moped Articles
Custom: Super Motor Company Salt Shaker
Sometimes you start on a bike that along the way gets bigger and bigger ending up as a totally overambitious project. We did start such a project over a year ago, a small capacity racing bike, that we just could not finish due to lack of funds. Carbon fibre this, Chromoly that, 3000 euro here, 2000 euro there, we wanted the lot. Stoner once said to Rossi: “Your ambition outweighs your talent...
Mopeds tackle the alps
Every September for the last three years, hundreds of mopeds have gathered in Switzerland to tackle the mountain passes there. This year's Red Bull Alpenbrevet saw 770 entrants compete in the rally. brightcove.createExperiences(); The 82-mile route includes three 7,000-foot passes. A huge challenge for vintage machines powered by a hybrid of human and two-stroke power. ...
Dailies
Flock Yeah 3: Cheeseburgers in Paradise
Fancy a spot of moped mayhem this weekend? The Latebirds are bringing their annual rally to Los Angeles in a three day orgy of pre-mix, pedals and inappropriate-for-August flannel. Events kick off tomorrow with a ride around LA and drinks/pizza at our favorite dive bar/pizza joint, Tony's and Pizzanista, but things reach a climax on Saturday with a ride through Malibu and a warehouse party in Echo...
Janus Halcyon: a 1920s style 50cc two-stroke
The first product of a new bike manufacturer from Indiana, this Janus Halcyon was designed to look like a record-breaker from the 1920s or 30s, but powered by a 50cc two-stroke, is light and legally accessible to first time riders. In his own words, the bike’s creator, Richard Worsham, tells us all about it: “Janus Motorcycles is an American manufacturer of hand-made, small-displacement bik...
Dailies
Thunderdrome brings racing back to Detroit
Everyone’s favorite scooter/moped/pit bike/mini moto/bicycle race is returning to Detroit’s re-discovered Dorais Velodrome with two dates this year. Thunderdrome will race on 30 June and 15 September, 2012. Make sure you visit the Thunderdrome site for full details, there’s changes to the registration process and homologation rules this year which mean you have to sign up ahead of time. You ...
Custom: Indigan Diablo
Built to showcase a new, American-made moped parts company, the bike you see here is based on an old Bultaco 125 frame. It’s quite possibly the hottest moped we’ve ever seen. “Indigan is a return to manufacturing in the USA,” explains our old buddy Dan Kastner, who’s involved with the project. “Fun parts made that fit.” ...
Thunderdrome at the Gilmore Car Museum's vintage motorcycle show
The Thunderdrome took the show on the road for the first time, in what was also the first race ever held on the Gilmore's Car Museum's track. Usually used for parade laps by only the finest show cars, this weekend it was host to something much more exciting. The bikes racing included scooters, pit bikes and mopeds. Some of the mopeds managed to stay running long enough to finish, too! There was al...
Dailies
Thunderdrome, Kalamazoo, this weekend
Everyone’s favorite debaucherous two-wheeled demolition derby is departing Detroit this weekend for a road trip across the state to the Gilmore Car Museum outside of Kalamazoo. There, a 1/4-mile oval flat track will play host to minibike, moped, scooter and pit bike racing. It costs just $20 and your sanity to enter, an open track day (for the above classes) on Saturday sweetens the deal. If yo...
A Swiss Army knife with wheels
You probably can’t fit the 40lbs (without battery) Voltitude on your keychain, but something tells me Wes might try anyways. The Swiss inventors behind it want to create a vehicle with the same near-universal utility of their country’s famous knife, providing commuters with a practical moped they can fold and then roll into their apartment or office. You don’t even need to carry it, once fol...
Dailies
The Thunderdrome! returns with three 2011 dates
Detroit’s guerilla race, The Thunderdrome!, is returning for 2011 with three dates. Last October’s inaugural event on the city’s derelict Dorais Velodrome saw hundreds of people who wouldn’t otherwise have any involvement with motorsports actually racing mopeds, minibikes, bicycles and other contraptions. Think of it as no-barrier-to-entry racing that actually ends up being more exciting t...
Dailies
Moped riders make bikers look like pussies
Let’s count the things we see in this trailer: Molotov cocktails, dooring as gang reprisal, fire, slip ‘n slides, backflips, enraged old people, nudity, shit talking. I think a bunch of moped riders just made all of us look bad. Selected by SXSW and Sundance, "Satan Since 2003" was created by Emmy award-winning documentarian Carlos Puga and tells the story of Richmond, Virginia’s Hells Sata...
Bending the electric moped
The latest crop of electric mopeds or “E-Bikes” like the Ultra Motor A2B are terrifically functional — giving you motorized performance in a package you don’t need to license or insure — but as converted bicycles, they’re horrendously dorky. That’s a problem when the vast majority of their potential audience have grown used to design conscious like iPhones or Ikea furniture. Enter t...
Custom: 1978 Motobecane 40T
“The brass knuckles act as handles to move the bike.” Jarrett Petty of Austin, Texas, built this custom Motobecane to be simple, but elegant. It was the kind of thing he always wanted to build when he was a mechanic at Austin Mopeds, but couldn’t since he was working on other people’s bikes. Now, the hard-tail can reach over 60mph. Photos: Mike Torres “The seat is plastic and I didn'...
Mountain bike + pit bike = Motoped
Remember Project M85? It housed a tiny pit bike motor in a package about the same size as a mountain bike. The idea was to make a dirt bike that was more accessible, kind of bridge between pedaling and buying a KTM. Well, this Motoped achieves something similar, just with pedals that, somewhat ironically, make it road legal. It mounts a 50-150cc Honda motor in what’s essentially a beefed up down... Retro: MBK Crazy Bike
A 50cc moped engine in a BMX frame?! The MBK Crazy Bike was produced in very limited numbers in the mid ‘80s apparently to celebrate some sort of victory by the Motobecane BMX team. Where some ‘peds are only good at going round Thunderdromes, the Crazy Bike was designed to catch sweet air. Nobody seems to know how many Crazy Bikes were produced in total, with numbers between 200 and 900 bein...