Hack Bike Derby

What happens when you invite 17 frame builders to create and race klunkers? Quite possibly the best event ever - Hack Bike Derby! This rain and fire filled weekend in Somerset was an absolute blast, and Alex Rankin was there to capture on camera.

Hack Bike Derby is a new annual event held over two days with a different type of bike and series of races proposed for each year. This year the theme was klunkers - the original mountain bikes as raced from around 1976 in California, USA.

All builders were given the same brief. Builders must race the bike they built, stock car rules apply (if another builder thinks you have an unfair advantage you have to be prepared to swap bikes for a race), and all bikes must conform to the event rules:

Frame and forks must be made by the rider from steel, specifically for this event. The bike must be made cheaply (under £300, all in). Dropouts must be made (“hacked”) by the rider. The bike mustn’t be painted but it can be clear-coated, raw or painted using pens, paint brushes or rattle can, by the rider (basically no expensive paint jobs!). All bikes must use the same tires (and hence wheel size). Bontrager provided 26x2.35-inch XR4 Team Issue tires for every rider. The bikes must also be built according to this year's brief: 1 x gear, 2 x brakes (1 x front + 1 x rear, no hydraulic or disk, ideally not V brakes), and the bike must look like a klunker.

This event was created by The Bicycle Academy, and sponsored by Bell Helmets, Bontrager and Break Fluid Coffee. #HackBikeDerby

The Bikes