There's a Scotsman named Hugh Piggott who does quite a bit with do-it-yourself wind power. Excellent reference materials and plan books. Very little in the way of "guess gaps".
A CVT type transmission would be my preference of ways to do that. You would probably find a visit to alt.energy.homepower to be informative and useful. There are a couple of cranky non-helpful types, but they'll self-identify prety much right away and can safely be ignored. THe rest of the group is very knowledgable and helpful.
Right. You'll always have losses, it just depends on how much input you have in the first place.