idea with the lowered hitch though, that’s how most agricultural tractors do it.
My thought exactly, a trike with a slightly less ridiculous ratio would be excellent
Tractor hitches sit below the axel so that the weight of then implement actually pulls down on the front through torque around the axel. Just build a lever and that extends below the rear axel
I'd actually really like to see someone make something like this. It would be less of a gimmick/joke, and more of an actual usable tool. Of course, it would still be an incredibly niche product and not practical for the kinds of things that people typically use bicycles for. But it would be a cool and interesting machine.
Fatbike would give more grip when towing, and three rings in the front would make it (slightly) more useful for actual biking.
To have a front derailuer you also need a rear derailuer, which means the cage would be stupid long
@@fullerblacksmithing7954 are you saying that like it's a bad thing? Smells like content to me 😎
That is hilarious! I always wondered whether you could even stay up with such a low gear.
Im a truck driver who likes to ride and this video is right up my alley! Im looking to get a foldable mtb for offroad exploring and exercise when I'm held up away from home... lmk if anyone has any suggestions for me. Never bought a foldable before
PI simplifies in the gear ratio calculation, no need :p
Ah bah tiens bonsoir 😉😉!
Yes we only need the number of teeth!
Exactly. It shows exactly how little he knows what he's talking about.
PI is never in the equation for gear (gear and chain) ratios
You just need a pie sized gear
I need this. My 50T isn't low enough for going straight up downhill tracks.
I’d love to see you’re reaction to stuntbike sprockets 😂 sick video 👏
I used to ride Pedicabs. I would usually ride the double cab that could carry four adults, so it was not uncommon to be pulling over 1000 lbs with pedal power alone. Our drive train used a conventional bicycle system running to a dummy axle, then another reduction stage with a heavier chain. I forget the exact number my heaviest ride was, but it was four body builders over 300 lbs each who challenged me to ride them up a hill. their weight plus mine plus the bike would be at least 1500lbs. They didn't know about our secondary gear reduction.
A bit of practical use: I have an old tourer that I use - among everything else - for towing a 15' canoe. Nothing as fancy as your setup, just a triple with a 22, a wide-range cassette, and huge slick tires. I simply strap a dolly onto the canoe, throw paddles and lightweight gear inside, pour the heavier stuff into lowrider front bags, hitch the end of the canoe to an adapter on the rear rack, and head out. I have a nice 15km stretch of whitewater nearby, with a put-in 45 km upstream from home. Last time I rode 15 km upstream with the canoe in tow, met up with friends headed the same way in a car, locked my bike, threw the canoe on the car, paddled the 15 km of whitewater with them, then paddled the remaining 15 km of flatwater, retrieved my bike, towed the canoe back home, unhitched it, and rode to a pub to brag about it. But what I really need is a folding tandem that would fit inside a 17' canoe.
How light do you want it to be? *Seth: “YES”*
I love seths reaction to this
Me and my buddies switched the front and rear sprocket on our BMX bikes in the 80's, had about the same gear ratio on some of them.
i feel like theres a life quote about how the climbs can’t get any easier.
Possibly your best video to date. You have to try this in Moab on slickrock. Or another trail that's super steep with tons of grip. It may just loop out but I'm so so curious now.
The murder machine! I thought this thing was long gone. Good to see it still bringing smiles.
Man.. I immediately sub, cuz I love this idea so much It's dumb yet so genius
Can we just take a minute to appreciate that Seth basically put a modified ocular saw blade on his bike as a rear gear
Yes
I took roughly 8 minutes and 33 seconds to appreciate it
The determination of that pup to get underfoot is astounding.
What if you swap them around?
The pedal gets tight af but if u have the power to pedal it then it goes fast fr
road to heaven
I have been wanting to add a small plate and front shifter about the same as 1:1 just for hills, maybe I should have 2:1.
You really need to do this again as a trike with 20” rear wheels. That would be even more amazing!
Thought the same immediately --- even with this bike given this ground clearance, 20" would push him out of the start-up problems and give 40% additional torque versus 28"(28/20= 1.40). And the ballast would indeed be useful as long as it's put on the rear wheel --- on the rider's back or steering wheel only a fraction of that ballast does what you want, the majority just makes the job harder... but less than the small wheels I suspect. With trike then reposition seating to have maximal mass above rear axle.
fr tho, bro forgot about training wheels the whole vid lol
Recumbent trike also has lower center of mass, so it should not lift the front as easily. Then you could position the anchor point higher to keep the rear wheel loaded to the maximum. Also I guess lower the anchor point on the towed vehicle, to have as much downward component as possible in the force from the strap to the bike.
i was thinking the same thing. use to run 20" tires on the back of my tow rig all the time and it could pull anything up pretty much any hill as long as you had the endurance to keep pedaling even if you had a 300+lb load.
Kevin sitting in the back like a little kid, and wearing his helmet cracked me up.
On a reverse trike set up it might have some practical purposes you might need a wheelie bar that puts tension behind drive wheel to help keep the steers on the ground but if you want to pull heavy objects you will need to put counter weights on it like a forklift.
This is realy cool this bike reaminds me of a train i seen they call it a shay locomotive where they go on to steep switchbacks in wv this reaminds me of it alot if it if it could pull forwards and backwards at slow speeds that would be a awsome pulling bicycle around bearm peak for halling slowly up hills
Put the rear cog at the front and front in the back for high speed lol
This!
Then it's just 1:1
@@stendijk8949 How does 74/24 gearing become 1:1 when you switch the gears around?
@@sampuhhupmas5666 sorry misread
Check out the bicycle speed records, the bikes are exactly as you described and they ride behind a draft vehicle.
“It’s good for keks” - former Starcraft player identified.
So glad I wasn't the only one who caught that
Or WoW
Trike of course, weighted on the front. Nope never thought of this, always thought the other way around. Maybe not a 74 chain ring, but 60-62, for sure. This demos the 'what if' principle, when you have access to, 'well how could we do it' . Pretty fun and cool.
Try it on the crack side, I want to see how fast it goes. I'm planning on getting one for my road bike , but first have to find a giant size crank
When Seth posts a video is amazing, fun, and generally Sunday! Best day ever!
Your old videos when you reviewed random products used to cost me tons of money cause I wanted a lot of the things. But now, these episodes saved me 2 of money from needing to have to do this (unsuccessful, I might add) myself. 🤙🏻
This is the greatest Seth Bike Hack's
I was always curious if it was possible to do so
One of my friends made a chainring as big as a 26" rim, and put it on his bike. That thing was literally not moving. We experimented with how much it can tow, and basically found out that you could bring a house down with it.
Should strap an ebike motor to it
@@TheGrayWolf81 we got a weed wacker engine and welded a tiny chainring on it (without the clutch, directly mounted to the crankshaft) and put the thing on the bike with some adapters. The bike was moving about 15cm per second at idle and about 15 - 20 km/h at full throttle. The things we do as bored 15 year olds...
This video should be renamed to: Seth forgot that E-bikes exist so he took matters into his own hands.
Demonstrates why trucks and tractors have weights on the front. Also I've though about using a tandem/land speed dual chainring.
This guy is a legend!
I often climb steep mountains with a typical mountain bicycle, I would really appreciate this gear’s existence, some of you probably know how quickly you get tired in even the lowest gear lol
You go faster walking with the bike in your shoulder.
I think this gear would be too big, even for the steepest hill. Something in between this behemoth and a regular large sprocket would probably work for you though.
The thing is, the amount of work you need to put out to get to the top doesn't get lower (it probably gets higher due to all the losses, actually). And it's hardly optimal having to turn pedals like a maniac, so it honestly wouldn't be any good
@@MrCh0o yes but the problem isn’t energy spent. It’s easier to lift 10 pounds 10 times than 100 pounds 1 times, for example, even though the physical “work” is the same.
@@aienbalosaienbalos4186 That's what the second part of my comment was about, the optimal conditions for your muscles aren't moving your legs superfast
7:59 "And if you've been wondering what happens when you do this. Well now you do!" lmao
I would love to see that gearing on a stretched fat bike “ tractor bike 2” or maybe even a trike.
if you want to tow the car you need the bike attachment to be as high as possible and the car attachment as low as possible, thus the tension of the rope is adding to your grip instead of lifting you off the ground.
"how many torque you wanna produce with the ratio?" seth: hell yess
Enough to snap spokes if the front wheel stays down!
imagine this on a middrive ebike
@@SimonBauer7 500lb ft ebike woo
It would be interesting to see how well this works with more than two wheels and a different centre of gravity - such as with a trike or even a recumbent bicycle.
This is sick 😂 If you ever try this again, try hauling with a fatbike on 27.5 x 4.5” tires with lower tire pressures for traction.
I modernized a 1970's Schwinn Continental extra-tall frame with a 3x8 drive train. The shortest gearing is 30 teeth up from with 34 in the rear. And when I have 90lbs of groceries in the kiddie cart climbing out of the Alum Creek river valley in Westerville, Ohio... It's about perfect!
I would recommend making stabilizers for the bike, as well as adding weights to the front and back of the bike. So like cast iron bars with weights hanging under the BB. This would be insanely awesome!
Love the videos Seth, you got me into mountainbiking. Its been a while since we saw Alex on the channel, is he about make a rturn in the videos?
I enjoyed watching 😊😊
This is so cool but I have an idea this but on a trike bike u have balance and a basket to buy weight for extra traction
The “dinner plate” rear cog that could ACTUALLY be a dinner plate.
Maybe more like a snack platter?That HG freehub cutout can be used to hold a tiny container for dips
@@reapanomin899 I like your thinking. But maybe you are not being creative enough. Fondue! That hole is for a decorative place to put fondue skewers for your guests. That's what Martha Stewart would do -- if she rode a bike.
I feel,like they looked at Ashton Lambie’s 4km track record and said: "We can build that, but aren’t sure if we can get the back wheel spinning, soooo maybe switch the cogs?"
Greatest thing I've seen on KZhead in the last year hands down
What if you made the peddle and chain a triangle type loop so peddle with "saw blade" up top as point and have 2 "saw blades" one on each wheel or for each wheel and maybe make the bike frame taller. Just thinking but if you applied the same force to both wheels will it keep the bike front end down?
This gear can definitely have its use for sure, just seems to need a few more gears (2 more?) to create more speed perhaps?
I see huge potential for a rock crawling quadracycle with that gear. Maybe Evan for leg amputee's. It's a great ratio for hand peddling I'd imagine. I can see it going up a technical forest trail over roots and mounds.
There's an E-bike mobility device called "not a wheelchair" that would be pretty awesome with that addition.
It's a great day when Seth posts!
That's why i love 3x instead of so much gears at the back instead of front gear by 7-8speed.
I’d love to see this on a custom, 80lb, extra long frame with 36” wheels and an extra large bike trailer.
I think Seth just invented a new sport “bicycle pulling”
Lovely, also kinda like the “old” Seth to do something like this. Love to see more like this.
Old Seth is new Seth.
How bout putting big gears on front and back in 1:1 configuration? Would the bigger radius gear give you more torque than two small ones at 1:1?
Just a thought. If you had a way to have a guide bar to have the cable for towing put under it, you could have it hook to front of the bike where it would than use the weight of what your pulling to pull/keep the bikes front down. With that all you need now is a way to stay upright.
I love how he can be so happy about such simple things in life.
"Earn it, slowly" You summed me.
It would be cool to try some technical uphill rock crawling type stuff on that beast? 🙂
Add a mid drive motor and watch it fly and add front stunt pegs for your friend to stand on