Ride of a lifetime at LAAFF: See the video of the would-be tall-bike record breaker

Posted on by Jason Sandford

Michael Mooney again attempted to set a Guinness World Record on Sunday at the Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival with a harrowing ride on a four-story-tall bicycle.

As hundreds of festivalgoers cheered him on, the 38-year-old Mooney mounted the bicycle. In his first attempt, he fell off his 450-pound purple contraption shortly after takeoff. Hooked to a harness held by a towering crane, Mooney swung around and threw his arms in disgust as he was lowered to the ground.

On his second attempt, Mooney did better. To ever-louder exhortations, Mooney completed one of two laps around the Lexington Avenue parking-lot ring, but lost his balance as he started the second lap and fell. The top of his bicycle smacked a concrete retaining wall and bent out of shape. Mooney also appeared to be shaken up and injured as he got tangled in his safety ropes.

This was the second year that Mooney attempted to set the record at the annual festival on Lexington. The current record is held by a rider who pedaled 100 meters on an 18-foot-tall bicycle.

To relive the excitement, check out Managing Editor Jon Elliston‘s photo gallery here, or click on the videos below, which were shot by Elliston.

— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor

Here’s Mooney’s first attempt:

Here’s Mooney’s second attempt:

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10 thoughts on “Ride of a lifetime at LAAFF: See the video of the would-be tall-bike record breaker”

  1. chalkbox

    He didn’t lose his balance. The safety rope raped around his bike. He was stuck and could do nothing to but bail. If that rope wouldn’t have bound him up he would have been golden.

  2. chalkbox

    Oops. The rope did not “rape” his bike. It wrapped around his bike. That was a good video Jason, but from the top of the hill you could see the rope WRAPPED around the bike.

  5. Ralph Roberts

    video is streaming this morning.

    yes, of course I have Flash, Zen and am streaming literally several hundred hours of video on the net myself … I KNOW when the stream isn’t there. It wasn’t there last night. Maybe a YouTube thang.

  7. Ralph Roberts

    yes … well, Al Gore helped some.

    but wherever you go on the Internet, Zen … you’ll see me already there, peering out at you.

    quit trying to zing me, you’re just wasting your bandwidth.

  8. Peter Lorenz

    That bike managed to spill the beer a couple feet to my left when it hit the rail. It was a great attempt though.
    That bike is going to need massive repairs (again).

  10. Ashevegasjoe

    I don’t think it should count if he uses safety devices. I went down there hoping to see carnage. I hoped the A.C.T. headline on Monday would have read “Several Hippies Slain in Total Frivolity, Bike Memorial Planned”

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