First Up-close Riquimbili Sighting!

out of the corner of my eye this afternoon i spotted a guy on a bike easing down the street at a steady clip. not at all unusual, until i heard the faint hum of a small 2-stroke engine as he passed. i whirled around and gave a shout, but the riquimbilista was through the green light and on his way. by the time i got in the car and turned around, he was three lights away and i lost him.

the good news? the revolution has reached my neighborhood.

the bad news? i won't be the first riquimbilista on the block

Well UncleKudzu chin up, he may just have been passin thru. You may still be the first on your block.

I was just responding to Jasonh's remark about driving the prices up by talking about it or Jay Leno riding one on the Tonite show. CNN was just saying the wholesale was up almost 10% since a year ago. Of course those Chinese engine kits probably cost the Chinese 4 to 6 dollars of our money to make and package. Add to that the shipping which could ramp up the cost. So maybe when it gets here it can be purchased by a distributor for 15 to 20 dollars with price breaks for larger numbers. But for a older teen who wants one of these it'll probably set him back a couple hundred dollars for one of those kits.

Then there is the State Department of Motor Vehicles and their laws...or obsticle course.....to get thru. I'm sure they will want proof of purchase for motor and bike (like a boat), proof of insurance, and the rating on the personal drivers license. Then there's taxes. It will be about like owning a regular motorcycle. Now if you're just going to ride it around on your property that's different. But I'm betting that the more of these are seen out in public
the more demand there will be for them. Then we'll see if the "free market" drives the prices up or down. One thing for sure, there will be plenty of them
on the used market for parts.

Had similar experience... I was at the grocery store last summer. Looked up and a guy rode by on a mountain bike with a Chinese motor while I was putting my groceries into my van. It wasn't running at the time, but I couldn't get things into my van before he was out of site. I would have loved to talked to him.

Ya know as the movement grows many people are going to want to talk to those with bike projects when they see them riding around town. It may be worthwhile to set up a small web site with photos and everything showing what you did from start to finish. There are free simple to create web sites like "friends pages" or "tripod" that will allow a person to put up a home page or up to three page sites. Thus you can have a story page, photos page, and links archive.

Then set up a 8 1/2 X 11 page in note pad to save in "my documents" divided into business card size to write your nickname on each card along with the URL of your site. Print out a few pages and cut them out. Keep them with you when you travel and when people buttonhole you, listen to their questions for a few seconds and hand them a card explaining that you really don't have time now but that they can learn most of what they want to know from your site. Mention that there are photos and everything they could follow to build their own bike just like you did. Then get on to work or where ever.

It's just the price of being a "Riquimbili Super Star".

Ed I love reading you're responses, thre always so in depth and full of info and fluff they make great reading. Then I realize the owner is standing behind me reading over my shoulder when I should be working......Ooops.

It's still fun.

P.s he really doesent mind just want's me to be careful on that darned thing.

LOL, bless you my child Well I'm glad you enjoy em and your boss seems to dig on em too. There's alot here to like. Just hope my contributions add to it favorably.

Ironically I was wanting to do this stuff when I was a boy and had to wait till I was older and settle for small factory built motorcycles. Still I learned alot with the larger bikes I owned. Now with the inter net I can go back and make up some lost time and enjoy the motorized bicycle dream of my youth. It's mind blowing too........cause as a kid all I wanted was a motor bike.......but now the 200+mpg range of these makes living the dream valid in the eyes of other older adults. (who pour a weeks pay into their vehicles all too often) A few years ago I'd have been asked if I was ever going to grow up, by my neighbors. (grown man playing around on a bicycle....hmmmph.....the very idea) Now they just smirk and go in their house mumbling about the government.

I was cruising down to my favorite local fishing spot when I decided to check out a rest area close to the river . I parked my bike and was walking down to the river when I spotted a 70s Sears Varsity with a weed whacker motor attached to the front end , driving a large sprocket attached to the front wheel . This was the first motorbicyle I had ever seen beside mine . I looked around and saw a head pop up from beside the river and a man in his forties appeared . I motioned towards the bike and asked if the bike was his . He nodded . I motioned to wait one minute . I walked up the bank and got my bike and brought it down to show him . The head popped up again and he came away from the bank . He looked over my bike and I looked over his . Of course I had a dozen questions for him and I started asking them . I was looking forward to having a great little motorbike discussion . I quickly found out the man only spoke Portuguese . We smiled at each other and went on our separate ways . ..... D.J.