Powered by a Soviet tank engine and weighing over 5 tons, the Panzerbike is by far the world’s heaviest rideable motorcycle.

The story of the world’s heaviest motorcycle can be traced back to 2003. Brothers Tilo and Wilfried Niebel of the Harzer Bike motorcycle shop in Zilly, Germany, were in Halberstadt where a former Red Army Barracks was being demolished. The two tinkerers have always been of the opinion that old materials can be repurposed, not just discarded, so they were there looking for parts to use in their custom motorcycles. While looking around, the two brothers found an impressive cutaway model of a Soviet T-55 tank engine and were so fascinated by it that they asked if they could have it. Little did they know that this would be the beginning of a very special project that would see them claim a Guinness Record and hold it for nearly two decades.

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Motorcycle chariot racing is a modern take on one of the most popular sports in ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire.

We’ve featured our fair share of unusual sports here on Oddity Central, but motorcycle chariot racing is undoubtedly one of our most unique entries. Replacing the horses of old with some real horsepower in the form of two motorcycles, this unusual sport is making a comeback in the Land Down Under. Originally invented in the early 1900s in Australia, motorcycle chariot racing eventually spread to Europe and the USA before gradually being banned because of the danger to the riders. However, the adrenaline-fueled sport is currently making a comeback in Australia, thanks to a professional stunt rider.

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A New Delhi man was arrested this past Saturday after stealing no less than eight motorcycles to impress his girlfriend who had allegedly teased him about not having one.

The culprit, known only as Lalit, had reportedly never shied away from throwing and attending parties in the New Delhi area, as a way of impressing his girlfriend. But on Valentine’s Day, last month, his efforts appeared pointless as she started teasing him about not having his own motorcycle. She was right, but he felt hurt by her words, so together with a close friend, Lalit decided he would get not one but many motorcycles to prove his worth to his girlfriend. Unfortunately, his plan only landed him in jail.

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If you’re into motorcycles, you’ve probably heard about Bōsōzoku, the Japanese rebel biker gangs often associated with outlandish motorcycle tuning. But what you probably didn’t know is that they like to use their bike to create really loud music.

Thrill-seeking Bōsōzoku gangs have been known to engage in a variety of dangerous and illegal activities, like racing through city streets, weaving through traffic and running red lights, or removing the mufflers on their bikes to make even more noise than usual. But ever since Japanese police started cracking down on illegal Bōsōzoku activities in the early 2000s, they’ve had to come up with new ways of passing time without breaking the law. That’s how they came up with “Bōsōzoku sound battles”, where participants compete in creating the most impressive dubstep tunes using the throttle and clutch on their motorcycles.

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If you’re looking to taste the true spirit of Harley Davidson, but can’t really afford to buy a motorcycle, you could just settle for a $1,000 bottle of gin that contains authentic Harley-Davidson parts.

Uwe Ehinger, a German motorcycle enthusiast who has been collecting vintage motorcycle parts from all around the world for the last 40 years, decided to put his collection to good use by creating the world’s first Harley-Davidson-infused gin. Every bottle of his exclusive Archaeologist Gin comes with a vintage motorcycle engine part submerged in high-quality gin. But it turns out that having a piece of steel swimming in alcohol is both unhealthy and dangerous, so to meet health and safety regulations, the parts are thoroughly cleaned and sealed with a tin alloy, before being soldered to a steel support in the bottle, so that they don’t move around and break it from the inside.

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In the Indian state of Rajasthan, some 50 km from the city of Jodhpur, along National Highway 65, there is a temple. That, in itself, is not unusual, as temples are virtually everywhere in India, but what is strange is that the deities worshiped here are an old Royal Enfield 350cc motorcycle and its deceased owner.

The story of “Om Bana” or “Bullet Baba” temple dates back to an accident that occurred almost three decades ago.  On December 23rd, 1988, Om Singh Rathore, the 23-year-old son of a village elder in Chotila, Pali district, was riding home on his motorcycle when he lost control, hit a tree and was catapulted into a 20-foot, where he died on the spot. His body was discovered the next day, and the broken “Bullet” motorcycle was taken to the police station. And that’s where things start to get weird.

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American artist James Rice has become an internet sensation for creating beautiful motorcycle sculptures using nothing but bent spoons. Photographs of his unique creations have gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of likes and shares. He also sells his figurines on Etsy from time to time, each priced in the range of $3,000 to $4,000.

Spoons are an unusual art medium, and Air Force veteran Rice would probably never have used them if his wife, Jeny Buckley, hadn’t erroneously ordered them for wedding favors. “I had a lot of spoons I erred on, but didn’t want to throw them away,” she said. “I asked Jim to make something cool for me.” Rice, who has always been a good artist,  immediately thought of motorcycles.

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Larry Medwig, from Painesville, Ohio, is so passionate about motorcycles that he can make one out of pretty much anything. A few years ago, he built the aptly-named ‘tractor cycle’ using parts from an old tractor!

Medwig’s unique vehicle has been spotted at various events and hardware stores across Ohio, as reported by a variety of bloggers. The earliest sighting was in 2010, at the ‘Hit and Miss’ show in Orwell. And according to blogger Andy Rupert – who spotted the tractor cycle on display at Joughin’s Hardware shop in Painesville – it looks like a “homemade vehicle” with the “front forks and handlebars made of iron plumbing pipes.”

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Public officer Ricardo Azevedo is turning heads in his hometown of Sao Paulo, Brazil, with his intriguing invention – a motorcycle that runs on water. The revolutionary bike – aptly dubbed ‘T Power H2O’ – is able to travel up to 310 miles (nearly 500 kilometers) on a single liter of water!

In a recently released video, Azevedo is shown drinking from a water bottle before pouring it into the tank to prove that his bike runs solely on water and not some kind of fuel. But clean water is optional, as he later demonstrates by filling the tank with polluted water from the Tiete River.

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The ‘Black Pearl’ is a one-of-a-kind steam-powered motorcycle created by Dutch bike builder René van Tuil, of Revatu Customs. Looking like the love child of a chopper and an old steam engine, the unique vehicle can make any diehard steampunk fan simply drool just looking at it.

Although named after Jack Sparrow’s notoriously fast ship, van Tuil’s amazing creation is anything but fast. Powered by a functioning steam engine, with a rear wheel driven by a large crankshaft, the unique motorcycle can reach an unimpressive top speed of just eight kilometers per hour. That might not be nearly enough for speed junkies, but those who enjoy a leisurely ride will definitely appreciate the chance to take in the scenery at a very slow pace.

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While most modified motorbikes are adorned with tattoo motifs using an airbrush, The Recidivist is unique because its wheels, tank, seat and rear fender are completely covered in tattooed skin. This was achieved by engineering the bike with light colored leather similar to the color of human skin. Polish tattoo artists Tomasz Lech and Krzysztof Krolak then spent a whopping 250 hours inking the bike, using the tools of world-famous supplier Cheyenne Professional Tattoo Equipment. The project was commissioned by Game Over Cycles.

“This is by far the most complicated bike we’ve constructed so far,” the Polish company posted on their Facebook page. “To tattoo the bike is one thing, but to include the construction elements that draw from the look of tattoo machines and make them fully operational units was some challenge.” They also added that the theme of the Cheyenne Bike relates to the traditional relationship between motorbikes and tattoos.

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Would you spend $55,000 on a motorcycle that doesn’t run? Before you make a decision on that, here’s what you need to know – the motorcycle in question is actually made of animal bones. A Florida man created the beast using a lot of pieces from other dead beasts – three to four cow skulls, two to three alligator skulls, bones of goats, wolves, raccoons, turtles and pigs, and a cow spine for each of the wheels. The bike is rather cheekily named: ‘Cowasaki’.

Reese Moore, the bike’s creator, said it takes him about a year to collect all the bones from dead animals on the side of the road, or carcasses from hunters and farmers. It then takes him a week to sand the bones down and but the bike together. It’s not just bikes – the 65-year-old also makes a host of other things with the bones, including dinosaurs and choppers. And when he isn’t doing that, he trains whales and sea lions, builds museum exhibits and performs in Timucuan Indian re-enactments. He was also a snake wrangler at one point.

“I don’t do anything normal,” Moore observed. “I just go around and show off and make weird stuff.” He got into the bones business after using them to make Halloween decorations for his kids sometime in the early 1990s. That year, he made a dinosaur out of an assortment of bones for his sons. When the owner of Froggy’s Saloon asked him if he could take the model, Moore had a better idea. “I was kidding, and I said, ‘I’ll build you a motorcycle for Bike Week.’” The bar-owner said it couldn’t be done and Moore accepted the challenge. “In about three or four days I called him up and told him he could pick up his motorcycle.”

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‘Wheelies’ are the latest accessories for motorcycles, developed by World Moto, a Bangkok-based tech company. Their invention allows bikers to convert a bike’s front wheels into full color LED screens – displaying mobile billboards, videos, animation or text of their choice. What’s great about Wheelies is that the display is stationary even when the wheels are in motion.

According to Paul Giles, CEO of World Moto, “The technology has the potential to turn essentially any wheel in the world into a brilliant, full-color billboard or video screen.” He said that the idea could appeal to motorcyclists who want to put a face on their wheels. “It gives their bike a face, sort of like an avatar.”

The ad for the product is amusing – it shows a gang of ‘hot’ girls choosing a geek on a motorcycle with Wheelies, over a cool biker dude. Wheelies are fun and quirky, and can show 30 seconds of video on a loop, managed by a web application. But they’re still in development stage. World Moto hopes to evolve the product to be able to stream video and play full length movies. Very practical. Not.

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Eleven years ago, Scottish biker Stuart Gunn was involved in a horrific accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Seven years later, following a seizure caused by the same accident, he lost his sight. Last Saturday, he became the fastest blind man on a motorcycle, after after hitting 167.1mph.

In 2002, Stuart Gunn was heading to a hospital for a pre-op on his shoulder. To avoid parking troubles, he decided to ride his bike instead of taking a car. At a junction in Edinburgh, Scotland, a van jumped lanes and crashed into the experienced biker. “When the van hit me, the base of my back hit where the windscreen and roof join. My head and shoulders went through the sunroof and my legs went through the windscreen, literally snapping me in half backwards. He then braked, as you might, and I got lobbed back out of the van,” Gunn remembered in an interview with Suzuki Bulletin. He nearly died, and doctors told him he was never going to walk, let alone ride a motorcycle again. But Stuart had always hated being told what he could and could not do, so he worked hard during his recuperation sessions, and in two years time he was walking with a stick. Unfortunately, the accident had caused more damage than anyone had realized, and in 2008 he started having really bad seizures which eventually left him completely blind and paralyzed on his right side.

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Istvan Puskas, a motorcycle enthusiast from Hungary took the term “chopper” litterally and actually spent the last two years chopping his dream ride from black locust wood.

In the past, we’ve featured a few other unique wooden vehicles, like the bicycles of Slawomir Weremkowicz, or the VW Betle built by Momir Bojic, and even the popsicle stick bike made by Sun Chao, but this is the first functional chopper we’ve ever seen. Istvan Puskas has spent the last two years building a -one-of-a-kind chopper almost entirely out of weather-resistant black locust wood. It’s not clear whether the agricultural machine expert from Tiszaros, 161 kilometers east of Budapest, couldn’t afford to buy himself an ordinary chopper, or if he just wanted to create something that would stand out weherever he went, but his wooden masterpiece certainly got a lot of attention when it was recently unveiled.

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