Applies to bicycles too
Throwing a wooden pole into the spokes of a motorbike’s front wheel will cause it to flip. (Based on a scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)
BUSTED
The Mythbusters first obtained a bike similar to the type used during filming of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They built a mechanized rig that could fire a pole at human-like speeds. During a full-scale test with the bike moving at a speed of 40 miles per hour, the bike snapped the wooden pole without stopping, busting the myth. Undeterred, The MythBusters decided to redo the test with a steel pole. Although the steel pole did stop the bike, it skidded instead of flipping, definitively busting the myth. The team analyzed the movie scene and discovered that explosives were used to flip the bike. They then built a mortar and used it to flip the bike in an elaborate recreation of the movie scene.
Riding my MTB on a trail a year ago, I rolled over a stick which flipped up into the spokes of my front wheel. Broke two spokes and immediately flipped the bike with me on it. Mythbuster busted.
I’ve had it happen to me twice. Once at the age of 12 when a friends little brother stuck a broomhandle in my precious “Free Spirit” 10 speed (which weighs about as much as a motorcycle) and I flipped over the front. Second time was a few years ago with debris that sucked my fender up into the front wheel. A different application of the same principle. Neither was disastrous, but they weren’t fun either.
A bent fork and front rim is a lot more than slight damage, and should really make the owner assess the costs of repair to a new bike. I think I’d generally pay to fix the bike if it was worth it, but it depends on the bike and the owner.
I agree it’s better to have a damaged bike and to catch the thief. And you know that Kickstand will fix the bike! :) Watch, he’ll smack the thief with it or something! lol
Any amount of damage to the bike would be worthwhile – especially if you accidentally hit the thief with the bike while he was face down and dazed from the face-plant.
Not that I have such a low opinion of thieves… honest! ;o)
I know, right? I grew up in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, but now live in Boston. You’ll find scrapers everywhere here. We even have a pushbroom for the snow drifts when the brush just isn’t getting the job done.
The car did stop and the driver actually (sort of) tries to help! Quite unexpected, especially since car drivers are very dehumanized in the cartoon… I mean, most of the times you see just a door, hardly ever a face.
Yeah!
Look closely though the glass parts (windows, they call them) and you’ll see actual people inside.
Strange, but true.
There have been suggestions that they are a sub-sepcies, but science has yet to establish that view.
scraper is a hard plastic tool having a wide flat blade not unlike a spatula but tapered to fatter. It is applied to iced glass in the vain hope that it will remove the ice from the glass. If the ice is irregular enough, such as with frost, this will work, but if the ice is smoothly deposited, such as an ice storm or melt/freeze cycle, it is a sisyphean task.
I find that for minor frost an old plastic card like a dead calling card or old debit card works just fine.
There’s always an ice scraper under my seat though.
My town, in the North of England (and around about the middle of Great Britain) we’re pretty much at the same latitude as Edmonton (Alberta) and the fat part of Newfoundland, but thanks to the gulf stream keeping the land warm we get much milder winters than places in mainland Europe that are a good bit further south. There’s so little need for serious snow gear here that it’s only the rare few who get winter tyres or snow chains and we don’t have a fleet of snow ploughs ready to clear the roads – it’s more economical for the country to grind to a halt for a few days than to stop it happening.
Most people have dirt-cheap (think, about a dollar) plastic scrapers and those that don’t often just use an old credit card. (Seriously!)
I’ve lived in places with a real winter (French alps) so know what it’s like and I’ll take our gulf stream influenced maritime climate over any other.
I have two scrapers in my car even now! It isn’t only in Cleveland…New Englanders leave winter necessities in their cars year-round, too! (I also have a space blanket, sand and my felt pac lined boots in the car)
Nah, Team Cinzano used a frame pump. The clip is on youtube somewhere. Classic scene… We got a lot of mileage out of that as a joke when we rode with people we didn’t like so much.
Huh. My first thought was he was gonna hit the theif’s hands and face with the brush side of the scraper (OUCH) forcing the theif to let go of the bike. I must need more coffee this morning.
Forget the spokes, think a fairly sharp and pointy piece of hard plastic, up side the head as an attitude adjustment. Snow brushes with ice scrappers aboard are cheap enough ($2-$3 or so), that if you have one in the car and a kid asks for it, your more likely to provide it, then something that costs a lot more money. When I had a car, the snow brush lived in the back seat in the winter, and generally ended up in the trunk during the summer. I always kept other stuff in the trunk, a shovel, jumper cables, think if I buy a car again I’ll add some of those safety triangles, space blanket, first aid kit, a couple of candles and a book of matches. Seriously if you break down in winter a small candle kicks out a lot of heat…..
In Cincinnati if you don’t wipe the fog off your bike mirror it will frost in the winter. I use a credit card to clean it off when it gets bad. The glasses are the real problem, they fog at the stop lights. They tend to clear when you get moving, but I hate entering an intersection half blind. Ahh, You can dress for the cold in Cincinnati, but the Summer heat is a ****. Today is nice! Not too hot or humid on the ride to work.
This is going to end badly. Can you imagine the outrage when Fox8 gets a hold of the exclusive cell phone video of a black kid beating up a white man for his bike?
Ha. Avoid the Plain Dealer comment threads. Sometimes I think it’s impossible to register for newpaper commenting without somehow first proving you’re a card carrying bigot.
First… Yes I am in Cleveland. I grew up in Pittsburgh.
Scrapers are always in my car, and I think I have a supply of them in my garage. We would take them out of the car and get caught in a snow storm and have forgotten to put them back in the car.
We get alot of visitors from Israel at work, and the rental cars usually have these tiny little scapers that barely reach part of the windshield. I think we have a supply at work for those cases.
But my best scraper story was trying to scrape off the window of an Explorer in Raleigh with one of those scrapers. I just turned the heater on and hoped the snow would melt. I could reach about 1 foot of the window while standing in the doors. Big car, short person, tiny scraper make things difficult.
Ouch! That’s gonna’ hurt…
Scraper through the front spokes = cartwheel. Stops thief but damages bike?
I love the ‘Only in Cleveland’ comment too!
Applies to bicycles too
Throwing a wooden pole into the spokes of a motorbike’s front wheel will cause it to flip. (Based on a scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)
BUSTED
The Mythbusters first obtained a bike similar to the type used during filming of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They built a mechanized rig that could fire a pole at human-like speeds. During a full-scale test with the bike moving at a speed of 40 miles per hour, the bike snapped the wooden pole without stopping, busting the myth. Undeterred, The MythBusters decided to redo the test with a steel pole. Although the steel pole did stop the bike, it skidded instead of flipping, definitively busting the myth. The team analyzed the movie scene and discovered that explosives were used to flip the bike. They then built a mortar and used it to flip the bike in an elaborate recreation of the movie scene.
Yes apply to motorcycles ONLY! Bicycle would flip due to weight. Been there done that!
Riding my MTB on a trail a year ago, I rolled over a stick which flipped up into the spokes of my front wheel. Broke two spokes and immediately flipped the bike with me on it. Mythbuster busted.
Ditto, Raleigh 3-speed in an orange grove, years ago. Landed in nice soft dirt, fortunately.
I’ve had it happen to me twice. Once at the age of 12 when a friends little brother stuck a broomhandle in my precious “Free Spirit” 10 speed (which weighs about as much as a motorcycle) and I flipped over the front. Second time was a few years ago with debris that sucked my fender up into the front wheel. A different application of the same principle. Neither was disastrous, but they weren’t fun either.
Better to have a slightly damaged bicycle than none at all.
A bent fork and front rim is a lot more than slight damage, and should really make the owner assess the costs of repair to a new bike. I think I’d generally pay to fix the bike if it was worth it, but it depends on the bike and the owner.
I agree it’s better to have a damaged bike and to catch the thief. And you know that Kickstand will fix the bike! :) Watch, he’ll smack the thief with it or something! lol
Any amount of damage to the bike would be worthwhile – especially if you accidentally hit the thief with the bike while he was face down and dazed from the face-plant.
Not that I have such a low opinion of thieves… honest! ;o)
…nice
http://www.chainreaction.com/squirrels.htm
Squirrels in the front spoke are known to break forks.
In “Breaking Away”, wasn’t it a frame pump wielded by the Italian team that flipped Dave into the ditch?
Yep, you are correct sir.
Thus the verb “to Cinzano” someone. E.g. “He’s gonna Cinzano that bike thief.”
WOW!!! This could be bad for the thief… Come on Stokes!
why ‘only in cleveland’ ?
I know, right? I grew up in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, but now live in Boston. You’ll find scrapers everywhere here. We even have a pushbroom for the snow drifts when the brush just isn’t getting the job done.
Not ‘Only in Cleveland’. It’s winter long enough in Pittsburgh that we leave them in the car year round, too.
Try any city in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Upstate NY (three places I’ve lived and can guarantee it).
Yep, In Buffalo here there is one behind my front seat still.
And any city in Michigan.
Same thing in Brookston, which is in northern Indiana.
Agreed… Boston too…
Or is it just me that keeps it there so I know where it is next winter?
Is the joke really that obscure? Or is it just that everyone here is humourless?
‘Only in Cleveland’ as in “Only in Cleveland would someone ask for a window scraper in July.”
When I moved to California from Pennsylvania in 1984, I still had one in the car … for years in fact.
The car did stop and the driver actually (sort of) tries to help! Quite unexpected, especially since car drivers are very dehumanized in the cartoon… I mean, most of the times you see just a door, hardly ever a face.
Cars are driven by humans?
Yeah!
Look closely though the glass parts (windows, they call them) and you’ll see actual people inside.
Strange, but true.
There have been suggestions that they are a sub-sepcies, but science has yet to establish that view.
I always thought they were being held captive! You mean they’re in those boxes voluntarily???
Maybe he is going to slap the thief across the back or arms with it? I don’t actually knwo what a scraper is since we don’t use them in sunny Perth.
scraper is a hard plastic tool having a wide flat blade not unlike a spatula but tapered to fatter. It is applied to iced glass in the vain hope that it will remove the ice from the glass. If the ice is irregular enough, such as with frost, this will work, but if the ice is smoothly deposited, such as an ice storm or melt/freeze cycle, it is a sisyphean task.
I find that for minor frost an old plastic card like a dead calling card or old debit card works just fine.
There’s always an ice scraper under my seat though.
Just this last week, I thought I’d gotten the last window scraper out of my car only to find another one yesterday. Sigh, only in Cleveland!
I’m in England (original, not new :p ) and my window scraper stays in my door pocket all year round as I’d loose it otherwise.
If it can fit in your door pocket it isn’t substantial enough to catch a bike thief or cope with lake effect winter.
My town, in the North of England (and around about the middle of Great Britain) we’re pretty much at the same latitude as Edmonton (Alberta) and the fat part of Newfoundland, but thanks to the gulf stream keeping the land warm we get much milder winters than places in mainland Europe that are a good bit further south. There’s so little need for serious snow gear here that it’s only the rare few who get winter tyres or snow chains and we don’t have a fleet of snow ploughs ready to clear the roads – it’s more economical for the country to grind to a halt for a few days than to stop it happening.
Most people have dirt-cheap (think, about a dollar) plastic scrapers and those that don’t often just use an old credit card. (Seriously!)
I’ve lived in places with a real winter (French alps) so know what it’s like and I’ll take our gulf stream influenced maritime climate over any other.
Okay, well, respectfully that’s all common knowledge.
So Stokely now has a “scraper bike”?
hah!
I had to.
I’m scrapin’ on my scraper bike-trunkboiz
I have two scrapers in my car even now! It isn’t only in Cleveland…New Englanders leave winter necessities in their cars year-round, too! (I also have a space blanket, sand and my felt pac lined boots in the car)
Don’t always have a scraper, but usually have a breaker bar handy. Lug nuts can be so stubborn.
In “Breaking Away” I though the Italian racer snapped off a tree limb and stuck it in the boy’s spokes. I really need to watch that movie again soon.
Nah, Team Cinzano used a frame pump. The clip is on youtube somewhere. Classic scene… We got a lot of mileage out of that as a joke when we rode with people we didn’t like so much.
Huh. My first thought was he was gonna hit the theif’s hands and face with the brush side of the scraper (OUCH) forcing the theif to let go of the bike. I must need more coffee this morning.
Forget the spokes, think a fairly sharp and pointy piece of hard plastic, up side the head as an attitude adjustment. Snow brushes with ice scrappers aboard are cheap enough ($2-$3 or so), that if you have one in the car and a kid asks for it, your more likely to provide it, then something that costs a lot more money. When I had a car, the snow brush lived in the back seat in the winter, and generally ended up in the trunk during the summer. I always kept other stuff in the trunk, a shovel, jumper cables, think if I buy a car again I’ll add some of those safety triangles, space blanket, first aid kit, a couple of candles and a book of matches. Seriously if you break down in winter a small candle kicks out a lot of heat…..
In Cincinnati if you don’t wipe the fog off your bike mirror it will frost in the winter. I use a credit card to clean it off when it gets bad. The glasses are the real problem, they fog at the stop lights. They tend to clear when you get moving, but I hate entering an intersection half blind. Ahh, You can dress for the cold in Cincinnati, but the Summer heat is a ****. Today is nice! Not too hot or humid on the ride to work.
That scraper could be a polo mallet to the thief’s head. Just sayin’ there’s more ways to hurt.
This is going to end badly. Can you imagine the outrage when Fox8 gets a hold of the exclusive cell phone video of a black kid beating up a white man for his bike?
Ha. Avoid the Plain Dealer comment threads. Sometimes I think it’s impossible to register for newpaper commenting without somehow first proving you’re a card carrying bigot.
Every summer (that’s right, not spring) it’s like a ceremonial rite when we take out the scrapers and put in the windshield reflector things.
Oh, in Shaker Heights ….
Scraper, check, MREs, check, blanket, check, fresh water, check. Yup, this Michiganders car is ready for winter all year round!
… reminiscent of superhero comics… I like it.
First… Yes I am in Cleveland. I grew up in Pittsburgh.
Scrapers are always in my car, and I think I have a supply of them in my garage. We would take them out of the car and get caught in a snow storm and have forgotten to put them back in the car.
We get alot of visitors from Israel at work, and the rental cars usually have these tiny little scapers that barely reach part of the windshield. I think we have a supply at work for those cases.
But my best scraper story was trying to scrape off the window of an Explorer in Raleigh with one of those scrapers. I just turned the heater on and hoped the snow would melt. I could reach about 1 foot of the window while standing in the doors. Big car, short person, tiny scraper make things difficult.