Word: pedalers
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...powered flight has come a short way since then. In the late 19th century German Designer Otto Lilienthal built the kitelike device that led to modern-day hang gliders. Several other visionaries constructed pedal-powered planes that, in a very few cases, actually got off the ground. But as Haining shows, persistence is as enduring as failure. A contest held annually in Selsey...
...looks like an overbuilt bicycle, sounds like an impatient teakettle and, in fact, combines pedal power with petroleum push. Called a moped (from motor-plus-pedals), the motorized bike is catching on rapidly in the U.S. as a practical, inexpensive form of short-haul transportation for commuters, students, the elderly and fresh-air lovers out for a spin-not to mention the suburban housewife who is reluctant to drive a gas-guzzling, nine-passenger station wagon two miles for a can of tuna. Since it whirs along on a two-stroke minimotor with less horsepower than a power mower, goes...
...proudest boast of the mopedocracy is that the machines average some 150 miles a gallon (more if you pedal, less if you're heavy in the saddle). They are easy to maintain and emit almost no noxious fumes. Since they have automatic transmission, it should take only ten minutes' instruction to learn to operate them. They give a much smoother ride than a bike. Moreover, they are within almost anyone's budget, ranging from around $300 for the simplest model to more than $500 for one with all the trimmings, including telescopic front suspension, independent rear shock...
...They are fast rollers in the grand Southern tradition of dirt track racing: small-town versions of Rapid Roy. Up to 3,500 fans will converge on the Concord Speedway 15 miles northeast of Charlotte, N.C., on a balmy Saturday evening to watch these two "pedal-to-the-metal" drivers bump fenders as they scream around the track in their blazing fast, gloriously battered stock cars. Stick and Carl are masters of the "power slide," a dirt racing technique that requires each driver to gauge the velocity of his car against its distance from other vehicles while skidding laterally around...
...blend of realistic sets slightly scaled down to kid size (wet streets, neon signs, shabby rooming houses and dingy soup kitchens) and refracted whimsy. At Fat Sam's, the "house special" is soda pop, and the custom-built cars that haul the marauding hoods around are driven by pedal power. Lots of people get rubbed out in the gangland power struggle, but nobody dies. The splurge tommy guns, designed with the help of a gunsmith, shoot a substance that looks like deliquescent marshmallow. If anyone is hit by a fusillade of splurge-or, alternatively, with a custard...