Let's make a motorized bicycle: Junkyard Wars Style

[lokie56]

I'm a Bicycle mechanic by trade and experience. I've worked over 30 years in the heart of happy, hippy bike Nirvana Eugene, Oregon as a bike shop mech and sales, and also some manufacturing and have a half dozen friends from these years that are now famous or possibly infamous Bike Illuminaties.

I have this relationship with bicycles that includes the possibilities of their having silly little gasoline engines driving their wheels. It makes me somewhat of the oddball at bike events when I show up on an engine powered bicycle.

Last May of 2014, I decided, (for no particularly smart reason..) to build a 30cc weedeater powered friction drive bicycle from an old Nishiki commuter bike I picked up at the Recyclery in Glenwood.

I even have a video of the finished product..

This bike is powered by a classic old 1980's Italian made McCullough Pro-Scaper II weedeater with autoclutch. It's actually surprisingly punchy, and can manage to cruise at 20 MPH and climb 6% grades at 14 mph while towing a trailer with 30 pounds of cargo ( single wheeled Aosom BOB trailer..).

This bike has gotten me into some hot water with some neighbors who think it's illegal, ( it's not..)

This is a retrospective tale of an innocent bicycle that I turned to the dark side.