Two wheels and a handlebar. Pete Hummers scoots around the Outer Banks of North Carolina on a Kickbike and a Footbike.
The great Dutch champion has written a post for the FootbikeUSA weblog with news from the Netherlands.
Among other things, he says he expects Peter Groeneveld to break his (Mario’s) 24-hour record, on his own (Peter’s) self-made carbon footbike “with two 28-inch wheels, with a total weight of 4,3 kilograms.” I’d like to see that bike!
It’s a beautiful cruiser, created by Yahoo! Kickbiking mail-list member Elden. He writes: Read the rest of this entry »
This excellent Frank Patterson illustration perfectly captures the ennui of the cold-season (foot)bike enthusiast. We’re exploring exercise and transportation variants and tweaking our rides. That nut must have rolled under the bed.
Well, what with eating and exercising like a hunter-gatherer, I’ve been going around in minimal footwear for a while now, influenced first by this article that I read in April, 2008:
Shoes are bad. I don’t just mean stiletto heels, or cowboy boots, or tottering espadrilles, or any of the other fairly obvious foot-torture devices into which we wincingly jam our feet. I mean all shoes. Shoes hurt your feet. They change how you walk. In fact, your feet – your poor, tender, abused, ignored, maligned, misunderstood feet – are getting trounced in a war that’s been raging for roughly a thousand years: the battle of shoes versus feet.
Jack Humphries has posted some beautiful pictures from his recent western Australia kicking vacation on Picasa.
It’s a perfect environment for Kickbiking. Perth has maybe the best network of cycle paths of any major city. all around the beautiful Swann river which is more like a huge lake, beautifully smooth wide paths and mostly level.
When he “gestured hypnotically,” you saw what he wanted you to. FootbikeUSA’s Moses has a little bad news: They won’t be paying to ship Footbikes any more.
We looked around for some mind control-like verbage that would let you know that everything was “going to be alright” and that it “wouldn’t hurt a bit” to see that the costs of our Footbikes were going to increase.
Shogo Takeda has posted a video on YouTube (which, sadly, is only a montage of static shots) of his custom Kickbike, which he fitted with a pulse-jet engine. It’s a handsome beast, but I fear after the first test ride we may read about Shogo in the Darwin Awards. (Famous last words: Hey guys, watch this!) Still, it’s a pipterino!
Soundtrack: what else? Rocket in my Pocket.
Update, 10 Jan.: Shogo tests the ignition system.
Or, The Quirkiness of the Long-Distance Kicker. Deb Stewart tells a tale of footbiking the Great Victorian Bike Ride, 550km in 8 days from Portland to Geelong, Australia. From her Day 1 entry:
A cyclist asked, “You’re not seriously going all the way on that are you?”
“Yep”
“The whole 50kms?!”
“I’m doing the whole 550kms on it,” I told him.
“You’re doing the whole ride on that thing?”
“Well unless I’m abducted by aliens or eaten by a rogue kangaroo, I plan to.”
Day 2’s entry is here.
Today’s Fantasy Footbike is under the great Italian bicycle racer Fausto Coppi, shown here climbing during the 1949 Giro della Terra del Cuculo della Nube (Tour of Cloud-Cuckoo Land). Click on the pic for a larger version.
The boffins at Amazon.com have released their numbers on this year’s Christmas sales. Not only was the Razor A Kick Scooter (Don’t buy it! I make nothing on these Amazon links – anyway, I wouldn’t wish the Razor A Kick Scooter on anybody) the top seller in Sports and Outdoors again, but the Kindle outsold all their physical books, including, miserabile dictu, this and this (both of which mention footbiking)! C’mon, people!
Peter's photos only here
Gary Schmitt: Kick Racer Primal Living in the Modern World
Outer Banks Onstage
