Writer Jeroen van Bergeijk lives in The Netherlands but is spending some time in Australia. He's posting his photos and observations on his blog. Today he came across a bike retrofitted with a small one-banger engine.
Saw this awesome - or I should say grouse - looking bicycle today when I went to Port Adelaide to pick up my stuff coming in from Rotterdam. It's a Dunlop Bushranger mountain bike with a small, one cylinder engine fitted on to it. The great thing is that all the original bicycle gears still work. I suppose the owner starts the engine when going uphill or something.Looks like Mad Max's BicycleIt has sprockets on both sides of the wheel. On the right side the original bicycle gears, on the left side a sprocket driven by the engine.
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But bikes and cycles already come engine-equipped: the heart, lungs, legs, etc., of the cyclist.
I have a friend who makes these (or at least it seems pretty similar): http://www.ghentcruisers.com/
You can pay $3K for a Derringer. Swell-looking but ridiculously expensive when you can get a cruiser bike plus an engine kit like the one here for $500-$600. Bikeberry has motor kits (unless, of course, you live in California. They can't ship there.)Or, check out Motored Bikes for all sorts of DIY-style info.
I'm all for human power, myself, but I also like building things with motors.
And the only reason I have these links in my head is because I looked up Derringers and motor kits last night for no apparent reason. Now here it is on BB.
My tinfoil hat is ineffective, apparently.
i bought one of the motors off ebay for about $150. You just have to take your time to install it otherwise it wont work right. But you can average over 150mpg, reallly its ininityMPG cause you use your feet too. You have to start pedaling to start the motor.
Saw one of these a couple of weeks ago in Amsterdam. Was ridden by an older guy. He was pedalling along, but half way up a long (not very steep, it must be admitted) hill he kicked the engine on.
As he crested the hill, the motor went quiet. I presume he turned it off.
Not a terrible idea, if used judiciously.
coop
The grease on the pant leg problem must really go up on models like this.
We used to call these mopeds. My uncles would never pedal if there were some other power source they could rig up.
I saw several of these at a vintage motorcycle club meeting in Seattle a couple months ago. Several companies made conversion kits for bikes in the 30's and 40's. I saw three bikes from one of the most popular - Whizzer. They had a base model and many add-on upgrades. Pic of Whizzer engines on a vintage Schwinns here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22435026@N02/3796414725/
Perhaps not terrible, but aside from the Makery goodness (of which there is an abundance), I'm sort of wondering the point? Like, wouldn't an even halfway decent cyclist simply thrash one of these on an incline? Wouldn't this decrease a cyclist's output on precisely those parts of a ride where sweat and work are most beneficial--to the cyclist's overall health, their improvement, output, etc.? What are the pollution factors? (Negligible, sure, but still.) Wouldn't their weight offset their motor capacity almost always, requiring more output from the rider than they'd ever supply? Would this make the bike more of a theft or tampering risk? Couldn't the gas $$$ be better used to buy, oh, say, FOOD FOR THE RIDER? :P Etc., etc.
And the million-dollar question: Wouldn't they get their fair share of sneers from fixie punks? (The billion-dollar question, of course, would be "And won't BikeSnobNYC laugh?")
Curious, why is this noteworthy? Haven't bicycles with motors - both commercial and home-rigged - been around for 150 years or so?
Motor conversions for cycles are available as kits for around $140. They're pretty easy to do. I'm too lazy to Google this.
They're 2-stroke cycle engines. The dirtiest and most inefficient power source short of igniting a coal seam to boil water for tea.
In the'70s a neighbor had a Solex bike which came with a friction drive motor mounted on the front wheel. It was very cool looking but I doubt I'd risk one in Detroit street traffic.
You can buy one here:
http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=3315830
It follows the designs of early mopeds from the 40s and 50s which were bicycles with small engines attached. I've seen two here in Toronto. One of the riders I talked to said the police had not bothered him about it. However, they are defiantly illegal to use without insurance here and in any place where you need insurance for a moped. In Ontario, friction drive based vehicles are allowed and there are kits that work on that principal available. I imagine the law is similar in many places.
Got stuck behind one of those. Got a snootfull of 2-stroke exhaust. Did not like. Eventually I ramped up my pedal power and passed the guy just so I could get a breath of fresh air.
Theres about 10 of these in the local area here. They can reach speeds around 20-25km/h
As of September 30th, 2009 it's legal to drive these sorts of contraptions on roads up to 45mph(!) without registration no less; they're treated basically like a bicycle, but you have to drive them on the road, not the sidewalk.
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/director_staff/public_information/pr081109.pdf
The law was originally for those little mini-harley bikes that were so popular in 2004-2007, but they were limited to roads 30mph or lower (neighborhood only). If you live in the suburbs anywhere in Texas you know most "main" roads are 40mph, so this allows you to drive them practically anywhere around town. You could actually use these to run errands here in Texas.
This kind of modification is great for flatlanders like Dallas, Houston and other "flat" cities. I agree with others, if you lived in a hilly area like Seattle or the Bay area this wouldn't be very practical for you since I doubt an 80cc engine has enough torque to climb you up more than a 2-3% grade.
I hate scooters more than cars because they have such nasty, dirty 2 cycle exhaust. I think how I'd feel about
one of these would depend on context. If it's used by a sheep farmer 30 miles from the nearest town using it instead of a car, I would like it. If it's used by some kid
to ride around the city instead of pedaling, I'd hate it for dirtying my air.
I hate scooters more than cars because they have such nasty, dirty 2 cycle exhaust. I think how I'd feel about
one of these would depend on context. If it's used by a sheep farmer 30 miles from the nearest town using it instead of a car, I would like it. If it's used by some kid
to ride around the city instead of pedaling, I'd hate it for dirtying my air.
This type of bicycle is nothing all that strange -- I live in the West Kootenay area of British Columbia (Canada), and I have one that's a virtual twin to that one. I bought mine from "Zoom Bicycles" (a division of Power King) out of Burnaby, BC. You can see more kits, and parts for them at this website: http://www.zoombicycles.com/
They are affordable, reliable, and cheap to operate. And, as I live about 3km outside town, have a respiratory illness which precludes using a regular bicycle, and cannot afford a car, my bike is a godsend (in the summer, anyway -- I'm still forced to hitch-hike in the winter).
I would recommend them for anyone with circumstances similar to mine, or who needed one for getting around the city -- they're *great*...
There's a guy who rigs these together in Toronto, and I've seen a couple in my neighborhood. Not only do they look like they're rigged together with bailing wire and spit, and appear to present a not insignificant fire hazard close to the crotchal area, but I frequently drop them on the flats.
@Mitch -
Most modern sold-in-the-U.S. scooters now have 4-cycle engines; some (although, sadly, not my wife's) are actually fuel-injected.
When I visited Taipei, however...
The gears on that bike are most certainly not functional. Note the lack of derailleur at the rear--the gears cannot be shifted. This is a very simple ('ghetto') conversion, and makes the bike effectively a 'single speed'.
Repeating what others have said, these are not new, nor would I describe them as very 'cool'. They are dirty, soot-spewing engines of the same class as scooters, lawn mowers, and 'whipper snippers'.
Personally, I'd rather folks pedal themselves. If they need a boost, electric conversion kits are reaidly available, and presumably slightly better for the environment (assuming the batteries are safely disposed of).
Those derringers look kind of interesting. 4-stroke Honda mfg engine is a discontinuous improvement over the nasty ass two strokes that go into those chinese made aftermarket kits. This product category is going to blast off once methanol fuel cells with sufficient amperage hit the market. Why fuck with the DMV and auto insurance when you could have an 80lb, 45mph electric motorcycle that will run all day on a quart of HEET fuel line antifreeze?
Personally, I'd rather folks pedal themselves.
Personally, I'd rather you not worry about how I get around on a bike.
There are plenty of vendors selling the Chinese 2 stroke kits. However, these are still at the stage where you need to be a fairly dedicated tinker to assemble and especially, maintain. In CA, the two bangers are generally not kosher, but there are plenty of backdoor ways to get them in the state, and I've never seen a internal combustion motorized bike here in West L.A./Santa Monica that had anything but a two stroke.
What's the point, you ask? How 'bout a cheap, lightly regulated mode of transportation? And if that's not good enough, how 'bout it's just fun? These contraptions are essentially motorcycles of a century ago. Unlike most modern motor vehicles, increasingly unfixable by laypersons if at all, they are for the person who likes to adjust, tune and modify stuff.
Think of the mockery that many "reg'lar" cyclists will send you way as a nontoxic analogue to all that carbon you're pumping out while cruising to the small-engine show or the moped bar or wherever.
I've definitely seen one of these putting around the back streets of Hamilton, Ontario. It went by me so fast I did a double-take – is that really a bike? With what sounds like a chainsaw motor? WTF.
I see one of these at least once a week in Christchurch, New Zealand. Personally I think people should opt for the electric versions, no emissions and much cheaper than using petrol, they do cost a bit more to set up however. In New Zealand these are legally mopeds (if the engine produces greater than 300W of power) and must be registered with a license plate.
This is a bit like how Soichiro Honda started the Honda Motor Co. He bought up military surplus single cylinder engines from the Japanese gov't after WWII. Sold kits to install on bicycles. Eventually started selling the whole bike with engine. Dominated the global motorcycle industry within about 20 years.
I'm surprised nobody's posted this yet. Vintageprojects.com has had some plans for one of these up for as long as I've known about their site. I don't know how hard it would be to find a motor identical to the one in those old plans, but I'm sure you could rig-up something.
http://www.vintageprojects.com/mini-bike/power-bike.html
Im living in chile at the moment these things are quite the rage, reasonably priced too.
Wow. A Dutchman excited over a bicycle mod? It's cool, but I find that surprising! This pretty much sums up my experiences in The Netherlands:
http://geriandricky.maxwells.net.nz/2001/04/29/bikes/
Cool Tools had an article on the Golden Eagle 4-stroke bike engine kit back in August, 2006 (http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001377.php). Used a Subaru engine.
Just over $600 delivered at that point. Vendor is Golden Eagle (http://www.bikeengines.com/index.htm)
Those are kits made in China, you can order them online for $150 or less. I put one on my schwinn over the summer.
http://yfrog.com/5mdsc002721j
These things put out more NOx emissions than a Hummer. In terms of pollution, they're up there with lawnmowers. That's about the only reason not to use a small bike engine and that's not even really being discussed.
But it's absolutely disgusting that people here would judge others based upon how and when they exercise. Or what they use for transportation. Get a life.
Or move to Portland.
I remember seeing similar things a while ago (2-3 years ago) at the Marion Shopping centre (in the southern area of Adelaide). From memory though they weren't gear driver, rather the engine drove a roller that the rider could press against the rear tyre. To start them, they would peddle up to speed, then when engaging the roller, the momentum would start the engine.
these are common in australia with kits on sale on Ebay and various websites. What the vendors don't tell you is they are illegal to use here on a public road unless the engine is power limited to 200W (about 0.27 HP).
Sachs and MBA Flyer are two brands which conform to regulations, but any modification either to increase power or say run on biofuel voids the warranty
see:
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&num=100&q=motorised+bicycles&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryAU&aq=f&oq=
Here in Victoria, Australia "a bicycle includes a vehicle with an auxiliary engine of less then 200 watts". Thats the law. Most of the time that means a power assisted bicycle can't keep up with a good bike rider but this guy who used to go my way to work had removed the muffler from his engine and the thing was dangerously loud.
Furthermore the engine changes the dynamic between vehicles. A strong bike rider will over take and not be seen again. A less strong bike rider will draft. This thing will sit around on its red line defining all in the vicinity. Sometimes getting ahead, sometimes falling behind.
Do not want.
For a while when I rode my bicycle to work there was this guy with a powered bicycle
blech, 2 stroke engines don't belong near lungs.
Nobody else has mentioned it yet, so: Does anybody know where this guy got a rear wheel with sprockets on both sides?
Thanks for the link. I do understand most of the comments. 2-strokes are noisy and exhausty. However the mileage these little things create is amazing and not to mention.. Not everyone lives a mile from work... hence they drive in vs. biking. With these you can increase the distance of riding this vs. driving a car or SUV. I however am going to build with electric in the near future. Like most of you I agree the less gas used the better, be it 2 stroke or 4. ps. That bike does have a sprocket on each side. of the rear wheel. The setups and options available for these kits is abundant. You can get kits that still allow for the use of the gears. These guys here: http://sickbikeparts.com/catalog/ sell them
This is a great little invention.....I bought a bike engine kit just like this and fixed it to my bicycle in a couple of hours.
It can reach speeds of around 48 to 50 k's per hour and it is as economical, traveling approx 100 k's for one dollar of of petrol.
It beats taking out the car, paying for parking and using the cycle tracks to get to work....no more traffic hassles, no license or rego required....great!! I didn't even have to leave home to get it.
I sourced it on line....paid by credit card....hay presto on my door step within 5 days from www.StarFireBikeEngines.com.au
Now all my friends and random people want to know where they can get an engine kit....great fun.....BIRD DOG
These are loads of fun and very practical. Laws are different everywhere, and in many places these are seen as bicycles with assist and need no registration or insurance. For people with disabilities they are empowering and give them freedom for a very small price. Don't get all snooty about how they pollute compared to an electric bike. Where do you think they get the electricity to charge the electric bike batteries? In most cases it's from coal fired power plants, the worst polluters on the planet. If anything, driving an electric vehicle is the worst form of pollution. Go green, ride a bike with a small gas engine and stop feeding the power companies and gas guzzling autos.