Just when you think you’ve seen it all here on Barn Finds, comes this 15-person luxury pedal pub truck! This one has electric assist, but it’s meant to be pedaled by 15 fun-loving booze hounds. I guess a more family-friendly term would be craft beer aficionados. This refurbished, 15-passenger 2021 Bestar BE-S09 Pedal Pub can be found listed here on Facebook Marketplace in Tiffin, Ohio, and the seller is asking $12,000. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Ted for the tip!
A pedal pub? What in the sam hell is wrong with you?! Why not another Chevelle, Corvette, or Mustang?! COME ON. Where’s the barn dust? Just to get that out of the way. Whew, ok now we can get back to this crazy machine, powered by 15 people, but it does have a lithium battery for electric assist as the driver sees fit.
The party bike is sometimes known as a beer bike, pedal pub, bar bike, conference bike, or, since they were invented in 1997 in the Netherlands, fietscafé or bierfiets. It’s really an interesting system, where all of the drinkers, or passengers – they don’t have to drink beer or any other alcohol to be involved – pedal to make this 1,600-pound (give or take) pedal-pusher roll down the street, often causing much consternation and sometimes jeers and/or cheers from passing motorists. And a lot of you hate single bicycles and bike lanes, just imagine these things in traffic.
As expected, Bestar has a very Chinese name, and they are in fact located in China, but during the recent refurbishment, it has domestic parts and pieces, such as the street legal lighting, lithium battery pack and controller, and the electric motor. Here’s where the driver sits, and they don’t pedal or do anything but try to get this through traffic without too much trouble. One tipped over in Minneapolis in 2013, and two drinkers, I mean, pedalers were hurt. Police reports say “alcohol does not appear to be a factor.” Driving this thing is not a job I would want, although as a business idea, it’s a possibility.
The photos are among the worst in Barn Finds history, mostly glaring, cut-off (every single one is cut off!), underexposed, and yet somehow overexposed at the same time, and just generally horrible. But you get the gist of what’s going on here. I’ve never been on a party pub bike booze pedal… thing and never will, but I guess, if you’re an extrovert who doesn’t mind thousands of angry onlookers glaring at you for an hour while you weave through downtown traffic, it might be fun. Have any of you been on one of these things? If so, let’s hear those stories! Do 11 of you want to go in on this thing at $1,000 each? Who’s in?
As usual, no pictures of the engine!
That was hilarious @Pat L. I cant stop laughing!!!
Great one, Scotty. As soon as I read the title I knew it had to be you.
Can anyone picture puttering along in this on some busy street in Chicago or Detroit? You’d last about 10 seconds…
Here in Alabama, you’d have no problem finding 15 drinkers, but if the vehicle relies on human energy, it would never move.
Also, it seems to be missing a few things, like booze, a place to store the booze, glasses for the booze, and a chest of ice for the glasses of booze.
Good Grief!!!!! Yikes!!!!! I’m sorry but I can’t stop laughing picturing over a dozen individuals pedaling this thing drinking A Heineken!!!! I would actually want to try this thing just for the experience. I’m thinking San Francisco is probably going to be a Major Major No No here. ( you’d probably need way more than just 1 Lithium battery to help the poor folks pedaling their hearts out. But still can you imagine pedaling around a place like Manhattan ( trying not to get run over). Its actually kind of a neat idea.
This thing is really cool. I saw it on Fast finds and said to myself…… Scottys going to write this up and actually do it justice….
And you did!!! I like it!!! I really enjoyed your write up Scotty, and for what its worth, not everything here has to have barn dust on it, and have a Chevelle or Mustang name plate on it.
And Pat L. I’m still laughing at your engine picture comment!!! That was good!!!
Thank you for the change of pace and the smile Scotty. I needed it.
Perfect for the Ohio St v Michigan game. 🍻 🍺 🏟 🏈
I could be wrong here…. But….. Something tells me this things going to get a lot of comments…. I can’t wait to see them.
Wheres Howard???
Dave
And when we see something like this we all say “look what Scotty found!!!”👍🏻 Totally OTW, Scotty and always interesting stuff.
FWIW, one of these shows up at the Food Truck Fridays in Reno during the summer and it’s always mobbed😆!
Don’t stop!
Don’t worry, Dave, I’m on it. 1st, to the author: we, as a group, look forward to your “typical” writeups here, Believe it or not, I can speak for many, we’re tired of Chevelles, Ferraris and other unattainable what nots, so let’s take a look see,,
2nd, “alcohol not involved”,,,in the Cities? ( laughing out loud),,good heavens, Minnesoty ranks a close 2nd to the Badger in that regard. Go ahead and laugh, I sure did, but this reminds me of a Flintstone episode, where Barney and Fred are running to catch a bus, they make the bus, and everybody on the bus. picks up the bus and runs to the next stop. A chilling vision of things to come? I’ll take the driver job,,, I can just see this outside an American football game, anyone? Daddy, why aren’t we moving? What a crappy shuttle, PEDAL the car? Get your mama to pedal the car,,,
I knew you’d be on this one Howard!! I remember that Flintstones episdode!!! This is such a neat find. And I truly enjoy the go carts, mini bikes, railroad equipment, tractors, everything that comes through here. Thank you again for writing this up Scotty!! Keep them coming.
-Dave
Fred was a heavy equipment operator at the quarry 🦕 ..
What did his buddy Barney do ?
Ha! Good question, it was never revealed what Barney did. Sometimes he was cast as a worker next to Fred in the quarry, but never officially disclosed. Some say he had a top secret job with the government. The kicker in that show, was Winston cigarettes sponsored the show, and regularly showed Fred and Barney “enjoying” a cigarette. No wonder half the population smoked back then.
Fred was more of a heavy dinosaur operator.
Barney invented the Barney Copter, or was it the Flintstone Flyer?
This would work well in almost any city here in Wisconsin. For some reason I see 15 people boarding and just leave it parked while you drink outside.
Being Chinese who are ultra productive by nature, I wonder if the driver has a readout on productivity, and who is slacking. ” Attention, rider numbers 4, 8, and 13, you aren’t producing sufficiently” and BING,,off they go,,,quickly replaced by 3 more. Think about it, you have 15 people, 200lbs each, that’s 3,000, plus the unit itself, what stops this thing? :0
I was kind thinking along the same lines…The more I would drink, the more I would look around to try and figure out who was not pedaling as hard as i was.
Might work where it is flat enough like Ohio, but everywhere else it needs a small block.
1600 pounds peddled by 15 people? As an avid bicyclist, that power to weight ratio is unheard of, except for maybe a huge paperweight, which of course is just as fast!
Scotty, I had to laugh about the story about the 2 revelers who took a tumble. NTSB probably frowned on it because of lack of seat belts. (I didn’t look at the ad,).
Police ticketed the vehicle itself for dwi but when they couldn’t figure out how to get the damn thing to the cell, the charges were dropped and it was later seen at the judge’s house.
I’ve seen these things lots of times downtown Mpls.
they are very popular in Nashville TN downtown honky tonk area.
I was in Nashville for the 4th of July weekend, it was packed downtown and these were all over the place. After watching a couple go by, I was pretty convinced that the battery was doing 95% of the work.
I never saw anything like this on land, but there are similar ones that operate a paddle or propellor, I think, for calm water adventures. Yes, imagine this in a place like San Francisco. I’m sure the brakes must be okay, but what happens when we get half way up a hill and the pedalers “run out of steam”? This vehicle is made for flatlands.
Milwaukee has Donut Boats that have the same goal. Float around the river with some friends and party! The boats have a little outboard and big bumpers so much easier than pedaling.
They should rig up a power meter which shows who is pedaling the hardest and who is the slacker! Dang, Howard beat me to it while I was typing…
How fast do you have to pedal for freeway speeds?
I have been on pub crawls in Savannah GA and Charleston SC.
It actually is fun, but the ones I used did not have electical assist. We had to move it totally by pedaling. It got tiring after a while as not everyone wanted to pedal.
But trust me, stopping ever 1/2 mile or so to get a drink was a lot more fun than you would guess.
Does the driver get beer too????
Hope no one gets motion sickness! And how do you pick a designated driver?
Climb aboard and pedal your buzz away.
I saw one of these last time I was in Nashville. Like there aren’t enough places to drink there, you have to go mobile!
Reminds me of that old Jerry Lee
Lewis song 🎤 “What’s made Milwaukee famous has made a Pedaler out of me.”. Or Merle Haggard’s “I think I’ll just Pedal
here and drink.”. And Moe Bandy’s “Here I am I’m drunk again.”. Or pedal this thing down
Willie Nelson’s “Whiskey river.”
( High grade pot not included). Or
Webb pearce’s There stands the glass.”. And how ’bout Johnny Russell with his “Red necks, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer 🍻”
Sorry guys! Couldn’t resist all those old drinking 😂 songs I used to sing and play after seeing
this thing. Makes me wonder if they’ll have Johnny Bond’s “10 little bottles 🍼” at the bar? Always wanted to taste that stuff
his wife told him to pour down the sink. So if a cop pulls you over, do you get busted for pedaling while intoxicated?
So show me the way to go home.
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed 🛏️ 💤. Well I had a little drink at the pedal bar and the wine’s gone to my head. (Hiccup). No matter
where I roam and land sea or foam (I’m so doggone drunk that I forgot all the words) Just show me the way to go home 🏡. But
Ocifer…I’m not so think as you
drunk I am…
The famous “bonding” song in movie “Jaws”, as they were drunk and pounding the table to the beat, just as the shark hit the boat, also to the beat. Dark comedy at its finest.
Ken, don’t forget Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee, Middle-age Crazy ( probably my favorite), 39 & Holding.
“Today, he’s 40 years old, pedalin’ like 20, and you look for the gray in hair and he ain’t got any, and the young thing beside him, y’know she understands, that he’s middle age crazy, still pedalin’ the best that he can.”
I loved reading all the comments on this one! Thanks for picking it Scotty!
Good one Jon!! I thought I’d missed a few as there are so many drinking songs out there that I lost track over the last 50+
years or thereabouts. I’ve been playing music 🎶 since the late ’60s. Even wrote one myself back in ’82 called State Of Intoxication based on an episode
of MASH. It did okay locally, but
didn’t make it to the national charts though. I re-releaded it in
2011 on a CD called Mixed Bag on which I wrote over half the songs myself. It was produced by Dave Smith at Glow Worm
Studios in Lakeland Florida. I sold every last one I had too. I’ve written close to 50 songs since
1971 and yes, I’ve got the yen to
play again but my family comes
first and foremost. It’s just like the car hobby where you wanna
buy an old car but life gets in the way. Maybe I’ll do it someday if I
can get back into the studio. It was a good run though.
Hey Ken, go down to Old Man Franks and play a gig or two!
Thought about it Mike! But we’ve since moved back to Melbourne
after Mom’s house sold in ’23. From what I understand, the place is very different now. My friend Bahama Tom lost his contract while off work due to knee surgery in late ’22. Just goes to show you what cut throats the owners really are. I still might get back into the studio someday once I have enough cash to pay for the sessions. Almost set up a Polk
County version of The Grand Ole
Opry with a friend of mine named Bill Greene in 2018. We just couldn’t convince the owner of the Auburndale Flea Market that he could make a lot of money on
Friday and Saturday nights if he
opened the Yellow Dragon Restaurant along with the show area out front. We would’ve featured top local talent for all the town to see. We were gonna
run it just like the Opry running 30
minute segments sponsored by
local merchants. And yeah, it
would’ve felt funny just being a co host and not performing but I
think I would’ve gotten used to it.
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