Videos: Penny Farthing crashes, suicidal cyclists & bike hacks

The road.cc cycling video round-up is back with a crash and a bang this week. The crashing and banging comes from the weird and wonderful world of obscure bicycle races - namely Penny Farthing and garage racing.

If you're unsure about Garage Racing, it's pretty much what it sounds like. A bunch of urban cyclists take to a slippery multi-storey parking garage and race up and down the thing. It's brilliant and brutal.

We're not going to spoil your cycling video appetite by starting you off with all the drama, instead we'll give you a suicidal cyclist having a number of close calls and some outrageous driving antics to whet your appetite.

Later on you've got an OAP RLJing on a Penny Farthing, the Hack Bike Derby which is an incredible two day event that sees frame builders pit their wits against each other on a strict budget, and Bradley Wiggins opening up about his past - namely his first ever experience buying a Fred Perry.

Deep stuff.

Suicidal cyclists rides the wrong way on the motorway

The USA isn't renowned for it's strict driving laws, or fantastic drivers, but we imagine that it's frowned upon to split traffic on the wrong side of the highway, especially when you're on a BMX.

Absolutely crazy. Our reaction was somewhat similar to the rather sweary motorcyclist who filmed this bizarre encounter.

Driver caught using a laptop at the wheel

From mental cycling behaviour, to downright deplorable driving. 

The woman who has been caught here by road safety campaigner and infamous YouTuber Lewis Dadiare claimed that because her car was in 'park' and she was at a red light that it was okay for her to be using her laptop. 

She said: "It's a red light. What I'm doing isn't anything to do with you. It's a red light, just carry on."

She didn't hang around much after that brief interaction. We're not surprised.

Hack Bike Derby

This looks fun.

Really fun.

The blokes over at Hack Bike Derby have pretty much nailed the perfect cycling weekend in our eyes.

Teams of framebuilders pit their wits against each other in a competition to build the best bike - based on the famous and groundbreaking Kruser - and win races on muddy tracks in the West Country wilderness.

Two days in deep dark Somerset. Tents, beers, homebrew bicycles, races, crashes, open fires, and loads of mud. Stunning.

OAP red-light-jumping on a Penny Farthing

We've had some dangerous driving and riding antics so far into today's video round-up.

This one takes the cake as possibly the most bizarre.

It's not often you see a Penny Farthing on the streets, but this elderly gentleman appears to be out riding totally un-ironically.

Not only that, but he blatantly jumps the red light at the crossing in this video.

We can't help but applaud his style.

National Penny Farthing Championships crash

From a gentle Penny Farthing ride to something equally as dated, but significantly higher octane.

This clip here is from the National Penny Farthing Championships - who knew there was such a thing?

And, as you'd expect with seriously dated machines, reliability can be an issue. So, it's not too much of a surprise to us that one of the frames had a catastrophic failure.

That's a long way to fall.

Tall Bike Tour

Sticking to the theme of cycling at a height greater than six foot, we've got some footage from the Zenga Bros and their Tall Bike Tour.

The premise of this project was for the brothers to build their own tall bikes and travel around the USA taking all of their supplies - tents, food, and clothes - with them attached to these enormous vehicles.

While on their tour they took art and creativity workshops, as well as gatherings for people to make art, share food and enjoy music.

Great and bizarre stuff.

Garage Race 2016

Here we have the brutally exhilarating 2016 Garage Race.

Just like it says on the tin, this is a race around a garage - which translates into English English as a multi-storey car park.

It's wet, it's slippery, it's steep, and it looks like great fun.

San Francisco power tool daylight bike robbery

When we think about bike theives doing their thing, we usually expect them to be at least a little bit subtle.

Our imaginations usually go to blokes dressed in black hoodies equipped with secateurs clipping chains in the dead of night.

We don't expect older blokes in trench coats to be sawing through U-locks with loudy and sparky power tools on busy streets city centre streets in broad daylight.

At least one onlooker seemed worried enough to question the bloke and get her phone out. We're not sure if she called the police or not, though.

What do you do with a redundant front mech?

Got a spare front mech that you're not using? Maybe you just moved to a single-ring drive train and consigned your trusty front derailleur to the spare parts box.

Either way, they're not useless. Really.

The guys at Fairdale Bikes have got a raft of ideas both bizarre and practical for those retired mechs.

Our favourite is the bottle opener. We might build one.

Bike prams - a solution for the past, present, and future

Cycling innovation, as we've already seen in the Fairdale Bikes video above, comes in all shapes and sizes.

We found a lot of cycling pram videos this week. Some of them were old, some of them were new, some of them seemed weird, some like a good idea.

Would you invest in one of these?

Bradley Wiggins's first... Fred Perry?

Finally, here's a window into Britain's favourite cyclist's psyche - or his fashion sense.

There's not much more to say about it.

Wiggins likes red Fred Perry polos. Who knew?