Modify Your Bicycle.

Towards the end of last week many places picked up this story of the London Diving School “inventing” underwater cycling with a cheap mountain bike and a turbo trainer. It’s all good, of course, that it’s being done for charity, but it’s hardly a new invention. In fact Mountain Biking UK did a feature on just that thing in a dim and distant past which appears not to be on the internet. I know it’s in a copy at my parents’ house, but I haven’t been able to make the trip yet. In the meantime, I found more evidence of underwater cycling from the same magazine, with a picture on photographer Seb Rogers’ blog. I think that this photo is fairly conclusively someone underwater on a bike. Mind you, there’s not much that MBUK haven’t done on bikes over the years.

Talking of unusual things to do on a bike, how about using one to collect other bikes for servicing? Like the two-wheeled, pedal-powered version of a pick-up truck it could open up all kinds of possibilities for transporting a spare bike around. Maybe we’ll start seeing similar things at races, as competitors search for that illusive edge during a mechanical. Meanwhile it’s just being used by a South London bike shop to offer a collection service for their customers.

Another use, of course, (and not one FMFT approves of) could be to transport stolen bikes to convenient spray and refit shops (I like to think of cycle thieves operating like some high octane film villains, squealing into underground garages and disguising the bikes in a flurry of activity before releasing them onto quiet back-roads). Perhaps that is what’s going on in Los Angeles, where a huge rise in thefts and in the reprisals to those thefts, seems to be going on on the mean city streets. At least, as the LA Times reports, the police are making some major breakthroughs in busting the gangs open. Just one look at the picture in that report is a testament to either the level of theft, or the success of the Police response.

If you’re going to customise your bike, why stop at just a towing mechanism when you could have the benefits of an electric engine, lights, a roof, doors, stereo, airbag, heating and much, much more. If all that sounds appealing then I suggest you buy a car, and save yourself even having to pedal, or have a look at the truly amazing Emcycle, which takes cycling comfort and convenience to an entirely new level. It’s so wrong, but I want one.

A