Bikes of Burning Man 07
Burning Man is the world convention of trailer queen freakbikes. There are thousands of choppers and tallbikes and all sorts of multi-wheeled, multi-person human powered vehicles. I sure hope people ride these things in their home town too.
I always learn a lot about motivating large numbers of people by pedal power. And someone usually impresses me, which doesn't happen much. Of course I can't capture all the crazy bikes- perhaps this flickr search can. But here are my pictures.
I was using dusty disposable cameras so the quality is pretty poor
This guy had his chain go back to a jackshaft that drove both back wheels. No differential was needed due to the freewheels.
Having made a drumkit bike myself, I liked this little guy. Although, if he rides without pants, I'd hate to smell the fur on that seat.
I liked this guy's exaggerated chopper. It was hard to mount because it was essentially a tallchopper. I threw in a DPW Dame to make it a nice chopper pinup shot.
Despite the fact that a tall trike is a Bad Idea, it can be pulled off with a wide wheelbase, a weighted bottom, and slow going. I took this picture no-handed from the top of my pennyfakething.
I've never seen a pushpin-steered tallbike that didn't immediately result in injury upon the first test ride. Pushpin steering is just so janky. However, somebody musta gotten it to work with this ridiculous pushpin-steered tallbike with attached rumble seat and trailer.
This night shot didn't show so well... but I liked the fenders on this talltrike.
This shot turned out better because the guy fired off his huge flame cannon as I shot. There are actually a ton of these huge-wheeled trikes out at the Man. Check out how he rigged that front-wheel drive.
This guy has some sort of jet theme for his talltrike. "Moop" means "Matter Out Of Place" or litter... he must be like an anti-litter crusader.
I think this guy's name was JD, he was from L.A. He had a bunch of cool bikes. This beautiful tallchopper has light-up rollerblade wheels on the front fork that spin when he rolls. The next five pictures are of his bikes.
A daylight shot of the same bike.
This was their camp's art car. I love the onboard trip-high rack.
Kinetic Sculpture Racers tend to be nutjobs. This convoluted thing had something like 1000 gears and a riding mower transmission. It sounded like a 50-gallon drum of bolts when it rolled. Plus the dang thing is amphibious with the floats attached. He had one of high gears hooked up to a propellor.
The same guy made this little pennyfarthing. I like the simple and elegant use of a Schwinn frame.
Now this is just silly. I came across this guy laboring across the desert. Each foot is independent and you can steer by pedaling with one or the other. Pedaling when your feet aren't in sync is a pain in the ass.
I wish I had a better picture of this bike. It was the best one out there. The base was a back-to-back, recumbent quad. Two hammocks hung from the upper platform. On top was a tent, with a shade cloth above it. It was clearly an all-in-one bike that a couple could wander the outback on... really impressive design and thought. I wish I knew more about it.
UPDATE: I've found another picture of this bike. I still wish I knew who built it.
I met a girl with this chopper in Boulder Colorado. It was covered with beer caps.
Johnny 11:16 PM
