Penny-farthing bicycles have a cool design but are quite impractical due to the large discrepancy between the front and the back wheels. However, that didn’t stop an engineer named Gregory Mitchell from building a penny-farthing motorbike.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Gregulations, Mitchell showcased a time-consuming but quite fun project: applying a penny-farthing bicycle design to a motorcycle. It took him more than 400 hours to turn his ideal into a reality, but the result is quite impressive.
Mitchell first took apart a Yamaha YZF-R6 he bought online and fitted it with a custom-built swing arm and a large 364-pound front wheel. The penny-farthing motorbike, called Super Farthing, also has sports support wheels, which aid in maintaining balance.
After completing the project, Mitchell went for a test ride that proved his creation could be used on the road. However, he himself wouldn’t recommend it due to the numerous flaws that come with it.
“What I love most about the Super Farthing is that what I’ve made here is actually terrible. It’s worse in every measurable way. It’s so much slower, horrendously expensive, laughably impractical, and, despite all of that, I challenge you to sit there and tell me this is not insanely cool,” Mitchell said.
Watch the full video below.
