The Railbike

When his roommate bailed on him, carpenter Jesse Ingham was left with a $600 debt, their apartment's lease and a 1984 Cannondale mountain bike. "It was the first commercial mountain bike I ever lusted for," says Ingham. "I rebuilt it out of spite." To make My Railbike, Ingham added a custom-fabricated bottom bracket, angle iron, lawnmower and skateboard wheels, steel cable and some plumbing parts to get from the mountains to rural Wisconsin's abandoned train tracks. "Once, I rode it across a bridge over a river, far from roads, and totally startled an old couple fishing in their boat," Ingham says.