BERLIN, April 2.- Self-taught engineer Sebastian Beutler broke into the German version of Guinness World Records by creating the world’s heaviest bicycle, a nearly 5,000-pound metal monster.
Beutler, who lives in Kothen, a town in Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt region, named the peculiar artifact the Kleine Johanna, saying he built it almost entirely from scrap metal.
According to the Autoevolution.com website, Kleine Johanna was recognized as the heaviest cycle in the world by the Record Institute for Germany, a national version of the Guinness Book of Records. The strange contraption is 5 meters long, almost 2 meters high and weighs 2,177 kilograms.
Sebastian Beutler explained that he can start it up thanks to a truck gearbox adapted to power the classic bicycle system. Kleine Johanna has 35 forward gears and 7 reverse gears and can not only be pedaled by one person, but can also tow up to 15 tons, according to its inventor.
Beutler fell seriously ill in 2011 and since he can no longer lead a normal working life, he turns to making all kinds of ultra-impressive metal machines. Kleine Johanna was built in a common workshop in three years.
Sebastian Beutler said his family and friends tried to get him to stop working on it, but he wouldn’t listen, and today he is the proud owner of the world’s heaviest bike. Interestingly, the super-bike has a built-in motor, but only to power an alternator that charges the user’s cell phone.
Beutler announced that this summer, for his vacation, he will travel to the Baltic Sea on his bicycle, a journey of 389 kilometers.
