As Paul Overton puts it grandly “For centuries, man has been looking for a way to go sledding without all the pesky exercise, and Josh has found it!” Indeed he has. Josh of Cycle Karts rigged a winch to a 8 hp go kart engine so that people could sled down be hauled back without any strain:

The final winch set up involves an 2100 foot long rope that is spliced and will run all day long in a continual 1050 foot loop. The rope alone weighs 70+ pounds and the winch without the rope is close to 200 pounds.

The three different shafts and accompanying gears result in a final drive ratio of 30:1-4.5:1 so it is capable of pulling three adults up a 30 degree incline at comfortable slow speeds or a rather bumpy high speed.[...]

Note the mountain bike grip shift toward the top of the picture, which is our five speed throttle control. Also barely visible in this picture are the three pulleys that keep the line from jumping as the line makes 4 passes around the spool before heading back down the hill.

There’s a video of the winch in action at the link.

Link via DudeCraft

Whoa, I turn around and it’s already time for our weekly collaboration with the always excellent What is it? Blog. Can you guess what the strange tool above is for?

Game rules are simple: place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please. You can enter as many guesses as you’d like. Two prizes: the first correct guess and the funniest yet wrong guess will win T-shirts from the Neatorama Shop. You have until the answers are posted in the What is it? Blog.

For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog. Good luck!

Congrats to Doug Fallon who guessed correctly in the last What is it? Game 122, and to Declan ("the devastator"), Digma03 ("Iron Man’s Whisk"), and kminks ("Medieval Purple Nurple device") for the funniest guesses.

Update 1/16/09 – Congrats to wkb who got it right, and to Tim Giachetti who made me chuckle with his entry of … you’ll have to see it for yourself!