Why did I join this great Motorized Bicycle Forum?
I recently just moved into Austin, TX. Finding a place downtown (where I work frequently) to park my crew cab dually diesel truck is a futile effort. I am left with a mountain bike and a bus pass for transportation.
Although Austin has 'decent" public transportation, the bus schedule and mine often don't gel very well. I work mostly nights when the bus stops running by the time I am ready to leave Downtown, so I have had to huff it home on the Mountain Bike too many times already.
I have owned motorcycles of all kinds through my life and for the past 6 or 7 years have wrenched on all of them and only rely on a mechanic at a dealership or garage if I just don't have the tool and it's too costly to buy for a one time use.
The reason I have been able to to that is due mostly to the information and friends I have made on forums for the bikes I would work on. My truck is also an older diesel that has some enthusiast "cult like" followers. Yeah baby I drive a 6.5 turbo diesel old skool smoker!
Why that is important is I would not know ANYTHING about those engines but can honestly say that I KNOW that I KNOW that I know much more about it than the average Chevy Mechanic who would rather sell me a half of an engine before he admits he knows that a 50 dollar part could save me from spending that $2,700 part that will still have that defective 50 dollar part in it causing it to fail. TRUE STORY ask anyone that owns a 6.5 diesel about the PMD!
The point being is if you find guys who are into what you are into, most people are cool and will share what they know. You can learn all you need to know about just about anything if you avidly follow a forum and read the threads.
SO back to this kick butt Motorized Bike Forum... I know this Mountain Bike riding is already getting old and I started to hit the Craigslist looking for a cheap motorcycle as the funds are a bit tight these days.
Figuring in a couple of weeks from now I will have to drop 3,500 - 4,000 for a basic and reliable motorcycle for alternative transportation. I came across an ad for a motorized bicycle. The concept was pretty cool.
The person posting the ad wanted a bit of money for it but it was way under my budget for what I was looking for. Not necc. wanting that particular bike I got to wondering if I could make something like this work for myself and see what else is out there in this strange concept of a motorized bikes.
I started to hit the internet looking for motor assisted bicycles in Austin. I knew there had to be a shop or something around here as I had seen one of these downtown before and recently a girl I met had mentioned to me that her father builds motorized bicycles.
I kept hitting this forum while looking for new assembled bikes that I might be able to work on. I found a few different ones that "looked" pretty cool.
The more I looked around on this forum and the more I kept going back to my favorites I had bookmarked and looking for the "things" I learned about on this forum. I came to the conclusion that building my own is definitely the way to go and maybe even possibly do as a small little side business in the future as it sure looks like some of these "motorized bike shops" have no problem strapping a $100 engine into a $50 bicycle and unloading them upwards of $900.
Now before you go saying maybe it had this and that, NO... I have spent close to 100 hours of researching just this forum alone in the past couple weeks not including the aftermarket vendors sites.
I know what I want to build now for my first build and how much it is going to cost me and that same $900 should build me a "decent" starter bike for my first build as I see it. I absorb info pretty quickly and can spin a wrench.
I don't want to deal with all the extra costs associated with insurance etc on a motorcycle right now and I think this will fit the bill. ****, in Austin traffic ANYWHERE rarely hits over 35 mph, so if I can keep this thing running once it is built, it may be my new long term transportation. Plus it is sounding way fun and much cooler that i thought at first (I have to admit, after owning several big, strong and stupidly fast motorcycles....a motorized bicycle sounded pretty darn silly at first.)
My last hobby happened to be $30k+ motorycles, this one seems much more doable on a budget.
Plus trying to convince these cops in Austin that it's just a power assisted bicycle not a moped why would I be carrying ID? sounds like a fun game. I guess I am a rebel. LOL
Thanks for the cool forum.
~Scott
I recently just moved into Austin, TX. Finding a place downtown (where I work frequently) to park my crew cab dually diesel truck is a futile effort. I am left with a mountain bike and a bus pass for transportation.
Although Austin has 'decent" public transportation, the bus schedule and mine often don't gel very well. I work mostly nights when the bus stops running by the time I am ready to leave Downtown, so I have had to huff it home on the Mountain Bike too many times already.
I have owned motorcycles of all kinds through my life and for the past 6 or 7 years have wrenched on all of them and only rely on a mechanic at a dealership or garage if I just don't have the tool and it's too costly to buy for a one time use.
The reason I have been able to to that is due mostly to the information and friends I have made on forums for the bikes I would work on. My truck is also an older diesel that has some enthusiast "cult like" followers. Yeah baby I drive a 6.5 turbo diesel old skool smoker!
Why that is important is I would not know ANYTHING about those engines but can honestly say that I KNOW that I KNOW that I know much more about it than the average Chevy Mechanic who would rather sell me a half of an engine before he admits he knows that a 50 dollar part could save me from spending that $2,700 part that will still have that defective 50 dollar part in it causing it to fail. TRUE STORY ask anyone that owns a 6.5 diesel about the PMD!
The point being is if you find guys who are into what you are into, most people are cool and will share what they know. You can learn all you need to know about just about anything if you avidly follow a forum and read the threads.
SO back to this kick butt Motorized Bike Forum... I know this Mountain Bike riding is already getting old and I started to hit the Craigslist looking for a cheap motorcycle as the funds are a bit tight these days.
Figuring in a couple of weeks from now I will have to drop 3,500 - 4,000 for a basic and reliable motorcycle for alternative transportation. I came across an ad for a motorized bicycle. The concept was pretty cool.
The person posting the ad wanted a bit of money for it but it was way under my budget for what I was looking for. Not necc. wanting that particular bike I got to wondering if I could make something like this work for myself and see what else is out there in this strange concept of a motorized bikes.
I started to hit the internet looking for motor assisted bicycles in Austin. I knew there had to be a shop or something around here as I had seen one of these downtown before and recently a girl I met had mentioned to me that her father builds motorized bicycles.
I kept hitting this forum while looking for new assembled bikes that I might be able to work on. I found a few different ones that "looked" pretty cool.
The more I looked around on this forum and the more I kept going back to my favorites I had bookmarked and looking for the "things" I learned about on this forum. I came to the conclusion that building my own is definitely the way to go and maybe even possibly do as a small little side business in the future as it sure looks like some of these "motorized bike shops" have no problem strapping a $100 engine into a $50 bicycle and unloading them upwards of $900.
Now before you go saying maybe it had this and that, NO... I have spent close to 100 hours of researching just this forum alone in the past couple weeks not including the aftermarket vendors sites.
I know what I want to build now for my first build and how much it is going to cost me and that same $900 should build me a "decent" starter bike for my first build as I see it. I absorb info pretty quickly and can spin a wrench.
I don't want to deal with all the extra costs associated with insurance etc on a motorcycle right now and I think this will fit the bill. ****, in Austin traffic ANYWHERE rarely hits over 35 mph, so if I can keep this thing running once it is built, it may be my new long term transportation. Plus it is sounding way fun and much cooler that i thought at first (I have to admit, after owning several big, strong and stupidly fast motorcycles....a motorized bicycle sounded pretty darn silly at first.)
My last hobby happened to be $30k+ motorycles, this one seems much more doable on a budget.
Plus trying to convince these cops in Austin that it's just a power assisted bicycle not a moped why would I be carrying ID? sounds like a fun game
. I guess I am a rebel. LOLThanks for the cool forum.
~Scott
I joined this site for information on motorized bikes. I love the idea of them and may need a cheaper way to motor around the island soon. 
actually i want to know something about