Buying a motorized bike - good or bad idea?

D

dreadpiratesteve

New Member
Hi,

I saw this ad on craigslist Gas Powered Bicycle

and am very intrigued. I don't have my own bike of any sort right now, I'm borrowing my mother's which is falling apart at the seams. I want my own, but I also want to take the occasional cross-country bicycle trip, and being the not-lance-armstrong type myself, I'm afraid I wouldn't make it without assistance. I just wanted to know how long these engines tend to last, since, if my estimates are correct from what he's said, he's put about 5000 miles on it. $400 does seem a little high especially considering how much it's been used, I might ask if he will do 350. I posed this question in another forum and they laughed at me for wanting to buy a Huffy, are Huffy bikes really that bad? This is my first foray into motorbiking, so be gentle with me guys :P
 
thats not a bad deal, you get lights and bags with it. even if the motor went bad it's only about $80 to replace the motor. you could build your own for a little less and thats part of the fun of motorbiking. but if you prefer a running bike you could do worse.
 
I say thats a pretty good deal, to build your own, your looking at about $100 for the huffy, $150 or so for the motor kit and he has about $50-$75 or so in ad-ons. So if you dont want to build your own, its not a bad deal at all
 
I concur with the other guys. On a first motored bike I wouldn't put too much money in it. If this lights your fire and you decide this is just great then you'll have an idea of where you want to go with motored biking and what you want. And if this one still runs, you can pass it along to someone else. If it has 5,000 miles on it, then the bugs have been pretty well worked out by now and it has proved that it is road worthy. Ask questions here and if you get it ask about beefing up the front fender mounts. (I didn't look at te ad & don't know if it still has a front fender). Simple, but important thing to do for safety.
SB
 
many thanks for the feedback!

i would build one myself but i really lack the resources these days, as i live in a dorm. Trying to mod my bike with so many other people around would be weird, I think. Regardless of the addons to the bike I thought the fact he was throwing in a bike rack in with it was a really great deal. Assuming it's a 2-bike or bigger, those things can be very expensive.
 
I forgot to ask. What about the longevity of these motors? I mean, 5,000 miles on such a dinky motor seems pretty high - how long do they tend to go before the engine just goes kaput?
 
Mind_Reader7 said:
They could typically last forever. It depends wether you maintain them though.
Click to expand...

In the words of that famous American, Buz Lightyear, "To infinity and beyond!"
"Forever" is certainly a long time and none of us will be here long enough to know if Mind Reader has foretold the future correctly or not. I would tend to think it might crap out sooner than that. Some of it is the luck of the draw on these things as to how soon. They really aren't all that well made... what would you expect for a hundred or hundred fifty bucks? Some are junk doomed to failure as they sit in the box. Others go for a long time, especially with good oil, the carb set up so it is not too rich and not too lean and sensible use. They can go for a long time. As has been pointed out, you can get another motor without the whole kit for less than a hundred bucks which in this age is grocery money. If you're looking for quality assurances for a $400.00 vehicle maybe you should save your money and pedal til your pants catch on fire. Or take a chance. In the great scheme of things, this $400.00 will be forgotten and spent on other junk ten and twenty bucks at a time. Live life on the edge. Be daring, aspire to greatness like Buz Lightyear.. "to infinity and beyond"...
SB
 
I see, I see. Well, I figured a gross estimate of the parts on that bike(he gave me Amazon links to the saddle and rack) is just shy of 400. I offered him 350, since he also mentioned that it was in an accident once, on top of the fact its used.
 
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