The Monster Motorbike is for Crushing Cars

THE PROBLEM of what to do with old mining machine tyres is usually solved by burying them. But Western Australian ex-stuntman Ray Baumann had other ideas—he took two used tyres from a Caterpillar 992 wheel-loader and built the world’s biggest motorbike around them.

“We wanted to be able to transport this thing around the world and those were the biggest and widest tyres we could get that would fit into a high cube shipping container,” Baumann told MiningNews.net.

At 9 metres long and more than 3 metres tall, Baumann has fittingly dubbed it The Monster Motorbike.

It is powered by a 5.2 litre Detroit Diesel 6V53 two-stroke truck engine which sends drive through a six-speed Allison automatic gearbox, also from a prime-mover. The gearbox is connected to a two-speed Eaton differential from a road-train which in turn drives a massive chain on each side of the rear wheel.

The Monster Motorbike was built in Perth and was three years in the making.

The Monster Motorbike 1

Baumann said he doesn’t expect the bike to go through tyres at anything like the rate of the wheel loaders they were designed for.

“These tyres will last us the lifetime of the vehicle, well and truly,” he said. “We’ve only got 13 tonnes of motorbike sitting on these tyres so we should have no problems whatsoever.”

The Monster Motorbike 2

Baumann uses The Monster Motorbike to crush cars and caravans.

“We’ve designed it not just to be big but to smash things up, and that’s what people really want to see. We’re in the entertainment business and you’ve got to give people what they want.”

Baumann drove road-trains before he turned to setting records for jumping vehicles over other vehicles, and The Monster Motorbike combines elements of both occupations.

“We did stunt driving for quite a few years, broke a few records and broke my back a few times, so this is a way of taking a bit more care. Now we crush things which is definitely less risky than jumping them.”

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