What is this vehicle?
Took this shot from the window of the 55 bus on Thursday around 2, middle of a downpour. It was cruising down St‑Urbain with the rest of the traffic. Anyone got any idea what it is? It reminded me of that old party bicycle that used to be seen around the Plateau but it didn’t look human‑powered, although I couldn’t be sure with all those umbrellas in the way. At any rate it didn’t look very festive in the rain.
Ephraim 11:21 on 2024-04-13 Permalink
It’s the party bike! https://montreal.urbanpedaltours.com/
MarcG 11:23 on 2024-04-13 Permalink
I think it’s the same vehicle, I see pedals.
carswell 11:24 on 2024-04-13 Permalink
It’s a pedal pub aka a party bike. There’s a narrow bar down the middle, a driver-bartender in front and patron seats with pedals along each side. Saw them in action on St-Laurent and St-Urbain in Mile End last summer. The patrons were obviously smashed and so not very adept at propelling the vehicle, which appeared to create guidance problems for the driver. The bike was moving much slower than surrounding traffic and having issues staying in its lane. Combine that with the noise and air pollution from vehicular traffic and the precarious-appearing open-sided seating with bums and limbs only inches away from speeding cars and it didn’t strike me as a place anyone sane would want to be.
Blork 13:04 on 2024-04-13 Permalink
Oh Cripes I hate those things. The original type had everyone facing forward, and people would rent them out to companies downtown during the summer for “team building” exercises, where that thing would zip up and down de Maisonnuve and Ste-Catherine, and sometimes go flying down McGill-College. There was loud thumping music and a DJ yelling inane DJ thing and encouraging everyone to “MAKE SOME NOISE!” Of course they’d be making said noise right under my office window on de Maisonneuve. It would startle and annoy me every time. Probably two or three days a week in summer those things would be zipping around for a couple of hours in the middle of the day.
These second-generation ones have a bar and the riders face each other, which is interesting from a mechanical engineering point of view but even more stupid from a “why must this shit exist?” perspective. I don’t think those ones are used so much for “team building” and charity fund raising like the other ones. These ones are rented out to bachelor parties and other boozy events, and are a yet another sign of the coming social apocalypse.
Blork 13:06 on 2024-04-13 Permalink
…and by “zipping” I mean crawling along at a snail’s pace while overweight and out-of-shape accountants and sales people pedalled madly, risking heart attacks and other coronary disasters.