When bored, horses often chomp down on a fence post and suck air. One theory holds that this gives them a buzz. Another holds that this is baloney. But whether or not horses get lit, horsepower certainly can. And that is the purpose of a pedal tavern.
Known by a variety of names, a pedal tavern is a multi-rider bike built around a bar. The HandleBar, in Indianapolis, runs a fleet of four bikes, each a PedalPub, which is a brand imported from the Netherlands and claimed to be the original bar bike. Ten pedalers sit around the perimeter, and there are spots for six passengers and one (presumably sober) driver. Many places forbid imbibing while pedaling, but PedalPubs run in 28 cities around the U.S.—including Indianapolis, which has no open-container law.
On a brisk Tuesday recently, we went with 10 pedalers to Indy. Our crew consisted mostly of sedentary types, but it included one who had just finished his third Ironman and one who grunted a lot and was weirdly comfortable with the phrase "my spin class." With our group and a 25-gallon cooler of beer aboard—we always test with a full tank of fuel—the rig weighed 4376 pounds. That explains the automotive-grade brakes. Our bike also had a Volvo rear axle and a VW steering wheel. Its owners, brothers Brian and Stephen Lindsay, say that chassis parts are different on each of their bikes.
Our ride started with acceleration testing. We went just an eighth of a mile before our winded, half-stewed pedalers threatened to get off. From our 9-mph trap speed, we can extrapolate that our pedaling crew didn't make much horsepower. We touched 12 mph briefly, then we experienced terminal foot float, a sort of redline in which feet fly off the pedals. Also, we were gasping.
We then settled into a relaxed 5-mph tour of the city. Cruising faster than that or climbing a hill can get tough, and working hard while drinking hard seems like a recipe for vomiting. But many feet make light work, and as a team-building activity, this one's hard to beat. The HandleBar is a novel way to see a city and a fun means of staying busy as you get buzzed. As our blood-alcohol content crept up, so did our cruising speed and the volume of our voices, the former reaching 7 mph and the latter nearing obnoxious. (The Lindsays agree that bachelorette parties are the worst.) Tours book in two-hour chunks, and with time running low, we tried one last top-speed run down a gentle grade. The speed readout flickered past 12 mph, and then the world went dark. Maybe we blacked out. Or maybe we entered a tunnel and lost the GPS signal. Nobody seems to remember.
Party Buses: A PedalPub is about a foot shorter than a GMC Yukon XL Denali but holds nearly twice as many people. The two aren't similar in any other way, either.
GMC Yukon XL Denali/PedalPub
Zero-to-60 mph/Zero-to-6 mph: 7.1 sec/2.3 sec
Quarter-Mile/Eighth-Mile: 15.5 sec @ 91 mph/47.0 sec @ 9 mph
Top Speed: 113 mph/ 12 mph
Braking, 70-to-0/7-to-0 mph: 190 ft/5 ft
Observed Fuel Economy: 15 mpg/1 mpg*
*Beer
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The Vapors
Lasers already help police spot speeders; soon, they could identify drunk drivers, too. A team of Polish researchers has developed a roadside laser to detect alcohol vapor. They aim across the road a laser with a wavelength that is absorbed by the vapor. As cars pass through the beam, any drop in laser strength indicates the presence of booze on an occupant's breath.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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