Filed under: Videos, Motorcycle, Specialty, Off-Road
Motorized bicycles have been around for a long time, but it isn’t often that they’re as cool as the off-road-oriented contraption called the Motoped. Looking more like a skinny dirtbike with pedals than a mountain bike or moped, Motopeds mount a 50-155cc Honda XR50/CRF50 engine and swingarm to a custom frame with downhill mountain bike suspension components and brakes.
Being able to ride quietly on the sidewalk, switch on the four-stroke Honda engine (or similar Chinese design, if you’d like to go the cheaper route), then pretend you’re Ricky Carmichael for the rest of the way home sounds like great fun to us, but take note of your state’s laws before you do so. In California, for example, the two main laws in the vehicle code require motorized bicycles to have automatic transmissions and less than two brake horsepower to be legal. Also take not that the Motoped is a build-it-yourself ordeal after buying the frame, though the company supplies a parts list with many options depending on price range. If you’re interested, visit the company’s Kickstarter for a discounted price on the frame (as long as the Kickstarter goal is met).
Whatever motor is featured in the video below is the one we want – we have a strong feeling it has more than two horsepower. Or wait for the electric motor version, which is under development, says Motopeds spokesman Joe Rajakaruna.
Continue reading Motopeds occupy muddy middle ground between moped and mountain bike [w/video]
Motopeds occupy muddy middle ground between moped and mountain bike [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 31 Jul 2013 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Go back a few years and the prospect of political unrest in a host country was seldom a factor in determining where to hold a motor race. But that age of innocence appears to be behind us.
