Washing machine based bike

[albertaphil]

So all this electric bike talk really has me thinking. The big north American washing machines have motors that draw close to 1000w at full spin cycle. The have enough torque to get a tub of 2ft diameter half full of wet clothes moving. And they spin the tubs up to 1500rpm.

Our dumps are full of them and it is almost never the motor that quits. It seems to me that one of these motors would be a great base on which to build an electric bike. It would require the construction of a variable frequency drive controllable by the twist grip.

What else would it take? What else am I missing?

[tappy]

1000W is about 1.3hp. It wouldn't get you to 10mph.