Watch: YouTuber builds rideable bicycle out of 147 nuts

“How nuts do you need to be to create a fully working bicycle out of 147 nuts?” This is the question asked by YouTuber Sergii Gordieiev, known as The Q (opens in new tab), in his most recent DIY bike experiment. 

The answer, it appears, is not very. Having previously cycled over ice on circular saw wheels and made tyres out of hot glue gun sticks, the Ukrainian engineer took on the challenge of making a bike frame out of 147 hexagonal-shaped nuts. 

Gordieiev began by laying out the nuts on a table and arranging them into a standard frame shape. He then ran a current through the metal parts and welded them together. 

After carving his own derailleur hanger and fitting a head tube, Gordieiev used an angle grinder to refine the joints. He finished off the build with a pair of chunky wheels, flat handlebars and a seat post.

The end product is a slick-looking, hole-riddled bike that is fully rideable. 

Aesthetically, the nut bike looks like an ode to the retro mod of drillium, popularised in the 1970s, which saw mechanics drill into bike parts to save weight. The result was chainrings, derailleurs and brake levers peppered with tiny holes. 

Commenting on the nut bike video, one person said: “The upgrade opportunities are endless, you could basically screw/attach anything to it.”

Another person wrote: “I wouldn’t risk going downhill with that bike… but nice job!”

Exactly how heavy the nut bike is remains uncertain. But if we assume the average nut to be an inch wide and made of stainless steel, we can estimate that the frame alone weighs around 5kg. This would make it six times heavier than a high-end road bike. 

This weight, however, doesn’t begin to compare to the concrete bike built by YouTubers Play to DIY earlier this year. Weighing in at 134.5kg, the concrete build took two months to make and is said to be fully functional.

Aerodynamicist Dan Bigham estimated that a person riding the concrete bike would have to put out 500 watts for 41 seconds in order to get to 35km/h. A rider could reach the same speed on a standard road bike in just nine seconds.