A Bicycle Built for You
Lotsa Pasta
Facts & Figures
Random Trivia
Potpourri
100

Your first bicycle after a tricycle might have had these to aid you in maintaining your balance.

Answer: What are training wheels? 

Today, children as young as two can skip tricycles and training wheels and start riding on balance bikes. These bikes are smaller, with wide wheels, and the bikes are so close to the ground that riders can start by scooting with their feet.

100

Macaroni resembles this body part. 

Answer: What is elbow? 

Kraft Dinner, which is mac and cheese, is Canada’s most popular grocery item. 

100

This is the number of leaves on a typical shamrock.

Answer: What is three? 

The record number of leaves on a clover is 56. 

100

On a standard Scrabble board, how many triple-word score tiles are there?

Answer: Eight. 

There are several categories of special tiles that increase the value of a letter or word played.

100

This is the name of the May full moon. 

Answer: What is the flower moon? 

The name signifies that wildflowers are in full bloom in May in the northern hemisphere. 

200

This is the term for a bicycle built for more than one person. 

Answer: What is a tandem bike? 

The front rider is considered the captain and controls where the bike goes, and the rear rider is the stoker. Sometimes these bikes even have more than two seats.

200

This layered pasta dish is often made in a rectangular pan with large, flat pasta strips, tomato sauce, meat, and cheese.

Answer: What is lasagna? 

The wide, flat pasta is one of the oldest pasta types. Sometimes lasagna is topped with béchamel sauce as well.

200

A Rubik’s Cube has this number of sides.

Answer: What is six? 

The official world record for solving the Rubik’s Cube is 3.47 seconds.

200

Dr. Frederick Banting became the first Canadian Nobel Prize winner for his discovery of what hormone that regulates diabetes?

Answer: Insulin. Banting won the Nobel Prize in Physiology/ Medicine in 1923. He had been inspired to pursue medicine by a childhood friend who had diabetes.

200

This flowering shrub native to eastern North America can be used as a facial astringent. 

Answer: What is witch hazel? 

Astringents tighten facial skin.

300

This is a cycle with only one wheel. 

Answer: What is a unicycle? 

There are around one million unicyclists in the United States.

300

Name one of America’s three favorite pasta types. 

Answer: What is spaghetti, penne, or rotini? 

This is according to a 2013 Barilla World Pasta Day survey.

300

Although necessary for plant life, the element CO2, known by this name, has been attributed as the leading cause for climate change.

Answer: What is carbon dioxide? 

Most animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

300

In what Shakespearean play did a character say the following line? “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Answer: Romeo and Juliet. 

The line refers to the tension between the characters’ families and why their family names should not define them.

300

Richard Feynman, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, and Julian Schwinger won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for their work in this field. 

Answer: What is quantum electrodynamics (QED)? 

It was the first successful quantum field theory.

400

When riding on rough terrain, cyclists ride this type of bike.

Answer: What is a mountain bike? 

The road bike is built for speed on streets. The mountain bike is rugged and made for uneven, off-road terrain, including gravel, snow, dirt, and mud. 

400

Pasta was first eaten in this country.

Answer: What is China? 

Legend states that Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy in the 12th century; however, records show pasta was made in China in 500 BC.

400

This is the term for the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. 

Answer: What is pi? 

When written as a decimal, the number never ends.

400

Boeuf bourguignon, a dish consisting of beef and vegetables cooked in a wine sauce, was popularized by which chef in her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking?

Answer: Julia Child. 

The dish is first mentioned in an 1878 travel guide to Paris and has since become popular across the globe.

400

She is an East German-born figure skater who went on to become a two-time Olympic gold medalist after participating in the Olympic games in Sarajevo and Calgary. 

Answer: Who is Katarina Witt (pronounced Vitt)? 

Through her entrepreneurial endeavors and broadcasting, she is still involved in the sports world. She is also a founding member of Laureus Sport for Good, an organization that supports children in crisis areas through sports.

500

In 1963, Schwinn introduced a bicycle with this elongated seat. 

Answer: What is a banana seat? 

The bicycle was the Schwinn Sting-Ray. 

500

This founding father is said to have brought pasta to America.

Answer: Who is Thomas Jefferson? 

He brought it to America in 1798.

500

This is the only number that cannot be written in Roman numerals. 

Answer: What is zero?

Instead, the Latin word nulla is used for zero

500

Botanically, palms are classified as which sort of plant: shrubs, grass, or trees?

Answer: Grass. 

Believe it or not, palm trees are monocotyledons (MAH-nuh-CAH-duh-LEE?dins), or plants having only one seed leaf per embryo. This technically makes them a grass.

500

In 1901, these pants were the proper attire for bicycle riding.

Answer: What are knickerbockers (or bloomers)? 

Men and women alike wore knickerbockers.