06/03/2026
It's not just weird and wacky Wednesday...it's also World Bicycle Day!
From self-riding physics to half-million-dollar price tags, bicycles are full of surprising secrets. Here are some of the weirdest and wackiest facts about bikes:
*Bikes can ride themselves: Thanks to a phenomenon called "trail" (the geometry of the fork), a bicycle moving at 8 mph or faster can actually stay upright and ride without a rider!
*The half-million-dollar bike: The most expensive bicycle ever sold is the "Butterfly Trek Madone," designed by artist Damien Hirst. It fetched $500,000 at a Sotheby's charity auction.
* A 135-foot-long ride: The world's longest bicycle is a whopping 135 feet and 10.7 inches long, built by the University of South Australia in 2015.
* 35-person tandem: The longest tandem bike in the world seats 35 people and stretches 67 feet.
*Speeding like a race car: The fastest human-powered bicycle speed is an astonishing \(183.9 \text{ mph}\), set by Denise Mueller-Korenek in 2018. She achieved this by drafting directly behind a race car on a dry lake bed!
*A pedal-less start: The first "bicycle" was invented in 1817 by Baron Karl von Drais. It was called the Draisine or "running machine" and lacked pedals entirely—riders had to push off the ground with their feet.
*Birth of aviation: Before inventing the airplane, the Wright brothers ran a successful bicycle repair and manufacturing shop in Dayton, Ohio.
*Bicycles outnumber people: In Copenhagen, Denmark, bicycles actually outnumber the human population.
When is the last time you were on your bike?
