Week - 8 Still working out the steering

So, no test run today. We did start building the side wheels and get most of the car welded. Ity turns out that a 150 dollar welder needs a lot of down-time. By next wekend we should be ready to attach the side wheels, complete the steering and MAYBE, start creating the boat.

Week - 8 The locking System

Now we just need breaks!

Week 8 - These wheels.........

Are all that will keep us from flying into the crowd on raceday. This might be better than NASCAR!

Week 8 - Our helper

Week - 8 More Building

Building the side wheels to keep us on the track

The end of week 7

One final picture. just to show how much we got done today

Done for the day.

Next week, the test drive!

Das Boat!

The girls came over to cook lunch

Almost ready for a test run.

Woo-Hoo!

I feel like dr. Frankenstien

Hehehhaahahahahahaahahah! Power, more power

Damn bikes!!!

More building.....

Well, they're working.  I am taking a break to take pictures. (-;

This might even work!

Well look at that.

The Build Continues

Whats the worst that could happen?

Some catch-up pictures of the build

Whats this do?

Its getting there

Rick helping

Lets weld

A thinking moment

8 Bikes turn into 1 Rail-car

Here are some pictures of our progress. There is more of the bike graveyard and better pictures of the bike the way it is now.

Week 6

Hard at work while Leland welded (-;

The first weld

4 bikes becoming 1

Leleand, the thinking mans welder

Bikes are together kind of, we have them in the right order, replaced a few tires and got all of the bike chains in working order. Time to weld these things together and see what we get. All in all it looks like we will have a fully functioning boat/rail car here soon

Week 5 1/2

OK the bikes are together and the two side have been worked out. We need to get chains on go out and get a welder and some steel.

Week 3, 4, 5. (AKA, The Bike Graveyard)

The graveyard of bikes in the backyard

Lets get rid of all of these extra parts

Hey, that looks like it might actualy work!

Thanks Erin, we had been missing a car model

Lets get these up on the mock railroad track.

We have bikes, a partial plan, and a mock track. Now we need to figure out how to tun 8 Ten speeds into a human powered viking ship that works on a railroad track. Easy enough, whats the worst that could happen? Three weekends later it started to come together.

Week 2

OK , 1st step done now it was time for research. We went to the railroad tracks and took some measurements. After figuring out what the dimensions would be we put our resident carpenter Leland to work building a mock railroad track in Daves backyard.

Week 1

After a few weeks of talking through the plan it was time to start the build. First step, raw materials. We spent the day crossing sonoma county to find the cheapest used 10 speeds we could find. This took us to recycle town, every possible yard sale and the salvation army. This is what we ended up with.

The Rail car Regatta

Dave, Leland ,Will and I didn't think this summer would be busy enough. We decided to throw our hat in the ring and compete in the rail car regatta this year in Santa Rosa. Our idea, to create a viking ship to be powered by the four of us created out of 8 10 speed bikes. Our Team name, The Uff-Da's. Our ship, Welded Sykkelen (Norwegian for welded bikes).

The regatta will be held in Santa Rosa and is a timed race with competing rail cars. The rules, no more than for people and it has to be human powered. Oh, and it has to ride on the railroad tracks.

More information on the Regatta can be found @ http://handcar-regatta.com