I look at the calendar on the wall and think, “I should get my bicycle out.” I look at the bathroom scale and think, “I really should get the bike out.” That leads to me reading bicycle-related articles here and there, and this Momentum Mag piece about the Zenga Bros’ Infinity Cycle is really a doozy.
The Zenga brothers are Vancouver-based filmmakers and artists who cobble together wild bikes from any leftover parts available and film their endeavors. There’s something Michel Gondryesque about their creations: Gondry is a famous French movie and music video director, who’s melded reality into strange shapes, sometimes combining cars together for some very unsettling-looking street scenes.
The Zenga siblings, all eight of them, spent their youth building chopper bicycles, tandems, low riders, and eventually focusing on tall bikes. That and some video cameras led to a documentary co-created with Red Bull called Tall Bikes Will Save The World. It’s a 25-minute treatment on, well, tall bikes, and building them from various discarded parts and frames.
In the documentary, you can already see the basic premise of the double decker tandem, an incredibly unwieldy-looking custom bike that mounts the second rider (the stoker, in tandem-bike parlance) sky-high above the first rider (called the pilot or captain, depending on the tandem-fan you’re talking to) rather than behind, as in the standard “bicycle built for two” configuration. Note that both riders have steering controls (traditionally, the stoker’s handlebars are merely handrests, and do not steer), so exactly which position on this tall tandem is “stoker” and which is “pilot/captain” is up for debate, but you get it.
As a logical next step, the bike builders have developed the double decker tandem into something that purportedly solves the problem of having to stop in order for pilot and stoker to swap positions. I think stopping a bicycle that’s as tall and narrow as a giraffe is already so difficult, that you just have to keep it going.
The Infinity Cycle has been built with a ladder in the rear part of the frame, so the upper rider can come down while the lower one keeps pedaling. In addition to this versatile invention, the bike features storage space for whatever you’d want to bring along. A later development also has attachment points for kids’ bikes, so they can also ride along as part of the Infinity Cycle.
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As Benny Zenga says in his Instagram post: “I’ve been travelling by tall bikes for the last 20 years, carrying all my camping and camera gear with me – an often exhausting exercise. So, 10 years ago, I designed the first-ever bicycle built so that two riders could switch places mid-ride, enabling them to go forever without stopping.” I also presume that because the bike goes on forever, the riders can also finish reading Infinite Jest while the other one pedals. I’ve only gotten halfway through and the jest, in that sense, seems infinite.
The Zenga Bros bike builders have set up a Kickstarter campaign, to fund the publication of their photobook Be A Fool: The Infinite Creativity. At the time of writing, the campaign has a little over a week to go. As well as bikes, the book also details the Bros’ other vehicular projects: in addition to a cheerily painted Ford Econoline, they’ve built the Ramper Camper – an electric truck that houses a folding skate ramp on the back. The documentary Skate Break, featuring the tiny truck, was created in partnership with Swatch.
There’s a great line from Christian Zenga in Tall Bikes Will Save The World, which also works in the automotive wrenching context, as he speaks about his ethos.
“Things can be built, repurposed, I’m learning that now. (…) There’s nothing I can’t do, I’ve always thought there’s everything I can do. To realize that in little ways it’s like seeds being planted, Oh, I can do that. If you can build a bike, then I can build a bike.”
I’d love to see the world like that. When did I stop?
Top graphic image: Zenga Bros.
I wear more cycling safety gear than they do, and I’m not 12′ above the ground. Yikes!
This reminds me of the Atomic Zombie web site and book from the early oughts. Living in the Portland are meant tall bikes are almost normal.
Tallbikes had their heyday and aren’t so common these days since CHUNK 666 kinda broke up, but I’m pretty sure they still do tallbike jousting in Col. Summers Park.
I could see Mercedes or one of the LA crew coming up to Portland area for a few stories (Model T driving school, WAAAM antique fly-in, Sam Hill, cargo-bike factory, foodtruck architecture) and getting in a Zoobomb and some tallbike fun.
“I am become death…”
“This Wild Double-Decker Tandem Promises To Do What No Other Bicycle Can”
Add virtical trauma injury to road rash?
During the handoff the top rider comes down but then what happens? You switch positions while coasting while keeping the thing balanced? Bravo to anyone who can pull that off.
I’m okay with bicycle related content. Especially silly stuff like this.
Probably need to air up the Slik on the ’71 Stingray and get out for a cruise myself. Or maybe the rusty GT. Already had my folding bike out.
Coming soon to a Burning Man near you.
Building custom bikes is really fun and massively cheaper and more accessible than cars.
Though uncommon since IDK, maybe the end of the 19th Century, there were tandems with rear steering. I think it may have originally even been the more common version as they were intended for couples with a step through frame front section for the female and a diamond frame rear for the male and, of course, the male couldn’t trust the steering all to the lady! (Setting aside my imaginings of the perpetually-offended modern interpretation, in reality, they were meant for dating, so the male would ride to pick up his date and, well, he needed to be able to steer when he was riding alone.)
Rear wheel steering on anything with two wheels seems incredibly sketch. And I say this knowing about the one kid’s bike that had front and rear steering….
No, I should have been clearer, it’s rear position steering. The rear rider steers the front fork from their handlebars via linkage. There have also been tandems that are steerable from both positions with the rear using a similar system. Some people have used them to make interesting customs where they largely remove the front riding position.
Ahhh, I see. Thanks for clarifying.
Semi-recumbent tandems and Kid Tandems still steer from the rear position. Tandems like the Bilenky Viewpoint and Haas Pino have a recumbent stoker seat out front with an upright captain’s position behind. The Kid Tandem has child sized smoker seats in front with an adult sized captain’s position behind so the kids have a good view and the adult can easily see the kids.
I rode a Pino once. I’d like to give it a try again now that I’ve been riding a bakfiets for awhile. It was wiggy coming from a mixte, but I might do better now that I’m used to having the steering so far forward of my position?
That’s pretty cool.
Gotta love 19th-century sensibilities…he needed to steer when riding alone, so let’s add a linkage for redundant controls instead of , you know, just sitting in the *girl’s* seat.
Those sensibilities are still out there. My favorite custom bike is a hot pink and yellow ACME rocket on a turquoise step through frame. It started as a joke drawing to mock a bunch of guys on a custom bike site who lamented that antique step through frames were common and cheap, but they wouldn’t ride a “girl’s bike”, so I drew up a concept for a step through frame that might be phallic enough to allow them to ride it without being gross. Then I ended up with my mother’s old bike and a build contest came up, so I built it. Everyone loves it and it’s the safest bike I own as it turns out drivers don’t want to kill you when you make them laugh and you don’t look anything like the roadies they hate. It’s also amazingly comfortable despite being a little too small for me, though maybe sexual dimorphism could account for a sensible reason for the separate rider positions in that the front would likely be adjusted to be too small, though frames back then were larger than today for a given size rider. I had an 1890s frame I ended up donating because I was never going to end up restoring it and the head tube was almost something you’d expect on one of those goofy bikes for really tall people today. My 1912 Iver Johnson is one of the smaller sizes they made and I’m about 6″ taller than the average male of the time and I have fairly long limbs, yet I can barely stand over the top tube without leaning it to the side.
This one “article” going to have me taking a one hour lunch break to watch the goodies.
There is absolutly a zero percent chace I would not end up at the hospital trying to use that. Brittle old bones break easilly, this seems like someting for the young and agile (and durable), preferabley with good health insurance.
I think I would pay very close attention to the vertical clearance signs or Delaware’s boat fenders.
They’re in Canada, so the health care isnt an issue. Trust me, ive had many self inflicted, bicylce related injuries. My life would be so boring if i had to worry about how much i had to pay when i hurt myself doing fun sh”t on bikes
“The Zengabike is coming
and everybody’s jumping
Vancouver to Toronto
This bike will fail at limbo…”
This looks like something straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.
How high do you have to be to build and ride this?
It took me a second to realize you weren’t referring to how tall someone is.
About [lifts a hand] this much.
High as a kite.
Half my bmx friends were straight edge. The other half, well I don’t know where they are. I want this “skate” furniture, a 20inch bmx bike and better insurance STAT.
I can’t wait to see this on the 11 foot 8 bridge videos
“I look at the calendar on the wall and think, “I should get my bicycle out.” I look at the bathroom scale and think, “I really should get the bike out.””
Me, too.
Then I look at the 2-feet of snow in the yard, and the low of 12ºF tomorrow and I say, “Crap!”
Why do today that which can be put off until tomorrow?
Just wait a week, it will be 92 tomorrow and too hot to bike.
Next thing you know you look at a bike notice the seat and think “That thing will be lost forever and I don’t think I could pay someone enough to go looking for it.”
Tomorrow’s high is 31ºF.