Life

200 Miles Per Hour On A Rocket-Powered Bicycle

by Ali Parr

Here is a list of things that are generally known to be really, really fast:

  • Usain Bolt: 23mph on average
  • Cheetahs: 70mph at full speed
  • Top Thrill Dragster Roller Coaster, Cedar Point: 120mph

Insane, right? As a woman who spends most of her time on the subway, the concept of "fast travel" is fairly foreign to me. But what's even more incomprehensible to me is that someone would willingly get on a rocket-powered bike and go from 0 to 207mph in 5 seconds. But someone did, and that someone is a man named François Gissy, who set a new world record last week for speed cycling.

Admittedly, the bike wasn't your average Schwinn: it had been altered by Gissy's friend Arnold Neracher just for this face-melting purpose. But apparently breaking a world record and giving me a mild heart attack wasn't enough for Gissy- he also raced a Ferrari F430, juuuust to show his true dominance over all things speedy. The F430, by the way, can go from 0 to 62 mph in 4 seconds and can achieve a top speed of 196 mph. 5 minutes ago that would have seemed impressive, but after seeing this video I now know what bona fide speed looks like, and it looks like a rocket-powered bicycle.

Check it out below, and remember not to try this at home, and if you do then wear a helmet. Or 6.

Image: YouTube