Crazy Bikes Inc.

Back in my pre teens and early teens I did a lot of.... interesting modifications to bicycles. My dad borrowed an arc welder from a friend of his, and I got quite good at burning holes in the thin walled tubing and filling them back in with welding rods. Ugly welds, but they almost always held fast. I would send out to industrial supply places with the company name "Crazy Bikes Inc". I ended up on a few mailing lists that way.

On Thursday of this week I read in the paper about an exhibit at the Art Center College of Design about bikes. I had never seen this place, tucked up in the hills of Pasadena. A very cool campus, I think I would like to attend there!!!



The exhibit had several examples from the 1800's, this one had an interesting locomotive style propulsion system, another one had a clunky, archaic looking chain drive. A third had an offset wheel hub where you move up and down to propel it. Wild history.


Then they had these interesting examples from the late 1900's, mostly just wacky stuff. There were two pedal powered hydrofoils, that I think I'd like to take out for a spin!!!





One of the wildest contraptions there was this electric powered propulsion system for a gold fish!!! Unfortunately, it was out of commission while we were there. It has a camera that tracks the movements of the fish, and a computer moves the whole contraption in concert with its movements.