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.