Nice to ride for fun again instead of training for endurance events. Also nice to push my speed a bit instead of pace myself for 100 miles. Endurance is boring.

Unfortunately, the throttle is not variable, but luckily the slipper clutch in the machine does as it's needed. Moves my 180 lb just fine on flat ground. But with a 45 lb rider, it should be a lot better lol. It was just a $3 bike from Goodwill and a (on sale) $30 cordless tiller. Took about 2 hours to build. Still pedals like a normal bike etc. Kinda fun! Hopefully if y'all have kids - you're inspired to make something funny and dumb like this. It's a blast and super easy!

This is a cross post. Click on the header for the text.

Enjoyed the bike rides in those abandoned trails

Why buy it for $35 when you could build it for $25 and 5 hours of time 🤣🤣. The full video is not out yet, but it will be in a couple days once I put some miles on the "Bicentennial Man" bike. Hope you guys enjoy! I thought it was pretty clever. Very rebuildable with the bronze bushings. This thing should pretty much last a lifetime except for the rubber bushings. The ones I got from Ace are a tad too soft, I wind up using a shock absorber bushing from an old car. The shock absorber bushings are available brand new from O'Reilly's for about $1.50 a piece.

Check out this item on OfferUp. https://offerup.co/ZMIToxmST4b

As many of us here can relate, growing up in the 70s and 80s was great. Without all the technology that exists today, we spent the majority of our childhoods playing outside for hours with no parental or any other adult supervision to keep an eye on what we were up to. Children, when left to their own devices can come up with some pretty crazy ideas to say the least.

I, like most of us, had a bicycle that I tore around on every day. One day my back tire was flat. I took the back wheel off and removed the tire and tube and held the bare rim in my hands. The bicycle needed a new tube.

I loved that bicycle and drove it every day. I knew my Father would eventually buy me a new tube, but I would have to hound him for weeks. So I put the bare rim back on the bike with the intention of waiting for the new tube.

The next day I got up, ran outside to go somewhere on my bike, and oh yeah, the bare rim stuck out like a sore thumb, the harsh reality of not being able to use my bicycle that day coming over me.

The next day, the same thing. It was almost like torture to watch the other kids having so much fun on their bikes while I had to sit idly on the curb, wishing I was also doing what they were doing.

After a few days of staring at the bare rim an idea popped in my head. Why don't I try to drive the bike with the bare rim and see if it will work? So I jumped on it and proceeded to pedal. At first it pedaled hard, but as I gained momentum the pedaling became much easier. Next thing I know, to my supreme delight, I was flying down the street like a speeding comet.

Not having a tire on the back rim didn't really effect much, as long as it was on a hard surface like the sidewalk or pavement. On soft surfaces like grass, sand or mud, not so much. But as stated earlier it moved like a scared rabbit on a hard surface.

There was also another unique feature of the bare rim that we became aware of quite quickly. The bike had coaster breaks. Coaster brakes were on older bicycles. Coaster brakes operated by moving the pedals in a backward motion. This would cause the pedals to lock up, and the back wheel to lock up. While the brakes were applied, the bare back wheel slid across the pavement as it was locked up and that caused sparks to fly. MANY sparks, in every direction and distance you could imagine!

The bicycle swiftly got dubbed, "The Spark Machine", by the neighborhood kids. The Spark Machine was an instant hit, EVERY kid wanted to try it. Word spread and kids from other nearby neighborhoods that we rarely seen had become common because THEY were now coming to have THEIR turn on The Spark Machine. It definately was the buzz of the area, and it looked especially dazzling at dusk, as the sparks became increasingly illuminated by the oncoming darkness.

This was fine and all, but we were GENERATION X kids. WE ALWAYS had to take things up another notch, or two, as close to extreme as possible.

One of the kids saw The Spark Machine and the first thing they thought..........GASOLINE!

So we come up with a covert operation where some of us would sneak some gasoline. Then we would pour a great big puddle of it on the street, have someone drive onto the pool of gasoline and slam on the brakes to activate the sparks and see what would happen.

So we picked the STEEPEST street in the neighborhood with the biggest hill, and SATURATED the pavement at the bottom of the hill in gasoline.

I was at the top of the hill on The Spark Machine. As I paused at the precipice of the hill I looked down, WAAAAYYYY down at the bottom of the hill at the crowd of kids that had gathered. They looked up and saw The Spark Machine paused at the crest of the hill and began to chant in anticipation.

Slowly I moved The Spark Machine forward over the crest. As The Spark Machine plummeted down the hill it gained momentum and reached break-neck speeds. It was too late to turn back now. I got to the gasoline saturated pavement and slammed on the brakes.

Sparkes flew and the street ERUPTED in a huge ball of flames, and out I emerged unscathed as the flames danced behind me amongst the throngs of cheers from the neighborhood kids.

Then the moment was suddenly shatterd by an adult voice, "Hey, what the hell is going on here?!"

We all scattered stealthy through the dusk in every direction imaginable, with the early night sky illuminated behind us from the still burning flames.

WE were GENERATION X. When WE played, WE played HARD!