Handcar Regatta

The extraordinary photographic relics from The Great Handcar Regatta festival circa 2009 have recently landed in our aethermailbox from photographer Jerzy Bamberger. From the artist statement:

Jerzy Bamberger is a futurist/anachronist photographer living and working in Santa Rosa, CA. He is currently working on a book of Rustic Romantic Flower Portraits that will be released in the fall.

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See more adorable portraits of our very own winsome rail urchins!

More splendid Engineers’ Arcade news!

The Ratchet & Rumble team’s Lumbering Contraption has been confirmed for entry in The Great Handcar Regatta!

See manifold electro-luminescent graphical renderings in their Aetherweb Flickr destination. Don’t miss their amazing moving pictures of it in action!

The Engineers’ Arcade has been updated with a wealth of exciting graphical depictions.

The amazing Welded Sykkelen is functioning as a four-person “rowing” railcar! You simply MUST see the moving pictures.

Additionally, Mr. Barricklow’s evolving solo craft has what appears to be a smoke stack of sorts blooming from the fore and now sports all hand-built wooden wheels.

ITEM!
Alas, tragedy has struck our very own Krank-Boom-Clank lads. While evidence is blurry at best and grains of salt are to be taken with anything issuing from Black Rock City, NV, The Hennepin Crawler has apparently turned against one of its own.

Or, perhaps, ’tis simply a case of overenthusiastic affection on the part of a big lovable beast toward its maker. Let us deliver hearty wishes that K-B-C may recover in time for the Regatta!

Excellent work, gentlemen! Word has it we now have up to 8 teams competing and possibly more. Hopefully, photographs of said teams’ jalopies will be forthcoming…

Huzzah!

Dear reader,

I am most pleased to note that innumerable electro-luminescent graphical renderings have been generously appended to the Engineers’ Arcade!

Included are dispatches from the following brilliant tinkers and masterful hackers:

• Krank-Boom-Clank’s “Hennepin Crawler” is finally complete (though there is one caveat for viewers…).
• Welded Sykkelen is well on the way to its exciting and most unusual maiden voyage.
• Mr. Barricklow changes tack entirely and undergoes a total rethink of his former idea of a rail sled.

Good show, lads! The Great Handcar Regatta is proud to be host to such stunning feats of the tool!

Stayed tuned, good reader, for more devious developments and yet more railcars by other builders who have promised to grace our races with their rail-bound conundrums!

THIS JUST IN!
The Krank-Boom-Clank bike mangling boys hit New Belgium Brewing’s Tour de Fat on Sat., July 19th. Photos seen at Flickr.

Word has it that the festival was a rollicking good time, replete with a rowdy Chicago-based marching known as Mucca Pazza, the vivacious and verily pink Sprockettes, plus more bands, the helmeted madness of Cyclecide’s rodeo of truly bizarre wheels, and so much ambrosial beer (and yet more delights such as the New Orleans style marching wake for the dying love of cars via a child’s Cadillac Escalade carried upon shoulders on a litter and the scads of costumed bike fanatics in attendance too)!

See everyone’s Flickr shots from the day.

Mr. Graham’s images, of a most striking canary yellow rail vehicle he calls simply a “4-Wheeled Railbike”, have been added, for the edification and enjoyment of all, to the Engineers’ Arcade.

A fine and sleek racer indeed! See more at andygraham.net.

The “Krank-Boom-Clank” crew has been busily working away and have granted us pictures of their railcar concept illustrations and themselves hard at work!

    Engineers’ Arcade

I do say these lads need more beer however!

See many more photographs and instructional materials in the Galerie de Muse for ideas and inspiration from around the globe.