SoleX-crash of the month!

This month's VeloSoleX-crash is a 2006 classic from the French Rock'n Solex festival, a student festival offering a delicate, but not very novel, combo of SoleX-races and rock acts.

This video is actually an extended version, showing the crash from several angles:


"What ... what are you doing? Grinding me?!"

This SoleX be trippin'!

Finally, the black 5000, Sarte Sara, has reclaimed its rightful place in the GC-register, now listed under 'grindworthy'. Having fitted the black beauty with a not-so-bent flywheel, gently sanded and readjusted the breaker points, we were getting ready for some good ol' SoleXin', but still, the engine wasn't party-prone.

The error turned out to be the spark plug. Somehow, the centre electrode had problems making it all work out with the ground electrode, so a new and harmonic spark plug was found, and as a result, tonnes of torque rained down on the Giant Centipedes.

The only thing missing now is that the Vélo be equipped with razor-sharp javelin-like spinners that can bring justice to the punks who dared stealing her on that cursed September night.

- "Grind him in the groin, I say!"

Velo-killer #1

The arch nemesis of the VéloSoleX isn't a Kreidler. Nor is it gas prices, climate change awareness, drowsy truckers or the abhorrent Hungarian/Chinese manufacturing standards of the 21st century. No, the only real party-pooper in immense solex touring sorties is heat. Death by heat.
When the going gets too hot, the so-called "vapor lock" occurs. This means that the gasoline has gotten so hot that its low density affects the carb's ability to dispense sufficient fuel to the engine and, as a consequence, it dies with a sickening and highly demoralizing "bwwoooooo".

This has never affected Giant Centipedes' determination to reach far destinations during hot European summer days, though. A solution has so far been to rest at day and grind on when evening, night and morning bring cooler temperatures.

However, considering the continental climate of Russia, where summers can get really hot, and the prospects of only exploring the more Eastern latitudes at night, we are currently thinking of ways to relief the engines from the great heat. One solution is, ironically, to insulate different parts of the engine, making sure that there isn't too big a transmission of heat from the engine, exhaust etc. to the circulating fuel.

Another solution is to combine this with some sort of fuel radiator that can help keeping the fuel cool at day.

A more temporary solution proposed to us by Dutch velo wizard, Joan Majoor, is to add a small amount of diesel in the fuel mix. This will hinder vapor lock from occuring because the boiling point of diesel is higher than that of gasoline. However, this will of course not prevent the fuel or engines from running (too) hot.

On display is the Refrigolex 5000™:

Oh yes, there is modding to be done!

Why "Giant Centipedes"?

Here's why not:

Mopeds, MC's and monsoon

Giant Centipedes took part in the annual closing of "Bakken", the world's oldest amusement park located a few kilometres outside Copenhagen. Every year, thousands of MC's gather on the streets of Nørrebro and ride out to the park.

The velos were there and we made a video to share:

Keep it cool!

The Dutch are surely cookin'! Here's a prototype 40mm cylinder that Jouke Rottiné from Solexnoord has crafted.

What's new? It's a nikasil cylinder, meaning that the inner coating is super durable, whilst the rest of the cylinder - which is made of alloy - should allow for notable better cooling than the stock cast iron cylinder.

Price, availability and release date is still kept a secret - or at least kept in Dutch. However, the design sounds promising indeed, and if the prices are reasonable Giant Centipedes might even consider placing an order.

We'll keep you updated. For more pictures, here's more.

Scandinavian Tour '08: CPH - STOCKHOLM - OSLO

And now a little video of what it's all about: VéloSoleX-touring!

This is the video from our first trip that took us a little north to Stockholm in Sweden and Oslo in Norway. We didn't film much on this trip, hence the lack of location diversity:



Hopefully, we'll be cruising through some more woods next year.

Still grindin'!

Give it back, you, you ... rascal!

Two weeks ago was a darn mess for Giant Centipedes. Half of the gang's raison d'être was bluntly taken away one September night. Stolen, to be precise. The black 5000, named Sarte Sara ("Sensitive Sara") in true Chuck Yeager-style, was suddenly missing from an otherwise pretty secure parking garage.

The velo was reported stolen and action was taken. Flyers were distributed without the slightest care for the wellbeing of Finnish woods and were soon hanging from every street corner and in every shop, promising a solid bounty, should Sarte Sara be returned to the hands of her rightful owner.

The bike was found a few days after, not far away from the garage it was stolen from. It had taken a beating, but we praised its return. Besides, it could have been worse:

The plastic casing for the rotor was missing, so was the front plate covering the engine and the plastic return pipe. The rear tire was flat, and the floorboard was missing too.

The only real menace caused by these scooter-amoeba was that the fans on the rotor had been bent in a quite uncool manner.

Obviously, the juveniles didn't know what they were dealing with and couldn't grasp the full scale of 0,78 hp tugging like mad at the front wheel. One of them probably lost all control of the moped when faced with the abundance of power and was, hopefully, thrown of the bike with enormous velocity.

DON'T MESS WITH THE 'PEDES!