Gadgetory

so I met a girl a couple weeks ago who's in a wheelchair now wheelchairs are great for pavement and flat surfaces but not so much for off-road adventures I secretly built this off-road wheelchair by tying two electric bikes together with the seat in the center kind of like a chariot of sorts it goes 20 miles an hour with a range of about 20 miles which is pretty cool and this video shows how I put the whole thing together if I were to build it again though I would get bikes that have a suspension in the rear as well as the front so it has a smoother ride while off-roading and going over curbs and stuff let's get started so behind me I have two normal electric off-road bikes with the super big fat tires and we're gonna try to combine these two bikes into an off-road pod racer chariot of sorts type contraption a contraption where someone can sit in the center between the two bikes and still be completely stable so the goal here is to preserve as much of the structural integrity of the bikes as possible trying to leave them in pretty much the same condition as they are right now since a lot of planning probably went into the design of these bikes and we don't want to change too much of it we want the rigidity the safety and security that is already naturally built into the frame we just want to modify it a little bit okay so one of the structurally sound points of the bike is right where the pedals intersect with the frame so we're gonna use that as one of the strongest points for this chariot podracer thing we're gonna make so I've cut this bar we've already removed the pedals and we're gonna stick this right in between where the pedals used to be are so even with just that one bar in between where the petals used to be this is already super solid the thing I'm excited about is that the brakes are still intact on the rear and the front and the front shocks are still intact so it still should operate as one bike would except for we have two so those tacks should hold it in place just long enough for us to situate it on the other side of the bike so let me show you where we're at with the bikes we just finished welding up the seat frame which is gonna be the perfect size for the current cushion she has on her wheelchair made sure that was the right size so luckily the seats resting on the back of the frame and then it can just rest forward and I want the seat to be slightly elevated back so when she's driving around she's not gonna slowly slide off the front of the seat so it's gonna be raised up a little bit we have that bar down there so that should be the perfect distance to keep her on the seat while it's moving and for her legs to go downward towards the middle of the front wheels so we know that this bar is secure where the pedals used to be we have this all-thread bar right here stuck through the bottom brackets all the way through the bar Scruton is some massive washers a locking washer and then a nut and that will keep it tight the whole time she's on the bike so you can see the excess of the all threads sticking out on this side obviously we'll cut this off before we finish we're just making sure that it's all in place while we finish fabricating the seat so far I'm pretty pumped that was turning out I think it's gonna work it's pretty cozy for me should fit camber pretty well right now only one bike is turned on we have the seat all welded into place the steering wheels aren't tied up in tandem yet but I think we have that figured out but right now I need to hide the bikes as cambrie's coming over this is no way and that's just with one bike motor moving right now so stoked this is awesome okay so the bikes are strapped together we have the seat basically built we don't have the leg extensions yet we want to figure out the steering just in case we have to tie in to the metal for the seat we think we have it though there's a little hole in the front of the shock where a light is supposed to go we're gonna use that hole and drill in this angle bracket it's kind of like something you'd hold up a shelf with and we're just gonna cut one of these sides off have it extend out and then attach the two with the metal bar that way the front wheels are locked together so if you turn one the other turns with it and they won't bind up while you're driving right here we went with the bolt right through the top that a washer then the metal bar we just drilled through with another washer right between them the stabilizer right here you had another washer and then a locking nylon knot between them all then when we tilt the steering wheel back and forth both tires turn and tandem we have the front bar in that ties the front two wheels together so they turn in tandem and then we have the seat and the next thing we're gonna work on is the leg rest now initially I thought that she would be able to sit here and then like extend her legs like she's laying down but that would block the wheels from turning so there would be like a metal cage right here and so she wouldn't have a very tight turning radius and I feel like it's way more important to have a tight turning radius so we're gonna drop her legs straight down so our legs are almost at a 90 degree angle coming off the seat and dropping straight down to rest on the footrest so this is how the steering is normally but if we take it and turn it drop it down and rotate it backwards so it's parallel with the wheel itself and then tighten it down with these bolts right here then the wheel will turn when the steering wheel is parallel with the tire and with the throttle right here and right there she can control both the motors independently of each other while she's driving and her field of view is still wide open we're just getting rid of all the stuff we don't need on the handlebars like the little bells and also the the gear shifter because we don't need that because no one's gonna be pedaling on this bike okay so we have bolt the handlebars cut off the front which turned out pretty sweet-looking we have the cable wrapping around the side looks pretty minimalist the computer still sits very comfortably right there on the inside of the handle with the power switch and the brake that can just be accessed with your thumb but now it's time to work on the back so I've taken a look at her wheelchair and I'm gonna kind of design the same little footrest thing we were using before take that and put it right here on the back about 11 inches up which will clear the tire just barely and then come down here on the other side and then probably use some flat plate along the sides in the bottom to keep everything secure and for somewhere to put her pad when she's off-roading on this bicycle so I am definitely not a professional welder by any means but welding is actually pretty cool with welding we're running electricity through this metal so we have a ground right here we can clamp it anywhere to our work of art that we're constructing right now and this gun right here spits out a little bit of metal each time I pull the trigger and it's part of what conducts the electricity and helps melt the metal together and adds a little bit of metal to the joint that we're making it's pretty solid I can move the whole bike with it but I'm not gonna put a lot of pressure on it yet once we pull this out of the bike frame I'm gonna solidify all of the welds we've made then I'll put the bike back together for some testing this is all the metal for the seat the frame anyway we're gonna put a metal plate over the top the back is at a slight angle towards the rear but that's fine because the seat is also a slight angle up just a tiny bit which you can see a little better right here the seat is up and the back is just barely tilted back a tiny bit so this is the back of the chair I've added some straps from the back to the base this is where she will sit and then down here at the bottom we want to support this leg structure so I'm going to take this bar and put it right behind these two for a little added support and you'll see what that looks like when it's back on the bikes again she is ready for a test ride we got the foot thing in place I'll still clean up my welds a little bit later and then we have the side of the chair bolted into the frame back there with that little u-bolt which keeps being super secure especially at high speeds which since this thing is capable of 20 miles an hour being structurally sound is a good thing okay so far it's holding my weight 200 pounds right there on the footrest not too shabby you just cozy okay okay both computers are on both brakes work probably finds something do like a parking brake at some point I think all right so I've dismantled the bike one last time so we can powder coat the seat powder coating is a type of really really thick paint that gets cooked onto the surface of the metal to make it look you know a little bit more professional than kind of what we've been doing here the metal fabrication can probably be custom fit to any size even a double-wide if the metal is rigid or not it's hard to say without trying it out for sure it'll be fun to see what you come up with hit that thumbs up button and if you ever end up building one of these off-road wheel chairs go karts for yourself I want to see it cambrie had no idea I was building this bike so her reaction to receiving it was pretty fun I'll link that video up here and down in the video description as well so you can watch that maybe you know someone who could use this or you just want a sweet-looking go-cart for yourself it's pretty fun and powerful feel free to share this video thanks ton for watching hit that subscribe button and I'll see you around