Building a motorcycle out of meccano….

we were stopped in traffic @ Braddan Bridge whilst they were puttering past – sounds like fun….

Yippee! Thanks for the heads-up. 😀

Looking forward to that. Although it’s got its work cut out to be better than the glider one they did last year. That was ace.

*bump*

Brilliant, that’s tonight sorted.

ta

Recording now, I’ll watch it Sunday.

Watching and recording in case laddo falls asleep before it ends…

cop-out within the first 5 minutes.

“in order to take a second person around to describe the island we need to build a sidecar”

Really? absolutely nothing to do with the simplicity of not engineering something that needs to lean, and allows for a massive amount of additional structure to add stiffness?

This is painful.

Bit underwhelming so far. Sidecar rather than a bike. Lots of machined bits and non Meccano parts. He asks how could you make a brake from Meccano, then answers it by using an MTB brake. At least they used Meccano motors, except they didn’t. 😕

dear lord, this is feeble. Channel changed…

I turned it off when they introduced some jeopardy to proceedings by forgetting to set cameras up on the bike on the start line of the TT practice with only 2 minutes to go. Or they’d lose that slot in the practice. Real nail-biting stuff. Couldnt bear the tension.

Was going alright while they were building the chain motors etc. Then Suddenly now it’s race day and we are going to slowly drive around for hours with a sidecar…

Please make it stop.

Or explode.

just changed back… it’s not got any better has it?

Well they struggled to make that interesting.

just changed back… it’s not got any better has it?

It was consistently sh*t.

I think interviews with the people stuck in the 4 plus mile tail backs behind Mr May would have made an interesting addition.

I guess it needed someone speaking Northern.

crashtestmonkey – Member
cop-out within the first 5 minutes.

“in order to take a second person around to describe the island we need to build a sidecar”

Really? absolutely nothing to do with the simplicity of not engineering something that needs to lean, and allows for a massive amount of additional structure to add stiffness?

Were you expecting him to be getting a knee down? 🙂

When scrapheap challenge made motorbikes they were proper motorbikes. Imo they either needed to make a reasonable stab at a motorbike by using Meccano for the structure and a few non Meccano bits or make something a bit rubbish but totally out of Meccano. In the end they copped out on almost all the major parts AND it was rubbish.

It was probably the wrong challenge. It would have been better to do a lap of a track and not need to worry about going so far.

Were you expecting him to be getting a knee down?

no, just not completely moving the goal posts for spurious reasons in the first 5 minutes.

Basic engineering prioncuiples state the wheels need to be in tension, you cant do that with bolts easily, no adjustment, then when you balace on 2 wheels yo move your weight side to side, so altering the tension on each side of the wheel, thats why the wheels had the buckled effect.

The side car was added for rigidity and to add to the stability .

A smaller sproket on the front would have given a lower gear, again basic engineering.

Basicly a well edited programe, that showed meccano was and still is a great eductional toy/learning kit,but a wasted programe otherwise.

the programme summary was “James May attempts to build a motorbike and sidecar entirely out of Meccano to take him – and passenger Oz Clarke – round the Isle of Man’s famous TT circuit.”

So maybe I should have put that in my first post to avoid such disappointment. My apologies.

Well, I enjoyed it.

Me too. 🙂

He built a motorcycle from Meccano; what were you lot expecting, the next Hayabusa?

It was a work of art, I was amazed that it could even take their weight, let alone ride it nearly 40 miles.

Coming next week: James May attempts to land on the moon with a rocket made of Lego.

I didn’t watch, but looking at the picture, it looks like a decent attempt. I wont embed it in case anyone doesn’t want to spoil it, but it’s here:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02779/James_May_s_Toy_St_2779443b.jpg

It was a good achievement but my god it was boring after the first 5 minutes, they spent far too long following the lap as opposed to the building of it.

So maybe I should have put that in my first post to avoid such disappointment. My apologies.

you were the OP for a STW thread not the producer of the programme so stop taking criticism of the programme so bloody personally! It was called “The Motorcycle Diary”. It was an hour long. After 5 minutes theyd changed the objective and lied about why. After 15 minutes they’d built it to the extent it allegedly passed some form of MOT/scrutineering, and further copped out by using loads of non-meccano parts. That left 45 minutes of weak padding and manufactured jeopardy.

It would have been far more interesting if theyd spent more time covering the build and attempting to solve engineering problems and be inventive – if it didnt work and they had to resort to non-meccano solutions then fair enough.

Coming next week: James May attempts to land on the moon with a rocket made of Lego

yep, except for made-up reaons they’ll change moon to Isle of Wight, and rocket made of lego to hot air balloon made only from canvas and a wicker basket. 🙂

It was a good achievement but my god it was boring after the first 5 minutes, they spent far too long following the lap as opposed to the building of it.

Sums it up perfectly for me.

I’ve watched a few of these – a bit hit and miss to be honest. This was more miss. I like the concept and it can work very well. Does today’s tv audience really need all this false jeopardy (this series isn’t the only one guilty of course)? It’s just bloody crap and from this thread, everyone seems to see straight through it. Why the **** are producers and researchers sticking to the same formula over and over. Meh! 😡

Yep, I’d have preferred to see more of the construction than the actual lap too

They said at the beginning that they were only being allowed to do the lap if they featured IoM’s tourist spots so I wouldn’t’ be surprised if whole thing was to some extent hijacked by the IoM tourist board. Having said that whilst it wasn’ t one of his best I still enjoyed it.

you were the OP for a STW thread not the producer of the programme so stop taking criticism of the programme so bloody personally!

I’m a sensitive soul. 🙂

And for anyone who missed it, its repeated at 17.30 today….

I’ll get me coat…

Just catching this.

The brake mount (if not the entire concept) beggars belief.

The brake mount (if not the entire concept) beggars belief.

They aren’t allowed to use cutlery.