Home made Billy-cart Horror stories.

[tea lady]

I have had a hilarious time discussing this with friends. I'm sure there are some amazing and death defying stories from the members here too. I'm sure many of you can do better than this.

Hubby tells this story about building "the best billy-cart ever" with a mate of his in his early teens. It had a closed in cockpit all built in wood with the ends of nails sticking out everywhere. Took it for its maiden voyage down a REALLY big hill with a T intersection at the end and bush beyond. (You know whats going to happen don't you. I should just stop there.)

I don't know why he tells me these stories. There was another one about jumping off the roof with a plank tied across his shoulders and his arms also tied on at the wrists. And realizing half way to the ground that it prolly wasn't a good idea.:

[Batpig]

Dear Tea Lady,

After watching one of the quintessential car-chase movies - "Vanishing Point" - back in the early 70's, we just painted up an old metal Stroller/Pram and got by with that. If it had ever collapsed with a finger or such in between those strong, sharp-edged steel sections, it would have been "curtains...". The climax came when one of my brothers - with great fanfare - proceeded to launch at high speed one of my other brothers over the precipice of a 1.2m high retaining wall in the thing...

The brother survived. The stroller was never the same again...

Best Wishes,
Batpig.

[Ozkaban]

My most spectacular landing in a billy cart came when I was about 8 or 9 y.o.

I live in a very hilly suburb in northern sydney (always have). As all of the nice flat spots already had buildings on them, they decided to start building down the sides of the hills.

There was one driveway in this new development which was very steep. About 30m down it there was a right hand T intersection. If you missed this turn, there was an old chainlink fence about 20m further on with a rather sudden drop after that.

Anyway, all of the big kids were going from right up the top of the driveway, building up to warp speed and hooking into the side driveway half way down. all very fun. Being the smallest in the group, I was too chicken to do this and would start from about 10m down the driveway, which was a much more tame experience.

I finally plucked up the courage and with everyone looking on set off from the top of the hill. As I turned into the driveway I either turned to sharp, hit a rock or something but all of a sudden there were exactly three contact points with the cement - two elbows and a knee - the billy cart was on top of me, safely out of harms way.

Blood absolutely everywhere. Fun for day well and truly over. The biggest memory I have of it was trudging home (about 1km or so), every joint aching and blood pouring everywhere - we had nothing to stop it!

I still have the scars to this day.

Mind you, one of the only disappointments I have with having two daughters and no sons is that I don't get to share the joys of billycarts with them. Then again, where I live now there is a hill next to us that is so steep with a sudden stop of native bushland (read very big gums) that I reckon the word 'dangerous' doesn't even come into it...

Cheers,
Dave

PS. I dunno if a family friendly forum is really the place, but one day I may tell you the story called 'building an orange cannon and the neighbour three houses up who liked to garden at night...'

[Ozkaban]

Just saw this - thought it might be relevant...

[tea lady]

My most spectacular landing in a billy cart came when I was about 8 or 9 y.o.

I live in a very hilly suburb in northern sydney (always have). As all of the nice flat spots already had buildings on them, they decided to start building down the sides of the hills.

There was one driveway in this new development which was very steep. About 30m down it there was a right hand T intersection. If you missed this turn, there was an old chainlink fence about 20m further on with a rather sudden drop after that.

Anyway, all of the big kids were going from right up the top of the driveway, building up to warp speed and hooking into the side driveway half way down. all very fun. Being the smallest in the group, I was too chicken to do this and would start from about 10m down the driveway, which was a much more tame experience.

I finally plucked up the courage and with everyone looking on set off from the top of the hill. As I turned into the driveway I either turned to sharp, hit a rock or something but all of a sudden there were exactly three contact points with the cement - two elbows and a knee - the billy cart was on top of me, safely out of harms way.

Blood absolutely everywhere. Fun for day well and truly over. The biggest memory I have of it was trudging home (about 1km or so), every joint aching and blood pouring everywhere - we had nothing to stop it!

I still have the scars to this day.

Mind you, one of the only disappointments I have with having two daughters and no sons is that I don't get to share the joys of billycarts with them. Then again, where I live now there is a hill next to us that is so steep with a sudden stop of native bushland (read very big gums) that I reckon the word 'dangerous' doesn't even come into it...

Cheers,
Dave

PS. I dunno if a family friendly forum is really the place, but one day I may tell you the story called 'building an orange cannon and the neighbour three houses up who liked to garden at night...'

Te he. Might have to add a "do not try this at home" to the title.:rofl

BTW maybe if you made pink billycarts the girls will play with you.

[woodcutta]

I was born in a town in the Barossa Valley named Angaston. Each year there would be a Billy Cart race from the top of Bald Hill to the Angaston Institute, a distance of about 2Km

All the kids would make their billy carts and have them ready for the big day.

Being a rural area, there was every shape and size imaginable. Brakes were optional in those days.

At the finishing point there were bales of hay stacked on the road for those that didnt take the brakes option.

As i said being rural meant anything went and one kid who lived on a farm decided that cast iron plough wheels were the go - probably a financial decision I guess.

Well the race started and finished and everyone was standing around talking about who did what, but no sign of the farmer boy.

I suppose he hadnt thought that about 150KG each of plough wheels were going to take a bit of getting started, but eventually they got rolling.

Everyone could hear a rumble coming down the road and looked to see him in the drivers seat, look of sheer terror on his face.

It was probably about this time he realised that if it took a little while to get started it was also going to take a little while to stop it - and the bales of hay were just too little.

So, he hit the bales of hay which hardly slowed his progress at all, sailed across the road at the end of the street, through the plate glass window of the menswear shop on the other side of the road, flattened a few racks of shirts pants and suits and came to rest with the front wheels poking out through the brick wall at the back of the shop.

Needless to say the next years race had a few limitations of what could be used - and definately NO PLOUGH WHEELS

woodcutta

[tea lady]

And bigger bales of hay perhaps. Is that why they started making those enormous ones.

[Ozkaban]

I was born in a town in the Barossa Valley named Angaston. Each year there would be a Billy Cart race from the top of Bald Hill to the Angaston Institute, a distance of about 2Km

All the kids would make their billy carts and have them ready for the big day.

Being a rural area, there was every shape and size imaginable. Brakes were optional in those days.

At the finishing point there were bales of hay stacked on the road for those that didnt take the brakes option.

As i said being rural meant anything went and one kid who lived on a farm decided that cast iron plough wheels were the go - probably a financial decision I guess.

Well the race started and finished and everyone was standing around talking about who did what, but no sign of the farmer boy.

I suppose he hadnt thought that about 150KG each of plough wheels were going to take a bit of getting started, but eventually they got rolling.

Everyone could hear a rumble coming down the road and looked to see him in the drivers seat, look of sheer terror on his face.

It was probably about this time he realised that if it took a little while to get started it was also going to take a little while to stop it - and the bales of hay were just too little.

So, he hit the bales of hay which hardly slowed his progress at all, sailed across the road at the end of the street, through the plate glass window of the menswear shop on the other side of the road, flattened a few racks of shirts pants and suits and came to rest with the front wheels poking out through the brick wall at the back of the shop.

Needless to say the next years race had a few limitations of what could be used - and definately NO PLOUGH WHEELS

woodcutta

You just can't get away with that sort of stuff these days

Fantastic story. I wonder how the subject of the story tells it to his kids/grand kids? Does he preface it with 'This was bloody stupid'. or is there another slant???

Oh, Tea Lady - pink billy carts would be a good idea but my girls, for better or for worse, have too much natural caution. I'd never convince them to strap themselves in first, and if I went first, they'd definitely never follow

Cheers,
Dave

[tea lady]

Oh, Tea Lady - pink billy carts would be a good idea but my girls, for better or for worse, have too much natural caution. I'd never convince them to strap themselves in first, and if I went first, they'd definitely never follow

Cheers,
Dave

I guess its quite good having girls that won't get into a vehicle for a bloke, even if its their dad.

[Ozkaban]

I guess its quite good having girls that won't get into a vehicle for a bloke, even if its their dad.

hadn't thought of it from that angle. You're right - I'm not talking them out of that one!!!

[Christopha]

I've seen a few Billycarts ( we called them "bitsers" cos they were made from all the bits you could scrounge) but the two that were most memorable were the one with 28" bicycle wheels front and rear and no brakes.... at the bottom of the very steep gully it was doing an absolutely amazing speed, ran out of track, jumped the creek and was last seen heading into the scrub. It was banned until it got brakes. The other was made by some father who thought the Flintstones were cool. He cast concrete wheels would you believe, the chassi was the fork of a tree and the whole shebang was virtually lashed together with rope and fencing wire. It took some serios pushing to start it down the hill but once going it was surprisingly fast.... until it started to dismantle itself! There were bits of tree and concrete, branches from the "cabin" etc strewn all over the place!
Some ten years or so ago I found some very old but brand new wheels, red with white pinstriping at a clearing sale. For fun I made a billycart in the original style, took it to the local pseudo antique shop and was rewarded with $150.....

[Chris Parks]

We used to have a car ferry and the ramp was on the bottom of a big hill with boom gates across to stop any errant motorist driving into the river. When they built the Captain Cook bridge we finally had access to this hill with no traffic on it so we lined the carts up and pushed the first one off to make sure he went fast enough. Well when he got to the boom gates there was no way it was ever going to stop and he tried to spin it, that failed and ducking down he went under the boom gate into the river. No one helped him out as we were all rolling around laughing and it was his own cart so that didn't matter either. We organised brakes after that and used ball bearings as you can spin them, pram wheels break when you try that or you roll over and both hurt.

[Stuart]

I made so many as a kid - wish I had photos of some.

One was a 3 wheeler - well really one wheel (the front wheel) which was originally the front wheel of a bike. The frame ended in a seat almost at ground level, and the rear 'wheels' was simply 2 truck bearings.

Not only fast, but you could EASILY get the back end to slip out as you are going around corners, an even in a straight line a quick flick of the wheel could produce an amazing 180. The scars on the road were 2 lines that suddenly crossed over.

Down some really fast hills, trying to go around some corners (cliff at the bottom), I sometimes didn't get it right and instead of going around the corner, the cart would do a full 180 and I'd find myself going backwards over the cliff. Happened more than once, so I guess I'm pretty hard to discourage.

I still have a number of scars (trophies).

A 4 'wheeled' version was less successful - difficult to steer something that could spin it's way down the road as easily as straight line!

My most aggressive one was a 'war cart' with 2" thick wooden spikes all around (these spikes were triangles 10" or so wide at the body, and extended about 12" out from the cart. The front wheels were pretty standard billy cart, but the rear were again the bearings - made it very easy to flick the cart into whatever orientation needed for maximum damage to the other vehicle.

[tea lady]

.Not only fast, but you could EASILY get the back end to slip out as you are going around corners, an even in a straight line a quick flick of the wheel could produce an amazing 180. The scars on the road were 2 lines that suddenly crossed over.

Ah! So that's the origin of those yellow signs with the tyer tracks crossing over in front of the car. Not a car.....a billy cart.

[Brown Dog]

A 4 'wheeled' version was less successful - difficult to steer something that could spin it's way down the road as easily as straight line!

We had one like that... from what I remember it was more like skiing than driving a cart. ...great fun

The other good thing about the cart with bearing wheels, was when you used them at night the sparks gave you a spectacular light show


cheers
BD