Invention Idea #103 - Pedal Plow

As we come closer to snow fall this year, lets take a step back and consider for a moment the possibility of finally moving away from the old-fashioned snow shovel. "Snowblower!" you say? But I say NO!! Why does the combustion engine always have to equal the future? Let's move on! I propose a Mountain Bike mounted snow plow. Mountain bikes are beefy so use these. Road bikes under these circumstances are problematic. A couple of years ago I tried strapping a snow shovel to my bike and found that shear and moment forces on the handle were quite extreme. Those forces converted static energy to kinimatic energy and threw me into the snow bank. So, make sure you learn the physics of your system BEFORE you invent! That's what I always say!

Here is my summary of the physics laws governing snow removal: The snow exit speed, Vexit, of the snow is just tan(theta) times the speed of the plow divided by the radial vector speed of the pedals on your bike. The energy of the exiting snow is 0.5*msnow*Vexit^2. So the power required to plow the snow goes like tan(theta)2 and like the cube of the speed (as it should!). The tan(theta) assumption seems valid for snow that exits the plow in a laminar fashion. It is apparent that even a flat plate (i.e 90º half angle) will push snow out of the way but the mound of snow ahead of the plate forms some natural angle of shear to form power that is leveraged by the moment arm. Power baby! This is very important as you learn more about my idea.

Now, let's say we could harness this power and combine it with the joy of riding a bike. Every inventor's dream... Since this is such a good idea, I figure I may need to look at the competition out there.

First competitor: Push some complicated scooper rather than a shovel










Okay, this is really complicated and cool.

Second competitor: Drag a complicated scooper behind you.











Clearly, the tires will pack the snow and make things less efficient. But I can dig this.

Competitor No. 3 - Four-wheeled pedal scraper.



This takes the cake when it comes to complications, but the combination of the three competitors is nothing but green, green fodder for my invention upgrade.