Tales o' Racin' Mopeds
Let me tell you a story. When I was fifteen years old, my delinquent friend Kevin and I hung out with this eighteen-year-old loser by the name of Erich Meier. Erich's parents were perverted German immigrants who, like good Teutonic parents, had bought their son a 35cc Puch moped. One typically bored afternoon, Kevin and I stole the moped and took it out for a joyride, during which I rode it over a speed bump and broke something important, so that the poor Puch no longer ran. Erich was none too pleased with this, but gave me a reasonable out: I could buy his broken moped off him for a fairly modest sum. He didn't ride it anyway, so it was win-win for him. I accepted, because: A) Erich was much bigger than me; and B) Kevin, for all his many adverse qualities, was not a bad mechanic. With his help, the Puch ran again, and I had an uncool but incredibly fun toy.
I went out of town for a few days after my acquisition, when, true to karmic form, my brother Jason and his delinquent friend stole my moped and took it out for a joyride, wrecking it and breaking something important so that it no longer ran.
Fast forward six years. I'm at Ohio State and have told my friend Michael the story I've just told you. He concludes we need to go to Cleveland and bring the damaged, dusty and disused Puch to Columbus to resuscitate it. We retrieve it, but in a beer-soaked repair session Michael breaks something important, and the Puch, having had enough of this kind of thing, wisely never runs again.
I was done with mopeds after that, eventually moving on to the more sophisticated dorkiness of scooters, some of which can actually meet local speed limits. But for Michael, a strange, festering sickness began.
Fast forward another nine years. Michael builds a two-car garage behind his new house. Soon it, and his basement, are filled with slow, two-wheeled mechanized oddities. He tries to recruit me into his recondite moped world, but I refuse. Soon, his condition has deteriorated to a point at which he begins to modify the bikes for racing. People actually do this. Michael is about 6'3 and in well exess of 200 lbs, so he's out as the potential helmsman in any moped contest. His lovely wife Melvina, co-dependent in his illness, however is not. Here she is in action.
The Magnificent Melvina, moped-mounted and maniacal.
The event, in Michael's own words:
Here is Mel in heat # 2, she came in 3 of 5 in #1 and 4 of 7 in heat 2. She was not only the only girl in the moped specials class, but also the only female of about 70 racers in all classes (scooter, ysr, motard, and moped). She got acclaim from not only friends she raced against, but also strangers that became friends that day - everyone was a true sportsman. She has a 70cc kit with expansion chamber exhaust, underdrive front sproket, matched ports, and 110 race gas. We have also ordered/working to fabricate additional items to increase the bike's potential - 'specials' that she runs in is unlimited [modifications]. The winner rode a Puch.
Life is full of little ironies.
7 Comments:
Dang! Have I found more looney people for Doug to play with?
I've been told that my husband was a member of a notroious suburban group of menacing boys known by parents and neighbors as, "The Moped Gang."
I love this story! Maybe if Doug reads and views the picture, he'll quit lauging at me for being a "blogger nerd" and cheer for other nuty-ass adults who like to wrench on old shit, so they can ride 'em real fast!
The most recent excursion was some sort of ATV "rumble" involving rigged-up 4-wheelers, hosted somewhere in southern Ohio.
Last summer, the cousin-brothers spent numerous weekends banging on jet skis that had been completely submerged. I can hardly wait for the next "project."
There's a scary, old, two-wheeled, motor thing lurking in the back of our garage. I better update both our insurance policies for the day he gets the itch up inside to ride again.
I'll throw my hat into the ring as a nerd. I'm 37, and love to wear spandex and ride bikes. Really. I'm not fast, my students laugh at me, especially when I ride my bike to school and they all want to look at my bicycle computer to see how fast I went down GOrham Hill, a nearly two-mile 8% grade that I have the pleasure or rocketing down on my way to school (record of 46mph) and then riding slowly up on the way home (record of 10 minutes and 46 seconds on the way back up).
I'm glad you guys enjoyed the story. My last "project" was a 100cc Chinese scooter (a Geely JL100 T-9) that I payed far too much for on E-Bay. I put about 2,000 miles on it (the odometer was in kilometers) before it broke. Top speed was a respectable 49 MPH. The dealership I bought it from had gone out of business, and with no parts availablity and an impending move to my present home in NC, I was left with little choice but to sell it to my motorcycle-racing (custom bikes) next-door neighbor for 1/12 what I paid for it. I'm looking to get back in the game, but am a little more cautious now, and won't buy unless I can find a local shop that will agree in advance to work on it. That, or until I'm ready to take the next step into nerddom and learn to wrench it myself.
Oh, and Hamel: 10.46 for a two-mile, 8% grade isn't half bad. You're faster than you think.
Thanks again to both of you for commenting. I get a little tired of the oh-so-serious posts on politics and religion and so like to interject little tales of my life and my weird, interesting friends. I never know if anyone else is going to care, so feedback on posts like this is always rewarding.
Trust me, I don't feel very fast going up the hill, although I do pass rocks and trees as though they're standing still.
Thanks for the press! Mel is looking forward to racing again in July - I have been giving away (non running) bikes to clear up my place, and outsourcing the rest to be well tuned for action.
We're only down to six now!!
How about a yellow Passport when you return for your 'rental' scooter?
I think the passport will do nicely. "Down" to six? Where were you?
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