New Guy from Michigan

GoldenMotor.com
Greetings All,
I have been poking around for a while now and thought it was time to get serious, register and get started with a project.

Growing up as a kid I always owned and was around mini-bikes, go-karts and small motorcycles, and the urge for some type of two wheeled toy has never been fully extinguished. My grandfather played with Whizzers, Cushmans and even a Kawasaki with a side car when I was young.

I have also been into cars, having owned and restored a couple muscle cars, I find the costs have just gotten so far out the reach of the average guys like me.

Over the years I have periodically looked at motorcycles and mopeds and mini-bikes online and keeping thinking about getting into the game again.

I didn't want the license and insurance hassles of a motorcycle (along with Michigan potholes and crappy drivers), mopeds for the most part don't have the look I want, mini-bikes around here get frowned upon by the police (and confiscated)...so as I was staring at the bicycles hanging from my garage ceiling recently and I thought why not pull a page from my grandfather's book and build something.

So here I am...

...I just bought a SkyHawk GT-2A aluminum frame, a 4-stroke Ghost Racer engine kit and will be using my son's old Trek 3-Series bike. I also bought a jackshaft from Sick Bike Parts which hopefully will give me some power off the line and some top speed.

My son picked out a metallic red banana seat to use, got it off of eBay, so the frame will be metallic red. My niece's boyfriend owns a powder coating company that does a lot of bicycle frames, so after mock-up it will get sent over to him.

I also picked up a dual crown suspension front fork off of pinkbike.com, and that will be added to the mix.

Thinking of maybe a 60s/70s racer style of bike???

Anyways, I want to thank everyone from letting me join this great website and I hope to learn a lot more about these machines!!

Paul
 
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paul

Well-Known Member
Dec 23, 2007
5,547
44
48
67
Kalamazoo, MI
welcome to the forum. we look forward to learning from you and maybe you can learn a few things here from the other great members
 

2door

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 15, 2008
16,302
175
63
Littleton, Colorado
Welcome Paul.
With your background you should be well on your way to building a reliable and successful motorized bicycle. If we can offer any assistance we're always here.
Good luck and share some photos of your project when you get a chance.

Tom
 
Thanks for the warm welcome. I am sure I will learn much from you guys.

I am hoping to get my son interested, even just a little bit, in mechanical things and away from video games...if so I already have ideas for a second build so we could ride together.

Hopefully in the next couple weeks I will get started and post pictures of our progress.

Paul
 

silverbear

The Boy Who Never Grew Up
Jul 9, 2009
8,325
670
113
northeastern Minnesota
Welcome to the forum, Paul. I see that we are from the same planet. Small star system, eh?

I hope you're able to entice your son away from the computer and onto a motored bike. Lots of fun.

We like pictures and enjoy hanging out while people are building. This is a fine community of helpful people here. Great moderators...
SB