On your locobike  

The ABC has a report on a transport experiment up on the NSW north coast - On your locobike!.

Two mates have found a novel way to make the most out of old rusting railway lines.

A few years ago Julio Mottola and Michael Albert hatched a plan to create a unique bike that could be ridden on rusting tracks. Enter the "locobike" - two bicycles joined together with a solid aluminium frame with four little polyurethane wheels attached. The wheels then lock the bicycles to the railway tracks and away you go.

Secret and illegal trials of the prototype, on the disused Casino to Murwillumbah rail line on the NSW north coast, were a success. After covering more than 100 kilometres in these underground trials, the duo began lobbying to make their contraption legal. Several Byron Bay locals are backing the idea and a former lawyer for Dick Smith is working pro bono to organise a petition to take to the local council.

Jewellery designer Mr Mottola, and Mr Albert, who runs a hat shop in Melbourne, spent a year getting their invention just right. "It's a very safe and simple design and it's very easy to use," Mr Mottola told ABC News Online. "It requires less muscle work than riding a bicycle on the road because the tyres sit on top of the rails so there's very little friction."

It took the pedaling pair two-and-a-half hours to locoride from Mullumbimby to Byron Bay.