Atlanta man builds homemade electric rail bike to ride 25 miles on abandoned California railroad line and pushes through repeated failure
A man from Atlanta decided to set himself a wild mission: build a DIY electric rail bike, ride it along an abandoned California railroad, and make it all the way to Shark Fin Cove.
The whole thing sounded delightfully unhinged from the start, especially because he openly admitted he did not fully know how to build a rail bike in the first place.
But that only made the journey more fun to watch.
What followed was a mix of an engineering project, a road trip, and a historical survival challenge.
Atlanta man built a homemade electric rail bike
The YouTuber, who is based in Atlanta, decided he needed to complete a crazy tech challenge.
He was going to build a homemade electric rail bike capable of handling a 25.8-mile trip down an old rail line on the California coast.
Naturally, that meant a lot of trial and error, and he spent days piecing the build together with different wheels, hinges, springs, and welded bars, while also studying other rail bike creators online for inspiration.
At first, the bike didn’t really cooperate; it leaned too much, fell off the track, and kept running into little problems he had not predicted, including safety cables on the rails that could send the whole thing off balance.
So he kept tweaking stuff like adding spring-loaded wheels, changing the setup, improving the stabilizing system, and even using a drone to capture the action once the bike finally started to move properly.
When the motor kicked in, and the bike managed a faster practice run without disaster, it suddenly looked like this homemade machine might actually be ready for the real thing.
He was heading down an abandoned California railroad line
Once he reached the abandoned California railroad line, the challenge got real.
The coastal route was stunning, with ocean views and old bridges, but the track itself was rough, overgrown, and full of hazards.
Parts were bent, his welding snapped, and the bike crashed.
To make things even worse, the battery situation became a mess, and even the drone ended up in trouble at one point.
And still, he kept going, and one of the best moments came when he unexpectedly met Paul Sterbentz, one of the rail biking creators whose videos had inspired the build in the first place.
The meeting gave him a timely boost just when his morale was dipping.
By the end, this had become way bigger than a guy riding a strange homemade bike on old tracks; it turned into a very entertaining reminder that sometimes the best adventures are the ones held together by a MacGyver situation.
DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie