Freda Moon gives us the scoop on some not-so-common forms of kinetic transportation.
You could imagine this past weekend's Kinetic Grand Championship as Tour de France meets Burning Man. But really this 3-day bicycle race in Humboldt County, California is an event all its own. In place of traditional bicycles, racers pedal "kinetic kontraptions"-- part sculpture, part bike. Instead of smooth road or velodrome, racers navigate land, sand, mud and water in people-powered art machines built to look like everything from Octomom (an octopus with a baby gripped in each tentacle) to a fire-breathing metallic dragon constructed from discarded aluminum, to a tie-dyed Hippy-Potamus with wiggling ears and batting eyelashes.
The event, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, began when one local sculptor, Hobart Brown, challenged another to a race down the main drag of Ferndale, California. Forty years later, the route is 42 miles long, and takes racers across sand dunes (including one called "Deadman's Drop"), across a bay, up and down a mile-long hill with a seven percent incline and across a river. The race, which draws thousands of spectators each year, has spawned similar events across the country and as far away as Perth, Australia.
You could imagine this past weekend's Kinetic Grand Championship as Tour de France meets Burning Man. But really this 3-day bicycle race in Humboldt County, California is an event all its own. In place of traditional bicycles, racers pedal "kinetic kontraptions"-- part sculpture, part bike. Instead of smooth road or velodrome, racers navigate land, sand, mud and water in people-powered art machines built to look like everything from Octomom (an octopus with a baby gripped in each tentacle) to a fire-breathing metallic dragon constructed from discarded aluminum, to a tie-dyed Hippy-Potamus with wiggling ears and batting eyelashes. The event, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, began when one local sculptor, Hobart Brown, challenged another to a race down the main drag of Ferndale, California. Forty years later, the route is 42 miles long, and takes racers across sand dunes (including one called "Deadman's Drop"), across a bay, up and down a mile-long hill with a seven percent incline and across a river. The race, which draws thousands of spectators each year, has spawned similar events across the country and as far away as Perth, Australia.
Continue reading Tour de France Meets Burning Man.
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