How long have you ridden your motorized bicycle?

GoldenMotor.com

JonD

New Member
Aug 8, 2012
17
0
0
Virginia Beach
We just had one of the first nice days of the year here in Virginia Beach and I pulled out my motor bike for the season.

2 years ago, I took my worn out specialized mountain bike and made it a motorbike with a 66cc motor and a sick bike parts shift kit. I have done alot of tuning and adjusting, but I still love riding my bike. I've gotten it to top out at 37 mph which is 2 mph more than I can legally do here anyway. The only problem I have with it now is an occasional rear wheel chain derailure on start up, usually when I am trying to kick it like a motorcycle and not pedal start it.

Is there anyone out there who has ridden one of these things for an appreciable amount of time? It seems like the majority of people tinker with these bikes for a bit and move on.usflg
 

paul

Well-Known Member
Dec 23, 2007
5,547
44
48
66
Kalamazoo, MI
about 8 years for me, I put over 6,000 miles on mine last year. I must say I love motorized bicycles more each year, gas or electric, 2 stroke or 4 stroke
 

maniac57

Old, Fat, and still faster than you
Oct 8, 2011
4,484
22
0
memphis Tn
I'm going on 8 or 9 years of riding motorbikes at age 50, not counting a couple early 70's contraptions that were not really bicycles. But I've been an avid bicyclist since childhood, starting with BMX and moving to mountain bikes as I outgrew the 20'' frames.
I would have been riding chinagirls at 5 or 6 years old if they had been available back then.
Coolest bicycle modification EVER in my humble opinion.
Affordable, simple, easy to use, and most of all, fun!
 

Kioshk

Active Member
Oct 21, 2012
1,152
10
38
Connecticut
1.5 years; and over a year now of it being my daily driver (rain, sleet, and snow...ALL temps). Probably over 20-miles daily.
 

Easy Rider

Santa Cruz Scooter Works
Jan 15, 2008
2,145
7
38
Nor*Cal
I'm going on around 8 years but before going electric and after the HT times, here was a span of not riding every month because the Morini bikes were not street friendly.
 

mapbike

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2010
5,502
109
63
Central Area of Texas
Just over 4 years for me, still have my first build with over 2000 miles on it and it still runs great, this bike hasn't had a wrench on it in over 2 years, it isn't the fastest or smoothest of my three running bikes but its a war horse and is extremely dependable, its an old BGF ebay kit that was called the Red Bat kit, and has proven to be a solid little engine, its mounted on a USA built Roadmaster 26" Mountain bike that has a fairly heavy frame and feels really solid running don the road.

I have a Huffy Karaoke beach cruiser that has over 1000 miles on it and its also a solid bike that is very dependable.

If the engine comes with good bearings and is tuned up right with better than stock intake gasket and mounted correctly among another thing or two they will be pretty reliable normally, a quality oil mix at correct ratio makes a big difference for those of us who tend to ride aat higher speeds also.

The engines are a roll of the dice as far as exactly what you get as far as bearing condition and such from most vendors, but we do have a couple vendors now that are selling a better quality engine that has a better balanced crank and better bearings, only have about 400+ miles on one of these engines so far but I think it will be a longnlife engine since it much smoother than the normal china girl engine, time will tell though.

Map
dnut
 

phatcruiser

New Member
Sep 23, 2013
95
0
0
San Diego
I've been riding since last October. Not very long. I have had motorcycles in the past and I was an avid mountain biker in the 90's. Just picked up a new Fuji SunFire 1.0, 2009 model, that had been sitting in the back of the LBS for 5 years. Got if for a steal and now I ride it every chance I get. No plans to motorize it at the moment.

Yesterday rode the Fuji twice and the motorized bicycle once. It was such a beautiful day I could not stay inside. My 6 year old daughter and I went for a nice ride, she loves to go for a ride with her dad. I love being on a bike, motorized or not.
 

bluegoatwoods

Active Member
Jul 29, 2012
1,581
6
38
Central Illinois
I've been a pedal bicycle rider all my life. I'm now in my mid-fifties.

Built two china girls in the spring of 2008. One lasted a bit over a year and the other just reached it's second birthday before it died. Both were failures that I could have avoided or fixed had I only known enough about them.

I then tried a Currie electric bike. It lasted a couple of years. It really wasn't bad. But it just wasn't quite good enough.

So I built another china girl. It's just about at it's second birthday now and running strong. I now understand them better and expect to get a good deal more use out of this one.

I've never run an odometer, so I don't know just how many miles I've ridden it. But I commute to work on it. Other than this winter, I've been able to ride these bikes pretty much all the time.

Just doing some very rough estimating in my head; 1400 miles/year.

I sure do hope that I don't ever become too frail for these. It would be a bleak life.
 

Thunderhead289

New Member
Jul 2, 2013
49
0
0
an iowa corn field
I have been riding since the summer of 12, so for me it has been a short life, but a very good life. I do a lot of hot rod wrench turning BS for myself and others and this is a great tool to get me to the parts store and back in a cheap easy and fun way. I love it. im at about 1500 miles on all my original equipment. I spread the word about these bikes as much as I can because they are just awesome.

heres a 1000 mile review I made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETPhnUNUCJo

if anything, the video bloopers at the end are hilarious, so if you need a good laugh, here it is. ha such a fail
 

Going2Hell

Member
Nov 22, 2013
137
1
16
Victor, Colorado
www.facebook.com
I got about 1000 miles on a 49cc 2 stroke from craigslist. no matter how bad it got in the end, 3 blocks and something would break or otherwise go bad. It was so fun when it worked that I kept doing it for years. Now i stepped up to a huasheng 4 stroke and its pure fun for 500 miles so far, reliable as a car and tourquey enough for towing 100lb trailer and 400lb total weight bicycle (me, gear, bicycle, im 160).
 

a_dam

New Member
Feb 21, 2009
351
0
0
Momence, IL
6 years, not counting the two days I used a motor this year (weather is killing me). At least 2000 miles each year. Got 4 full years out of my first motor, a 25cc Homelite from a $10 yard sale leaf blower. Then a year with a free McCulloch string trimmer, just to test motor out. Last year went back to a Homelite when I found another for ten bucks.

So that's twelve thousand miles from motors I bought for $20, and two are still running good.
 

mapbike

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2010
5,502
109
63
Central Area of Texas
6 years, not counting the two days I used a motor this year (weather is killing me). At least 2000 miles each year. Got 4 full years out of my first motor, a 25cc Homelite from a $10 yard sale leaf blower. Then a year with a free McCulloch string trimmer, just to test motor out. Last year went back to a Homelite when I found another for ten bucks.

So that's twelve thousand miles from motors I bought for $20, and two are still running good.
Cant beat that with a stick............. I'm assuming you are a FD fella..., I will be building me another as well, got an old Ryobi 31cc with a zama carb, bullet proof old engines, haven't been into it yet but I think I can make a good little FD set up with it.
 

Greg58

Well-Known Member
May 1, 2011
5,353
2,575
113
65
Newnan,Georgia
I got back into motorized bicycles in late 2010, the first attempt was about 1971. I posted this story somewhere on the forum so I'll make this brief , a friend and I built a bike in the early 70's with a 3hp Briggs with a home made jackshaft set up. It only lasted a couple of days till we blew it up(it was smoking when we started). My friend past away in 2007, on the 4th of July 2011 I rode my bike across town to his mothers house to show her that "we finally finished what we started". She was happy to see me and thanked me for bringing my bike to show her. I think it kinda made her day.