Of bicycles and go-karts

In the realm of small transportation, there are (among many other choices) bicycles and go-karts. They are different beasts, built different ways for different purposes. Some may consider bicycles more elegant and precision machines, and go-karts can sometimes be a bit sloppy, held together with duct tape and baling wire, but they can go pretty fast. (Yes, bicycles can go quite fast also but there are different approaches to making them fast and they can be quite variable)

So, if you take someone who is a decent bike builder and show them a go-kart, explain the basic principles of operation, give them the parts to build a go-kart, and suggest that they use the parts to build a go-kart and expect that their general mechanical knowledge from building bikes will be sufficient to let them actually handle the building process, then you would expect them to build a go-kart, right?

NO.

They will use the parts you gave them to try and build a bicycle. However, go-kart parts are not bicycle parts, so they will try to make do.

A bicycle has 2 wheels, but their parts box has 4 (that are qiute different). So they'll put one in front and one in back, and then since there's 2 extra, they'l put those in the back too.

A bike doesn't have an engine, so they won't quite know what to do with it. But it has to be there, so they'll strap it to the front. Not connected to anything, just strapped there. For propulsion, a bike uses pedals and a chain; there's a chain drive from the engine that looks like a bike chain (only a lot shorter), so that will work. And the brake and gas pedals look can double as bike pedals in a pinch, so those get strapped onto the chain somehow.

A go-kart frame is rather square-ish compared to a bike frame, but that'll have to do. Stuff can get bolted onto it somehow. The seat goes sort of sideways in the middle, right?

The steering wheel is a common enough thing that they realize it's for turning the wheels, even if it's different than bike handlebars. It gets bolted in there too and wired up to the single front wheel.

So after all this you have a go-kart frame all bent out of shape in such a way as to sort of resemble a bicycle, that you have to pedal very ineffectively, with no brakes, that you can barely control, and carrying the extra weight of a useless engine, that you can't make go very fast. But it DOES go.

And the builder?

They complain that the parts you gave them don't make a very good bicycle.