FLCC> Some very cool bikes

[Amanda and Mark Shenstone]

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2007/10/gallery_bike_hacks
Check out the photos here of some beautifully 
hacked bikes. There are ten featured here. This is 
the first one:
Bike Hackers Get Whimsical With Two-Wheelers
By Sonia Zjawinski
See related story:
10.17.07 | 12:00 AM
Bicycles, like cars, are chock-full of parts that 
can be replaced, but simply switching out silver 
aluminum rims for hot-pink ones is child's play. 
Welcome to the world of bike modding, where 
bicyclists get creative and turn their 
two-wheelers into rolling works of art and 
artifice.

>From upgrading their bikes' usefulness -- with 
built-in grocery carts, railway attachments, 
snowshoes and the like -- to just pimping them out 
with sound systems and arty add-ons, bicycle 
tinkerers work to improve the standard two-wheel 
ride in ways both practical and phantasmagorical.

Left: Built by starving poet Billy Jones of 
Greensboro, North Carolina, this hybrid ride is 
powered by both pedal and gasoline. While it can't 
get airborne -- the bike's propeller is just a 
ceiling fan -- it can reach 20 mph and gets 100 
miles per gallon. "The design was trial and 
error," says Jones, who built the Wackemall using 
parts from different junk bikes, a futon and 
assorted pieces of scrap steel. "Weld it together, 
take it down the road, and grind off what didn't 
work before welding something else on."

It took Jones and his brother $700 and three 
months of nights and weekend labor to finish the 
Wackemall. Using what they've learned, the pair 
now sells motorized bike kits, but customers 
beware: You may have some trouble convincing 
officials that your ride is legal. The day after 
he finished his street plane, Jones rode it in his 
town's annual Independence Day parade. On his way 
home, he was stopped by the North Carolina Highway 
Patrol. After 30 minutes of calls to his 
dispatcher and the local Department of Motor 
Vehicles, the copper finally let Jones and his 
barely street-legal chopper go.

Photo: Billy Jones


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Amanda and Mark Shenstone
Graceful Gardens
PO Box 100
Mecklenburg, NY 14886
607.387.5529
http://www.gracefulgardens.com
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