Custom Bike Maker Goes As Fast As He Can Behind A Ford Zephyr

"Mikeado" (mikeado) 08/07/2013 at 17:01 • Filed to: TwoWheelsGood, Tom Donohou, Ford, Bikelopnik

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Mr. Tom Donohou of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! had a dream. He let it sit there and mature in his head, and before too long he was pedaling like a mofo behind his 1960s Ford Zephyr 6 Mk.III at motorway speeds on a runway somewhere in the United Kingdom of Britainland...shire. This video of his tells the story.

If you need to read some kind of preamble or explanation for whatever reason, then basically he decides to just do it, to make a pushbike that goes as fast as he can make it go, using the tools available to him in his workshop and his old Zephyr as a draft car, which requires some... aerodynamic additions. Oh, and a friend called Royce who makes him the gearing. Fucking massive gearing. I won't tell you how fast he goes because why the hell haven't you watched the video yet?

In the end he was limited by the car and runway length, so he and his mates put it on some kind of bike dyno to find out how fast it can really go. Turns out it can go quite a bit faster! Donohou isn't trying to break the cycling land speed record (167mph in 1995 by a Mr. Rompelburg, if we're talking cycling with a vehicle-provided slipstream), just to see how fast he can get a bike made from the parts he uses for customer bikes to go. It's the kind of shed-engineering adventure sparked by curiosity and the human spirit that we must applaud!

So what's next? Well, as the unfinished Cosworth-powered Capri shown at the end suggests, he's going for 100mph with a more appropriate draft car. I wish him all the best!

HammerheadFistpunch > Mikeado 08/07/2013 at 17:24

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What a great docmumtary of the birth of a nutcase that will ruin [find] his life in the pursuit of his dreams.

doodon2whls > Mikeado 08/07/2013 at 18:20

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Neat...

BTW @ 3:04, I think he's sawing off Florida...

Reference to Stiffler shortly after that.. ;-)

The airstrip looks like the spot that Chris Harris uses...