Two French biking enthusiasts recently set a new Guinness World Record for the ‘tallest rideable bicycle’ by building a 7.77-meter (25 ft 5 in) behemoth that can (barely) be ridden.

Nicolas Barrioz and David Peyrou came up with the idea for the world’s tallest bicycle 5 years ago, while drinking at a pub, but they actually decided to go through with the project and spent months putting together a plan to make it work. Made from metal alloy, steel, and wood, the unique bike took hundreds of hours to complete in a way that made it rideable, even for a short distance. It may not seem like a challenge, but building a 25-foot rideable bicycle is definitely not as easy as riding a bike. For example, the pedals are connected to the wheels via a 16-meter (53-ft) chain, and because of its extreme height, the bicycle has to move at a speed of around 15-20 km/h (9-12 mph) for the rider to maintain balance.

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Popular Youtuber and DIY master ‘The Q’ recently unveiled the world’s smallest functional bicycle, which, despite its deceptive size, can support up to 100 kilograms of weight.

Named Big Boy, the world’s smallest rideable bicycle was made from scratch, using rollerblade wheels and a strong iron frame. The Q goes into great detail about the build in his impressive YouTube video, which has over 1.4 million views at the time of this writing, but it’s obviously not something that anyone can make at home. Building a tiny bike is one thing, but making sure that an adult can actually ride it is something else entirely. Obviously, Big Boy isn’t the most comfortable bicycle to ride, even for small children, but at The Q demonstrates in his viral DIY video, it can definitely be done.

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Dekochari (デコチャリ) is a bicycle decoration movement specific to Japan, and that is characterized by the use of plywood accessories, chrome plating, elaborate light displays and hi-fi audio systems.

Dekochari can be traced back to the 1970s, back when Japan’s Dekotora truck decoration trend started gaining traction. Unable to unleash their creative decorating talent on trucks, kids started adapting the same general style to their bicycles, and they ended up creating their very own culture. Dekochari thrived right alongside dekotora, but as the trucks’ excessive lighting and extra weight started posing legal problems to drivers, both cultures kind of faded from the roads of Japan, and today dekochari bikes are considered rarities.

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After losing his balance and falling off his bicycle, a bright Chinese engineer dedicated his spare time to designing and building a bike that not only self-balances, but also detects and avoids obstacles.

I never learned how to ride a bicycle, and I always wondered how people managed to keep their balance on those two thin wheels, but thanks to the efforts of Zhi Hui Jun, I may never have to. The talented engineer was fascinated by the self-driving bicycle built by scientists at Beijing Tsinghua University back in 2019, and after suffering a bicycle accident that left him with minor injuries to his face, the young engineer decided to build his own self-balancing bicycle.

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I don’t know what it is about Japanese men and bicycle seats, but for some reason some men can never have enough of these seats. Just a few months after writing about a man who stole 159 bike seats in a year, we now have the story of another Japanese man who claims to have stolen over 5,800 seats over the lasts 25 years.

Hiroaki Suda, a 57-year-old truck driver, was arrested on Feb. 13 after surveillance cameras caught him stealing two bicycle seats worth about ¥8,000 ($75) on Nov. 29 and 30, 2019, at a train station and a parking lot for bicycles in Higashiosaka, Japan’s Osaka prefecture. Suda admitted to the charges, and for some reason confessed to police that he had started stealing bicycle seats about a quarter century before, and had since put together quite and impressive collection.

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The aptly-named SkunkLock is an ingenious bicycle lock that blasts would-be thieves with a disgusting cocktails of chemicals that most of the time causes them to vomit uncontrollably.

When San Francisco-based Daniel Idzkowski learned that over 1.5 million bikes are being stolen across the United States, every year, he decided it was up to him to come up with a more efficient means of theft prevention. After six months of work, he came up with the SkunkLock, a hollow steel U-lock system which houses presurized noxious chemical deterrent that’s even detectable through some of the most advanced gas masks. The proprietary formula, known as D_1, was developed by Idzkowski and his partner Yves Perrenoud, and is perfectly legal.

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Dutch manufacturer VanMoof has come up with a very ingenious way of making sure that its products arrive safely to their customers – printing a flat screen TV on their delivery boxes instead of a bicycle.

VanMoof plans to sell 90 percent of its bicycles online by 2020, but after seeing a considerable number of products getting damaged during deliveries and incurring serious losses, the company was left with two options – rethink its business plan or come up with an effective solution. Luckily, they managed to come up with something so brilliant that it’s bound to be copied by other companies that rely heavily on online sales.

“No matter who was doing the shipping, too many of our bikes arrived looking like they’d been through a metal-munching combine harvester. It was getting expensive for us, and bloody annoying for our customers,” creative director Bex Rad wrote on the company blog. “Earlier this year our co-founder Ties had a flash of genius. Our boxes are about the same size as a (really really reaaaally massive) flatscreen television. Flatscreen televisions always arrive in perfect condition. What if we just printed a flatscreen television on the side of our boxes?”

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At one particular Brazilian jail, inmates don’t actually need both wheels on their bicycle to make an escape. By pedaling on stationary bikes, they can reduce their sentence and also get into shape.

The medium-security penitentiary of Santa Rita do Sapucai, a mountain range city about two hours north of Sao Paolo, has recently made headlines for its controversial sentence-reducing program. Thought up by the local judge, Jose Henrique Mallmann, who said he was inspired by a piece of news he read on the Internet about gyms in the United States where people generate electricity by riding stationary bikes, this two-month old program has inmates doing the same thing to reduce their stay in jail. For every three eight-hour days riding the bikes, criminals have one day of sentence shaved off. It’s a pretty good deals, but like other recently-implemented programs in Brazilian jails, it sparked some controversy around the South-American country.

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Lewis, a small town in Iowa, US, may soon be acknowledged as home to the world’s largest bicycle. A local welder took the task of building a giant bike after hearing the annual Great Bike Ride across Iowa was passing through his town.

Duane Weirich is either one of the biggest cycling fans on the planet or a simply a welder with too much free time on his hands. After learning the Great Bike Ride across Iowa was going to pass through his home town, he decided to honor the even by making a giant bicycle. Although he’s not exactly sure if it qualifies for a new world record, his 32-feet-long, 18-feet-high bike has so far attracted the attention of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Even though the verdict on whether this is the world’s largest bicycle isn’t out yet, cyclists engaged in the cross state bike race haven’t missed the opportunity to have their picture taken with Weirich’s creation. Pleased with the public’s reaction to his efforts, the welder said he plans to complete the bike by actually making it rideable. You’re going to need some longer legs, though.

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Slawomir Weremkowicz, a 59-year-old former plumber from Poland, creates functional bicycles using only wooden components.

The talented woodcarver from Biala Podlaska says he had always wanted to be an artist, and since God gave him the talent of carving wood, he he thought he should do something amazing with it. So he decided to go greener than green and create a series of wooden bikes for which he didn’t use a single gram of metal or plastic. Simply looking at a piece of wood, Slawomir can already envision how he’s going to turn it into one of his bicycle parts, and using simple woodcarving tools like chisels and saws he does just that.

The seat, steering, even the pedals and chain are made only from a variety of wood (oak, ash, beech and plywood) and if you’re looking for screws holding them together, don’t bother, as Slawomir Weremkowicz only uses wooden pegs. Carving an entire wood bicycle is a lengthy process which takes about a year, but when he looks at his completed “wooden dinosaurs”, as he likes to call them”, Slawomir doesn’t regret the time he puts into his work.

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Showcased during the Zhejiang International Bicycle Electric-Cycle Exhibition, this 5.2 meters long electric bicycle can seat eight people and its manufacturer has already applied for the World’s Longest Electric Bike Guinness Record.

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California-based artists Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector used around 340 bicycles and a tricycle to built the Ciclysk – a 65-foot-tall version of the Washington Monument.

The newly installed Ciclysk may be perceived as a monument that encourages people to ride bikes instead of driving cars, but its funding actually came from the “1-percent-for-public-art” that Nissan paid to open a big car dealership just south of where the odd obelisk is now located. Santa Rosa currently has a law that requires one percent of every major construction project be donated towards public art.

Although the Cyclisk looks like it’s made of brand new bicycle parts, artist Mark Grieve says he only used parts that beyond being used on a functional bike. All he did was cover his creation in a special coating that will keep it looking nice and colorful for a long time. The bicycle parts were all donated by members of the Santa Rosa community who were excited to contribute to the creation of their city’s newest landmark.

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