Do inline skates carve a turn like ice skates?

[John in CR]

Any rollerbladers here? I ask about the comparison to carving a turn with ice skates because I'm wondering if leaning to take the wheels away from vertical causes a turn. I've often thought of using 2 wheels inline on the rear to create an inline trike. Why? To eliminate the need for a rear suspension, that's why. Mount the two rigidly together in line. Then attach a pivot in the middle that connects to the rest of the trike. Then when the first wheel hits a bump only a portion of that vertical acceleration is transferred to the bike frame.

My concern is whether the rear wheels can carve a turn to follow the direction of the front, or will they scrub the same way rigidly vertical tandem wheels scrub like on a tractor trailer rig?

A trike along these lines could be cool, especially with a pair of hubbies in small wheels, but I think I need the rear pair to help carve a turn for it not to just feel wrong while riding. Some slight ability to pivot left/right from each other may do the trick. Some guys swear by their 1 wheel bike trailers.

 

[vanilla ice]

Good idea, you could do hubbie on the rear and pedal to the middle wheel. Would need a huge chain wheel though. Or I guess if you made the swingarm long enough you could run like a 16" hub motor wheel in the center and run a standard 26" wheel out back to pedal to. Would look even stranger!

 

[dogman dan]

Uh, yes and no?

Rollerblades can be set up with all four wheels level, and they handle more like hocky skates. Or raise the two end wheels, and now the wheels never all touch at once, like a figure skates curved blade, and you can do more spinning type stuff. Skis carve a turn because you bend the ski into an arc, a surfboard carves a turn because it's made in a curved shape.

Rollerblades set up with level wheels do carve like ski's, or flatter blade skates though, and yes, some rubber is left behind. I think your idea will work fine, provided the wheels are small, and the contact patches therefore close to each other. But they will scrub some, and wear tires different than normal.

 

[liveforphysics]

If they can pivot and tip about the middle point, like a tandem trailer axle, then you could actually offset each wheel by a inch or two, and partially overlap them. This would be to get the contact patches closer together to lessen the effects it would have on trying to prevent steering. When you leaned in turns, it would still always keep them both on the ground, and not cause added resistance to leaning, and should turn a little better, but not quite function as well as suspension due to the pivot arm being shorter between the wheels.

Since RPM is the big limiter to hubmotor power, if you picked a pair of hubs that were sized right to just stretch a scooter tire right over the flange where the spokes would mount (so the hub is the rim), you could potentially end up with a very torquey pair of hubs pushing you along.

 

[John in CR]

Just wishful thinking that they would turn when leaned, just like a single wheel does if you just roll it down the street. Once it leans it carves a turn, and graceful rollerbladers sure make it look like carving.

The shortest power trailer ever with very limited turn angle, might work, though I always those guys just got accustomed to the poor or quirky handling.

I did see a concept moto with 3 wheels all closely spaced, which would be nice for traction, but how it could turn wasn't discussed and the video was virtual.

If I can make it work, then having a single track with 3 wheels of traction would be nice.
Easy to put 2 or even 3 hubbies.
Smaller wheel makes lower saddle easier.
Hopefully offset some of the harsh ride penalty of smaller wheels.
Could look cool and different.

I don't know about you guys, but 3 different size wheels doesn't work for me.

 

[vanilla ice]

You're right looks ugly.

I want to see somebody do this with one of the diy Xtracycles.. Bunch of those use small wheels anyways. You could have additional tire capacity for heavy loads, and you could even have a shock absorber to dampen out whatever bumps get through. All built on a std hard tail frame.

 

[dogman dan]

Rollerblades do carve, but it does scrub the wheels. They just get away with it because the wheel contact patches are pretty close together. You also tend to lean back a hair, lessening the friction on the first wheel. The first wheel wears fast if you don't lean back.