An English engineer spent almost 750 hours turning an old Yamaha R6 motorcycle and several hundred pounds of spare steel into the world’s fastest penny-farthing bike.
Popular during the 1870s and 1880s, the penny-farthing bicycle is considered a symbol of the late Victorian period and the ancestor of the modern bicycle. Its odd name was inspired by the size difference between its front and rear wheels, with the British penny coin being considerably larger than the farthing. The iconic bicycle was only in style for about a decade, until the invention of the modern bike, which proved much safer, more comfortable, and easier to ride, but there’s just something about the odd look of the penny-farthing that still fascinates people. Case in point, this young engineer from Swindon, England, who spent hundreds of hours converting a 20-year-old motorcycle into the world’s fastest penny-farthing.
