Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/13/with-no-bridge-girls-zipline.html
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I love that the zipline operator is like eight?
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I’m no engineer, but I’m pretty sure those handlebars were not designed to carry the full load of the bike with two passengers. Scary.
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“Ok, little tiny child rigger, just let me know when we’re ready so I can take off my helmet!”
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MediEvel Knievel
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Yeah, that’s what got me. Pulling funny stuff like this is fine, but if you have a helmet, wear it.
Of course, when I was in Thailand I saw sooo many scooters with 5+ people on them (mostly kids) in heavy, fast traffic with no helmets. At least if that kiddo fell off she’d land in water.
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In the middle of all the Indonesian, in plain English, “Oh my gosh.”
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That’s what I love about kids, no fear, unrestricted by all the “what ifs you fall, drown blah blah”. It’s just, “this looks like fun”, lets do it. Good on you Kids and have fun coming back. Just wait till your mother sees this, You’re grounded, don’t you ever do that again, what if what if. Hah!What if you laughed like looks and had a ball.
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Last time I did a zip line in the Philippines I was wearing a large photography backpack full of still and video gear plus a Macbook pro and its accessories. Didn’t realize until I was zipping that it would mess up my center of gravity resulting in me flipping upside down. To stay right-side-up I needed to do a sustained pull-up for the 8+ minutes it took to get across. The view was beautiful despite the struggle to stay upright. Also, I’m not a fan of heights.
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It kind of seems like this was a regular occurrence, as the ropes they attached to the scooter seemed to have been designed - or jury rigged, anyways - for exactly that purpose. Still - yikes!
I was more worried about the landing on the other side of the river. I couldn’t tell how successfully they hit the ground there…
I suspect necessity played a role, too - with the nearest bridge over the river being X miles away…
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Yeah, I hate you so much now 
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Still worth it. 
If it makes you feel better in Feb I had over 90 hour saved up (from 2019) toward my next trip to PH but when we started working from home my company made everyone take a vacation day every Friday since then. Over 90 hours earned… wasted sitting in my apartment. Most everyone hit zero recently so of course we then had a RIF.
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I’m getting laid off tomorrow and using vacation day right now, so no 
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Sorry to hear that. I survived this RIF but I am sure there will be more. No one is getting through 2020 unscathed.
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Ladies, next time just pay the freaking toll.
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At least they didn’t need an alien turd in the front basket.
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There’s a third line attached to the frame(?), so the handlebars are only handling half the weight. As an engineer, that’s what we call a safety factor.
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I love the zip lines and we’ve done a lot of them in the canopy in Peru. Most of them the platform was big enough you could strap in and hang on over the platform till you lifted your feet. The last one I did we strapped in and had to stand on a branch and step off. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t just step off a 100 some feet in the air. So I asked my son to shove me. I loved looking at all the canopy stuff but just could not get my dumb ass feel to abandon solid ground (branch)
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I suspect this was what the locals do on a daily basis. I don’t think this was for fun, I think this is the river crossing they have.
This is why having a sufficient infrastructure budget to build and maintain road infrastructure is so important- if you can’t do it the “right” way, it still has to be done, and it gets more dangerous for everyone involved. 
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(And he wouldn’t have needed a puny zipline anyway.)
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