DIYer Flies Downhill at 60mph on a Rocket-Like Gravity Bike Built From Scrap Metal

Paul Firbank, aka the Rag and Bone Man, is an artistic individual and an ingenious craftsman. He is a 43-year-old from England who likes to build things from scrap metal. He comes from a sculptural, furniture-making background, but over the years, he’s made everything from clocks to lamps, lighting fixtures, and even a strange-looking three-wheeler for his kid, which was part skateboard, part scooter, part tricycle.

An art college graduate, Paul also studied plumbing, welding, and worked as a tattoo artist. In the end, he settled for making and selling his own artworks using reclaimed materials, which is a smart idea both money-wise and for the good of the planet.

His latest challenge was one received from Red Bull, which approached the creative DIYer for a one-of-a-kind gravity bike. The Rag and Bone Man outdid himself managing to build the unique scrap vehicle using, among others, a broken bicycle, a bed frame, and airplane parts.

As Firbank admitted for Red Bull, he wanted his vehicle to be really aerodynamic and look like a rocket ship. Luckily for him, he had a nose cone-shaped airplane part in his workshop, and he went from there.

If you think about big commercial airliners, underneath the flap at the back of the wing, there’s a mechanical component that controls the flap going up and down. Streamlined fiberglass that is nose cone-shaped covers this up, and that’s exactly what the creative craftsman used, as he told Red Bull.

Other airplane components were used as well because he liked the materials they were made of. For instance, bits of aircraft seats were turned into the bike’s forks. A spring from a kid’s mountain bike was also put to good use in the unique build. The gravity bike also received a cool paint job at the end.

The thing with gravity bikes is that they get really fast when they start their steep descent, which is why this is considered a dangerous sport. Gravity biking is banned in several places around the world after several riders lost their lives practicing this sport.

Right now, the top speed reached on such a bike is 78 mph (125 kph), with this being the world record, set in Canada. The rocket bike built by the Rag and Bone Man didn’t break the record, but it did manage to top some bone-chilling speeds.

At the first attempt, the vehicle reached around 45 mph (72 kph), but it wasn’t the best location to test it, as cars were coming at him on the other side of the road. After changing the hill, Firbank succeeded in hitting 60 mph (96.5 kph), and he claims that if he had an even bigger hill, it would have been possible to match the world record. Placing the nose cone of the vehicle behind him might have also helped reach even higher speeds.

The entire project had a learning curve to it because most of the time it is hard to know how something will work in practice, just based on some calculations. So maybe we’ll see an improved version of the gravity bike in the future. All Firbank is waiting for is for Red Bull to ask for a sequel and he's willing to make some changes and try to break the world record.

Meanwhile, you can watch the entire building process of this gravity bike in the video below.