Video - Ghost rider? Footage on Facebook shows bike’s pedals spinning … with no-one on it

Video posted to Facebook by a user in Thailand shows a bicycle’s pedals and rear wheel spinning apparently of their own accord – leading some users of the social network to wonder whether ghostly goings-on are afoot.

CCTV footage of what appears to be the patio of a bar or café shows the cracks and wheel turning, building up a fair old pace, with nothing obvious propelling them.

Towards the end of the video, a bucket resting on a table is sent crashing to the ground, causing a man to rush through a doorway to find out what is going on.

But while some people believed a ghost was behind what happened – one even saying they thought they could detect an almost invisible man – another had a more prosaic explanation, saying “One viewer wrote: "Fake. Don’t be so stupid. Just wire everything up. Anything can move."

When we’ve featured videos of bikes with rear wheels spinning apparently of their own accord, it’s been in the context of a pro race with Twitter abuzz with speculation that the footage provides evidence of illegal mechanical assistance.

Mind you, those theories of riders actually using a concealed motor in competition used to be dismissed as too far-fetched to be true … until one turned up in a bike prepared for Belgian Under-23 rider Femke Van Den Driessche at the cyclo-cross world championships earlier this year.

So maybe there is something to the supernatural angle after all?

Here at road.cc HQ, however, we’re a bit more cynical and we’d point the finger at the janitor – and he’d have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for those pedalling kids …