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The Effect
First you display five bicycle riding jokers, and place one aside on the table (face down). The patter goes that he is the leader of the pack and that the other jokers will follow him wherever he is.Then, magically, the other four jokers turn face down (one by one) just like their friend. Next, you turn over the cards and show that all four jokers have vanished from the cards (the cards show empty bicycles!). Finally, when the joker you put aside is turned over all five jokers are on one card, drinking beer. As analternative ending, all five jokers are displayed performing an acrobatic routine on one bike.


Cost

£11 various stockists

Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

3-4

Review

This is a good trick with an unexpected and fairly inexplicable ending. There is a bit of fiddly handling which is made slightly more difficult by the fact that despite the cards being classic bicycle design they are just printed card and so stick a bit. The routine is clever and conducive to humorous presentation, although the sleights are not that well explained if you don't already know the counts involved.


Overall

Pretty good. nice ending. Bit expensive + could do with having better cards.

7/10

Thanks for that Fletch, I've been wondering about this one for some time but I think I'll hold off for a while - the word 'counts' (Elmsley?) gives me the screaming Aarvarks and the quality of the card stock indicates perhaps more effort could have gone into this one. Thanks anyway!

Mandrake,
Several Elmsley counts + a Hamman count are needed (+there are a few other bits and pieces you can throw in if you want to be flash). It's definitely a good trick to practice these moves, but you do need to be reasonably proficient at them to pull the trick off. The card quality is disappointing, though, I have real trouble with the handling if my hands are in the slightest bit sweaty (leave it!).

Sounds like a sure fire recipe for knitted fingers to me!

Better quality cards could be made up by a specialist firm if money were no object but it's a shame they didn't go for proper quality to start with. I always asumed that, if the tin says 'Bicycle' cards then they'd be to the same standard as the US Playing Card Decks anyway. Must bear that in mind for future purchases.

For Reference: This was also reviewed Here

oops, Sorry Bananafish, missed that. Not sure about the initial "2" rating for difficulty. Guess its all relative....

Just thought I'd share this with you as I tried it the other evening and it got a good reaction.

Basically, nothing new but a little joint routine with the "Bicycle built for five" and NFW ( http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=53 ) tricks. Firstly, perform the bicycle built for five routine as reviewed (Five bicycle riding jokers mysteriously turn over one by one and end up having deserted their individual bikes and joining their leader together on one card). Good trick on its own, but thought it would be an idea to take it further with NFW, so next you put away your set of cards into a change wallet (Himber or whatever), do another couple of unrelated tricks and then retrieve your NFW cards showing that the riders have remounted their bikes, but have been deserted by their leader and are down to 4. You then perform NFW as described, which will have the specs reeling with boredom as it is initially the same effect as BBFF essentially and then hit them with the "4 aces" climax.... where did all those jokers/empty bikes go? Well it worked for me anyway......