The twist is that you can not use any existing bicycle parts! Every part they decide to use (brake,gears,wheels,cables and even- the bearings if you want to go that far)can not come from a bicycle, moped or motorbike. For the final competition build a course that makes each team use the two main functions gearing and breaking.Something like a straightaway, then a hill,a nice sharp right hander at the bottom of the hill then back to the start finish line for the next team member. May the best bike win!

-- Juergen Eisele (JEisele01@snet.net), March 02, 2001

Answers

"Brakes? We don't need no stinkin' brakes."

-- Dan Denney (rustrenegades@hotmail.com), March 02, 2001.

Oh I must have left out the fact that at the base of the hill there would be a pile of manure insted of haybale. Breaks you bet!

-- Juergen Eisele (JEisele01@snet.net), March 02, 2001.

Manure would be "stinkin'" brakes for sure. This sounds like a good challenge, to make the bikes light enough, and put the necessary things in them to make them work as a pedal bike. Waddy

-- Waddy Thompson (cthomp3851@aol.com), March 02, 2001.

All terrain human powered kinetic sculptures! That's the ticket....Yeah.....

-- Duane Flatmo, Art attack (flatmo@humboldt1.com), March 04, 2001.

OK maybe I am heaping manure on this one but I have a couple of questions to ask, and this is a good idea/challenge.

If they can't get anything from a bicycle, moped or motorbike what are they going to us, truck tires? Maybe so but it would take a frigging gorilla to pedal it.

You know if you put the above rules on a motor bike it would be difficult at best. This is a difficult challenge.

By the way, the manure at the bottom sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. LOL

-- Richard James Retey (theswampie@cs.com), March 06, 2001.

I like the idea of a pedal driven vehicle, but it would have to hold all four team members at once, and all four would have to pedal! Of course, if you had to build something like that, most bicycle frames and bicycle parts would be far too flimsy to use, so . . . . You'd have to cobble something together from the junk in the yard! (Hey, I think we have the makings of a show here!) The course wouldn't have to be too outlandish- or even off-road. Just getting around the parking lot could be a challenge.

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), March 06, 2001.