Weekend Beyond Cars Roundup June 29, 2024
A collection of our best posts of the week in beyond cars
Apparently, you sickos love a good stuck cargo ship story. And as the saying goes, if y’all keep on clickin’, the ships’ll keep on stickin’. OK, that’s not actually a saying, but we do have another stuck cargo ship post for you, and this time, it’s in England. Cambridgeshire, to be exact. The BBC reports that yesterday, the Baltic Arrow got stuck in the River Nene near Wisbech. - Collin Woodard Read More
The International Space Station is dying. Once an icon of space exploration, something I would stare up at the sky in hopes of seeing as a kid, the station is now spending its last few years in orbit before being taken down by NASA. Or, more specifically, being crashed into the Pacific Ocean by Elon Musk. - Amber DaSilva Read More
Biker gangs may be a mainstay in popular media where cool, tough dudes ride sweet, but in real life, they’re not actually all that cool. In reality, gangs such as the Hells Angels are known criminal organizations and have been involved in so much illegal activity, there’s a Wikipedia page dedicated purely to all the crimes the Hells Angels have been accused of in California. That list may need to be updated, though, because the Guardian reports the entire Bakersfield Hells Angels chapter was just arrested and charged with a litany of crimes. - Collin Woodard Read More
Here at Jalopnik we usually like to focus on anything with an engine. Whether it’s a gorgeous new Bugatti with a V16 motor at the rear or a ridiculous driveable bathtub that’s powered by a motorbike, we love anything that goes vroom. Sometimes, however, we need to take a ride in the slow lane and look at things that move under their own steam, things like sailboats. - Owen Bellwood Read More
For many, fishing is just something you do at your grandfather’s pond or while camping, but fishing at a professional level is something completely different. Your friends may give you a hard time for exaggerating the size of the fish you caught, but back in 2022, two Ohio men found out the hard way that they take that kind of thing pretty seriously in an actual fishing tournament. As WKYC reports, not only did getting caught cheating land them in jail, but their boat was also seized. And now it’s being auctioned off over on GovDeals. - Collin Woodard Read More
Debris from a rocket launched by the Chinese space program came crashing down on a village in southwestern China on Saturday. The footage of the orange plume that emerged on social media was so shocking that the country’s government banned local residents from continuing to record the recovery process, CNN reports. And before you even had to ask, the orange smoke was a toxic combination of nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. - Ryan Erik King Read More
How many times have you been riding your dirtbike to work and you’ve been waylaid by the need to cross a small river? Man, if that river weren’t there, you’d get to your destination in half the time! There’s got to be a better way! Introducing Kale Makeham’s Kite Bike, the first of its kind, a revolutionary way to combine riding with flying. All you need to do is gather up a good head of steam and rip all of your weight to the back wheel and crank the throttle. Once the front of the bike is tipping upward the kite does the rest of the work for you! - Bradley Brownell Read More
BMW’s R80 is already a seriously cool motorcycle to ride around in the city in stock form. It’s the picture of simplicity with a boxer cylinder layout and shaft drive for easy maintenance and smooth riding. BMW proved these motorcycles were some of the most reliable and trustworthy with the off-road conquering G/S variants, and the RT versions, like this one, were made for long-distance highway cruising. The folks at Brooklyn Speed have built something altogether different, possibly the perfect city bopping bike. - Bradley Brownell Read More
It’s pretty scary when something goes wrong in your car while you’re driving, but I can only imagine that the fear is multiplied tenfold when something goes wrong for a pilot at altitude. Despite having to deal with the fear of plummeting to their death, footage of one pilot keeping their cool when their canopy exploded has now emerged on social media. - Owen Bellwood Read More
The kind of person who buys a Honda Motocompacto or a vintage Motocompo is looking for convenience. These little folding scooters offer you the convenience of city mobility and fit in your trunk for last-mile mobility ease. And if convenience is important to you, look no further than this Bring A Trailer auction featuring a brand new zero-mile Motocompacto electric folding suitcase scooter and a nice recently-imported 1981 Motocompo. - Bradley Brownell Read More