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THE Motorcycle, Moped and Electric Bike Thread (merged)

How to save energy through both societal and individual actions.

Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby roccman » Sat 02 Jun 2007, 09:29:28

I ride a Yamaha 225 XT dual purpose. Great bike - 80 MPG.
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby PraiseDoom » Sat 02 Jun 2007, 09:57:53

roccman wrote:I ride a Yamaha 225 XT dual purpose. Great bike - 80 MPG.


As long as there is gasoline to be used, thats the way to go. Hows that work in the summer in Arizona?
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby roccman » Sat 02 Jun 2007, 10:04:25

Yep...u nailed it.

No juice...no ride.

F'n hot dude!!!

My son and I are headed out for a ride in about 30 minutes while it is cool...

He has a Yamaha XTR 90.
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby Chris25 » Sun 03 Jun 2007, 10:22:01

I guess petrol isn't just going to stop being delivered.

It's cost will just increase and increase.

With this increase, inflation will increase. Food cost will increase, absoloutely everything will.

There will be a stage where running a car will not be possible unless you are extremely rich.

In many ways I look foward to that stage. Cars are noisey, pollouting and cripple the natural world.

Although of course the bike won't exactly "hug" the trees. The good thing is you can ride the bike most places without a 10-inch layer of oil-sourced tarmac on top.
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby PraiseDoom » Sun 03 Jun 2007, 10:28:09

Chris25 wrote:I guess petrol isn't just going to stop being delivered.

It's cost will just increase and increase.


The Dogma Of Doom allows for no such eventuality. Zombies hijacking fuel trucks comes to mind, as people's lives spin out of their control and they are forced to do what they must.

So you, sitting in your comfortable suburbia, will never see the fuel if it doesn't make it to your local gas station. Same with food.
Chris25 wrote:There will be a stage where running a car will not be possible unless you are extremely rich.

In many ways I look foward to that stage. Cars are noisey, pollouting and cripple the natural world.



Look forward and welcome the Doom!! And no, when supplies stop, it won't matter how much money you have to buy it with.
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby Chris25 » Sun 03 Jun 2007, 10:53:28

PraiseDoom wrote:
Chris25 wrote:I guess petrol isn't just going to stop being delivered.

It's cost will just increase and increase.


The Dogma Of Doom allows for no such eventuality. Zombies hijacking fuel trucks comes to mind, as people's lives spin out of their control and they are forced to do what they must.

So you, sitting in your comfortable suburbia, will never see the fuel if it doesn't make it to your local gas station. Same with food.
Chris25 wrote:There will be a stage where running a car will not be possible unless you are extremely rich.

In many ways I look foward to that stage. Cars are noisey, pollouting and cripple the natural world.



Look forward and welcome the Doom!! And no, when supplies stop, it won't matter how much money you have to buy it with.


It's actually terrifying to think about. Here we are with our Ipods, fast food, widescreen TV's and SUV's and everysingle human item (even our food) depends on such complex systems.

Look at London (about 80 miles from me). 8 million people. All depending on the tap to get their water, the drains to take their sewage, the system to deliver their food. They are all cogs in the machine but what happens when the machine breaks down? Where will 8 million people go, what will they do? For most people in London my car is bigger than their garden. Self-sufficiency is impossible.
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby TommyJefferson » Sun 03 Jun 2007, 16:20:25

Roy wrote:In the meantime its fun to ride for recreation and it pretty low cost to operate. And air-cooled Honda singles are legendary for their reliability.


That's the thing. Motorcycles are great fun. My Kawasaki KLR650 was a great hooligan ride. I could jump curbs to avoid red lights, park anywhere, and split lanes to surf traffic.

I just don't want people to look a few variables like mpg and purchase price and promote the myth that motorcycles are financially better for transportation when they are not.

Over the years I've run a score of Honda air-cooled engines into the ground. They are indeed amazing devices. That being said, maximum service life until they become more expensive to repair than replace is about 40K miles.

I got 55K out of my KLR before it was shot. Better care could have resulted in 70K. My Honda XR's and XL's have gotten around 40K before then became unreliable and dangerous. BMW's have high maintenance and repair requirements, but are far more durable, and like Harley's, parts will always be available. Finding parts for 15 year old dual-sports other than KLR's is difficult.
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby JoeW » Mon 04 Jun 2007, 00:23:09

TommyJefferson wrote:
That's the thing. Motorcycles are great fun. My Kawasaki KLR650 was a great hooligan ride. I could jump curbs to avoid red lights, park anywhere, and split lanes to surf traffic.

I just don't want people to look a few variables like mpg and purchase price and promote the myth that motorcycles are financially better for transportation when they are not.


Good choice on the KLR, Tommy. It is my bike of choice at the moment. I have taken it off-road and while it is a go-almost-anywhere bike, I would emphasize the "almost" for anyone who wants to seriously dirtbike.

That said, I can't believe that the KLR wasn't financially better than just about every car on the road. Let me lay out my costs of ownership for the KLR:
1) insurance is about 1/4th of what I pay for the car
2) registration is about 1/2 of what I pay for the car
3) gasoline is about 2/3 of what I pay for the car
4) inspection is about 1/3 of what I pay for the car
5) maintenance is a LOT cheaper than the car. I could replace the engine on the KLR while drinkin' a couple beers in the garage on a Saturday. Think I would want to do that on my Ford Escort? And did you know that a Subaru dealer will charge you $400+ to replace a wheel bearing?

My experience has been the exact opposite, that the motorcycle is cheaper to run than the car. It's not really even a contest.

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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby tsakach » Mon 04 Jun 2007, 15:51:08

What do you think about this electric motorcycle, that delivers horsepower roughly equivalent to a 250 four-stroke motor but has much more torque low in the rev range. The parts can be purchased separately and used for a low-cost EV conversion of a street legal bike. The small battery pack could be easily charged with a few solar panels.

Image


"Electric motorcycles"
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Re: Motorbikes?

Unread postby TommyJefferson » Mon 04 Jun 2007, 20:01:50

JoeW wrote:I can't believe that the KLR wasn't financially better than just about every car on the road.


The KLR is just about the cheapest per mile bike to run.

Again I restate, you have to look at the whole picture.

What is the expected service life of your KLR?

I've got a 1991 Honda Accord sitting here with 220,000 miles on the clock. I got there with 3 sets of tires and a few brake pads and oil changes.

To reach 220,000 miles on a KLR would require:

How many tires?
How many chains?
How many brake pads?
How many clutch cables?
How many shocks?
How many fork seals?
How many spark plugs?
How many valve adjustments?
How many oil filters?
How many quarts of oil?
How many headlight bulbs?
How many air filters?
How many mufflers?
How many top-end rebuilds?

IF like in the manufacturing industry you keep a log book with repair and maintenance receipts and do a cost accounting when you dispose of a machine at the end of its service life, you will see that A to B motorcycles are not cheaper than a small car.

Most people don't look at facts. Most people don't think long term. Most people don't do analysis. The look at the here, the today, what they desire to be true.

Those people should go be happy in their truth.
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THE Motorcycle, Moped and Electric Bike Thread (merged)

Unread postby Terran » Mon 11 Jun 2007, 03:46:35

Anyone have any experence with a moped?
Mopeds come in many designs, some look more like a motorcycle, while others look like a bicycle.
I'm thinking about building my own. My plan is to get a regular bicycle, and attach a small two stroke internal combuston engine, the system I'll be using is a direct friction drive system.

I've read somehere in the laws that engines cann't exceed 49cc.
The engine I'm thinking about should be 35cc, two stroke air cooled. It runs on a mixture of gasoline, and motor oil 1/25 ration. This application should only add an additional 10 pounds to your bicycle.
This is suppose to send the bicycle to 30mph, this is how fast I wanted to go. State law states that 30mph is the max speed ones can go without human power assisance.

The two stroke seems to offer the highest power ratio to its weight, I can an electric bike and that cumbersome machice can only go 20 miles per charge at 70pounds.
Best off the fuel consumption is very low, with a gallon of gas you can get 150mpg. And there's a lower CO2 output. I can use the bike lanes to get around traffic.

Only drawingback is it's obnoxious noise pollution; think about being around a weed wacher or lawn mower. 2 strokes are not efficent are combusting fuel, they spew out uncombusted hydrocarbons, NOx, ozone, and leaves a nice trail of blue smoke.
Last edited by Terran on Mon 11 Jun 2007, 18:42:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby gg3 » Mon 11 Jun 2007, 09:56:04

Yo Terran, good to see you here again...
My guess is that bicycle frames would be dangerous at a consistent 30 mph, since they don't have suspension and would be vulnerable to all manner of crappy road surfaces. Mopeds as such, have suspension and heavier frames.

Probably better and less costly to go looking for a complete moped, and you can probably find one that'll get 100+ mpg. Ideally with a 4-stroke motor that doesn't, as you said, spew uncombusted hydrocarbons or sound like a weed wacker.
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby WisJim » Mon 11 Jun 2007, 10:35:31

My son and his friends (college age to mid 30s folks) have a number of mopeds. Sounds like a swarm of giant locust when they are on a group ride. The 2 stroke engines are notoriously dirty burning engines, and the older mopeds, the kind my son finds in someone's shed for a few dollars, end up needing work and parts that sometimes are hard to find. However, some of the new ones look pretty good. There have been some 4 stroke engines used in mopeds, but are kind of hard to find, and paprts for the older ones are even rarer.

For short trips and around town, we are trying out electric bicycles. We have a Zap pack that is over 10 years old and just put a 36 volt hub motor on another bike, but need to do something better for a battery. The NiMH that my son fixed up for it is heavy, and he is looking into a lithiom battery. I think that the hub motor and controller and NiMH battery cost over $1000 altogether, plus the bike, and lots of work.
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby steam_cannon » Mon 11 Jun 2007, 14:22:07

Some ideas...

Terran wrote:I'm thinking about building my own. My plan is to get a regular bicycle, and attach a small two stroke internal combuston engine, the system I'll be using is a direct friction drive system.
You could build your own or you could leave that to the engineers in China, they need work too you know... Hahaha :)

But seriously, if you don't mind using Chinese parts you can find motor bicycle kits on Ebay from $100 - $1000. For 600 to 1500, you can get fully assembled bikes. The motors are usually the same as what you find on Ebay. So if you don't mind assembly, bike parts plus shipping you could probably get a good kit for under $300. It's something I've been thinking about doing, but I like electric too...

A couple pictures
Image Image
Image

Terran wrote:This is suppose to send the bicycle to 30mph, this is how fast I wanted to go. State law states that 30mph is the max speed ones can go without human power assistance.
I'm sure drivers won't mind if you brake that law... :roll:

Terran wrote:Only drawingback is it's obnoxious; think about being around a weed wacher or lawn mower. 2 strokes are not efficent are combusting fuel, they spew out uncombusted hydrocarbons, NOx, ozone, and leaves a nice trail of blue smoke.
When I was a kid I thought the blue smoke trails looked cool. :roll:

But hey electric is always an option, if you aren't touring the country... Electric is quite, so you can take it everywhere you can take a bike. And some (expensive) electric bikes have the batteries in the frame and the motor in the hub, so people will just think you're really strong! :)
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby yesplease » Mon 11 Jun 2007, 15:04:27

Bicycles are dominated by aerodynamic friction, not rolling friction, so an e-bike with a X kWh motor will go as fast as a moped with a X kWh engine. An e-bike is just as suitable for relatively short commutes imo, however, it must have a wider gear range if you have any large hills/etc to allow the rider to add input for said drops/climbs.
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby fastbicycle » Tue 12 Jun 2007, 08:26:57

Hi I own a cannondale super v mountain bike that I put a golden eagle conversion kit and a modified go-ped engine on.I get about 160 mpg and a top speed of 50mph it is a two stroke that requires
91 octane fuel my normal commute time in an auto is 45min and I
have done it as fast as 51min on the bike the kits and pictures are
available at bikeengines.com it does have the disadvantage of occasional breakdowns.
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby manu » Tue 12 Jun 2007, 09:08:27

I knew a guy who made a solar cycle back in the early 80's, it could reach a speed of 55 mph. It made the second page of the L.A.Times. But it couldnt be driven on the streets as there were to many regulations.
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby frankthetank » Tue 12 Jun 2007, 13:47:16

A guy at Menards yesterday claimed he put on 459 miles using 3 gallons of gas on a scooter (guessing a 49cc model)?? I didn't think they got that good of fuel mileage. The dude was like 300 pounds!
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Re: Who needs a truck in Vietnam?

Unread postby SILENTTODD » Mon 18 Jun 2007, 18:17:29

FreakOil wrote:I can't imagine Americans adopting the Vietnamese transport way anytime soon. I think this country will turn into Iraq before that happens.


Unfortunately I think you're right, and I when I'm feeling pessimistic I believe it just may.
Skeptical scrutiny in both Science and Religion is the means by which deep thoughts are winnowed from deep nonsense-Carl Sagan
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Re: Anyown own a moped?

Unread postby kaktus » Mon 30 Jul 2007, 08:04:04

I dont want to offend but isnt a two stroke engine a big step backwards? environmentally it would probably be better to drive a H-D.
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