I was watching the South Park episode(s) “Cartoon Wars” last night, and was treated to the sight of Cartman and Kyle racing from Colorado to the studios of 20th Century Fox in California on “Big Wheel” tricycles to prevent/impose censorship of Family Guy.
Laying aside all that’s unreal about South Park, could a Big Wheel make the 1,000-mile journey from Colorado (let’s say Denver, as the fictional South Park would appear to be pretty close to it) to Los Angeles? Pretend it’s on standard interstate (70 and 15) surfaces, no other traffic, and going as fast as a 9-year-old can reasonbly pedal. Would the wear-and-tear be too much for the toy to make it all the way?
Probably. The one I had as a kid wore out after a couple years, with the big wheel more or less splitting in half. I can’t imagine I had put 1000 miles on it by that time.
ETA: “Probably” refers to the last sentence of the OP, not the title. So, I don’t think it could make it all the way.
I’d guess no. The Big Wheels that I remember had thin front wheels and after a few years and being handed down a few times would develop either a flat spot or a big hole. I’d guess that by that point they had probably racked up well under 10-20 miles. On top of that, that was on the side walk (and some grass). On the side of an interstate they’ll be encountering glass, gravel, rocks, random car parts from accidents, rumble strips, hot asphalt etc.
I doubt it. I vaguely recall the big wheels we had as kids all wore out the front (“big”) wheel fairly quickly. they were hollow blow-molded plastic with a very small point of contact with the road, so they wore holes around the edge before long.
ETA: that’s what I get for getting up and doing something else before clicking “submit post.”
maybe not stock. you could put in some good bearings and fins, and foam the wheels to eliminate that hollow sound which would cause a 9 year old to give it up well before 1000.
Back in the 1970’s my brother and his friends used to upgrade them to early “gravity racer” type things. They’d run them down mountain roads at very high speeds. I think one place they ran them was Red-Rocks, outside Denver (getting back toward Southpark) which had little traffic at off times. It was great fun 'till one of his friends died. The modified trikes had no pedals, just foot rests near where the pedals would be. I think they used 20" bicycle wheels on the front, don’t recall what they used on the back. New forks were fabricated from steel.
Due to extreme friction/drama between my Mom and my brother’s then wife, I didn’t see much of him at the time, sorry to be so scant on details.
Hmmm. Could it go a hundred miles? Probably. Could it go 10,000? Hell no. So a first order WAG doesnt work because its right slap in the middle there at a 1000.
A point to consider. Lots of that wear and tear kids puts on Big Wheels was because they do all kinds of skidding, sliding, peeling out, and other forms of stunt driving. I think if you just pedaled reasonably gently on good smooth roads and avoided all that abusive stuff 1000 would at least be in the range of possible.
Might wanna turn your opinion = fact subroutine down a notch.
I’ll also submit that the answer might also depend on which era big wheel one is talking about. IIRC the ones made shortly after the Wright brothers got famous had decently thick plastic. Maybe the ones of today ARE paperthin. Haven’t seen one in awhile.
Well I can’t ask my brother as we put him to rest a couple of months ago.
I think it was mostly just the plastic “frame” that got kept. The one I saw had a lot of padding taped in the crotch area, so maybe the plastic frame had enough give to soften the crashes.
Understand that this was not a group of enthusiasts like today’s gravity racers. More like a side activity of going up in the mountains to party. I doubt many rides were taken in a sober/straight condition.
It occurred to me that rather than think of it in miles, one should think of it in hours of use, assume an average speed, then you get your mileage.
How many hours of riding do you think the manufacturer would be aiming for before the thing is really worn out? Seems to me if they made that number rediculously low, there would be a bunch of pissed off customers. 10s of hours seems like a decent range. Hundreds of hours seems rather high.
Back before Big Wheels became commercially available we would make what we called “flip trikes.” Take your typical kid tricycle, larger sizes were preferred cuz we were getting on the big side, reverse the installation of the forks and handlebars as well as the seat and you are good to go. I can’t imagine that we were the only kids that ever did this, but I always thought whoever made the Big Wheel back then must have seen us or other children doing this.
I’m going to promote this to fact status. If you start using duct tape when the first holes in the wheel appears and you keep replacing the duct tape as it wears away, the bike will last virtually forever. Duct tape has better traction than the regular wheel anyway.
My brother and I put our Big Wheels through some seriously heavy use - easily 10+ hours a week during the summer months and those bikes lasted a couple years before we graduated to real bicycles. If you figure we got 200 hours of use in a year and 5 miles per hour, we’d have done the 1,000 miles out and back on the same bikes.
My estimate of a Big Wheel wheel’s life is based on common sense and empirical observation of how they hold up. The average big wheel would not see more than more than 10 miles (at best, more like 5 miles in most cases) of use in it’s entire lifetime of use by a child, and many of those wheels were beat up and split by the time the kid got finished with them. The plastic on a Big Wheel wheel is lightweight blow molded plastic that is easily scraped and scarred by pavement.
The notion that you are going to run that that lightweight plastic wheel across 52,000 linear ft of road asphalt, and there’s going to be much left at the end is family optimistic in my opinion. Your notion of 100 to 1000 mile excursions is even more interesting.
My Grandfather modified a hotwheels style trike for me when I was young, he replaced the front wheel with some metal and Rubber wheel he got from work (he was a Boeing fabricator). that thing was a trooper, I would easily give it the ability to do 1k, the stock wheels? no way in heeeeeeeeell.