A motorized wheelbarrow is not every man’s idea of fun but, then again, Kevin Nicks is not your average man, with average hobbies. So he built the Barrow of Speed.
The Barrow of Speed is a motorized, three-wheel wheelbarrow that is both insanely fast and extremely wobbly, a combination with a very dangerous potential. Kevin Nicks, the man behind the Fastest Shed, created it during lockdown, with zero budget, and presented it to the world as restrictions in his home country, the UK, started easing down.
Back then, he said that he had no idea how fast the Barrow of Speed could go, but he estimated it would be around 40 mph (64.3 kph). As it turns out, it can go even faster: Nicks set a new world record at a recent Straightliners event at Elvington Airfield in North Yorkshire, the Irish News reports.
That record currently sits at 44.6 mph (72 kph) but is yet to be verified by the Guinness Book of World Records. This will happen in about six weeks’ time, when Kevin will ride the wheelbarrow again and hopefully top the base speed of 42.5 mph (68.3 mph). Straightliners already verified his record at the recent event, the publication notes.
“It’s the most bizarre thing ever to ride – the handles of the wheelbarrow move in all directions. Every journey on it is not just going fast in a straight line, you’re trying to avoid crashing, which is great! The adrenaline rush is unbelievable,” Nicks says of his recent record-breaking ride. “As long as it doesn’t kill me, I’ll have set the Guinness record.”
Nicks believes he will be able to go even faster on the Guinness run. Once that out of the way, he will start working on his next project, of which he says it will be “not hugely fast, but bonkers.”
Because the Barrow of Speed was not bonkers enough, apparently.
Here is a video of the motorized wheelbarrow being taken out by someone else than Kevin. The contraption uses a Honda scooter engine and everything else was built from scratch. Because he didn’t have a budget, Kevin used only the stuff he could find around his garage.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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