New Aussie member - wish to link up with other Aussie motor bicyclists

chrustie

New Member
Local time
7:36 PM
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
11
Location
Australia
Hello folks - I've built a lot of motorised bikes. Now I am starting to push to have the foolish motorised bicycle laws in Australia altered so we can use our machines without braking the law. I live in a place called W Tree near Buchan in Victoria 3885. I am out in the sticks, & provide all my own services such as electric power and there's not enough on tap to recharge a bicycle battery, so I run various petrol powered devices including a few powered bicycles and a home-made three-wheeler to get to the bus stop and tow a trailer of firewood, etc. I don't have a registerable car and I live 75km from the nearest super market. I have written to the Minister for Roads and Transport in Victoria, Mr. Terry Mulder, with predictable results. The laws, foolish and irrelevant though they may be, are here to stay for now. So I would like to form an association to push for reasonable and practical laws. Currently we are stuck with 250watts somehow linked to the speed of pedaling, reducing the power input until there is no power assist at 25km per hour. Only an over-serviced bureaucrat could have thought that up and only a politician could have approved it. In essence, this means that in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales petrol engines are illegal on bicycles. It requires fancy electronics and electric motors to fulfill the letter of the law. There are some attachments below, one being my letter to Mr. Terry Mulder, Minister for Transport and Roads in Victoria, Oz. The others are some pictures of my weird creations. I use a post-hole auger drive and a gearbox of a rotary cultivator as reduction boxes. They are strong and simple, and get the gearing down to around 200 rpm which is great for driving the front chainring on a freewheel crank setup. I've tried a few systems, and I'm still playing around with more.

Fellow Aussies, please talk to me! Chrustie
 

Attachments

  • Terry Mulder Min Transport 1.7.12..PDF
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  • Towards Buchan 29.4.12 1 small.JPG
    Towards Buchan 29.4.12 1 small.JPG
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  • cultivator trans small.JPG
    cultivator trans small.JPG
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  • 43cc rhs sm.JPG
    43cc rhs sm.JPG
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  • Huffy sm 1.JPG
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  • Trike with motor small 6.JPG
    Trike with motor small 6.JPG
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  • Huffy sm 2.JPG
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  • Oz Cruiser sm.jpg
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  • Timber Truck sm2.JPG
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Welcome chrustie, I thought I'd move your thread into Laws & Legislation as it seems more appropriate.

I live in a rural south australia and have no problems riding around here so the laws don't particularly bother me. When I ride through town centers I cut the engine and just pedal on through to keep in the good books with the general public.

I have to say the motorised bike laws in Australia are really unfriendly towards motorbicyclists. The best thing to do would be to get everyone together on their bikes and protest in front of parliament BUT that will likely result in everyone getting their bikes confiscated AND that's why the capital of Australia is Canberra in the ACT. It's out in the middle of nowhere and so far from anywhere so that protests are almost impossible logistically and the politicians can be left alone to make whatever decisions they want.

I think a more realistic approach would be to try and get as many motorised bike enthusiasts to bombard the appropriate transport ministers with emails and letters. What we need is a set of generic letter and email templates to post up on the site which outline the major points and can be easily downloaded and customised with the contact details for the appropriate minister.
 
Motorised Bicycle Laws in Australia

Hello Anton - thanks for your reply. I'm new at this forum stuff. I will make a thorough study of the legislation and put together a template letter / email to be sent to the relevant ministers. You could perhaps place it in a prominent position on your site if you feel it is important as I do. I am very concerned about the greenhouse gas abuse of large, high powered vehicles. I have done two trips to Australia's capital Canberra in winter 2010 on a recumbent Greenspeed trike, loaded with all survival gear, camped out mostly for six months and 3000km at age 62. Took lots of movies and photos, even carried a lap top and a solar panel / battery to keep my web up-to-date. No motor, just pedal power. Lost 20 kg and learned to hate the exhaust fumes which were continuously blasted in my face on major roads. We don't have much time to get our act together. I believe that bicycles / tricycles powered by efficient and clean four strokes under 50cc are a big step in the right direction - Get people out of dirty petrol guzzling monsters into cleaner air with a bit of exercise thrown in. Motor bikes are ok, but burdened with expensive and excessively complex / fashionable equipment which is not user friendly on a low budget. The bicycle industry produces the most efficient form of transport on earth and is an existing resource which should be expanded to include high quality, light-weight components to motorise the existing gear sets with compact and efficient reduction gear kits and low-stressed and bulletproof little engines. I don't like the smelly, farting two strokes much, they are a dirty little engine. But a well tuned little 4 stroke, even a tiny side valve set up for compactness and simplicity, could provide cheap transport for years at minimal cost and fuel consumption. If you want to get the thrill of speed, get on a low-slung trike and go hard, using your legs. I've done 80km per hour on my Greenspeed and it was terrifying!

Anyway, Maybe in time I will get the hang of this and other similar sites well enough to pursue this campaign effectively. I appreciate your help and advice. regards Chrustie
 
The issue is safety, which leads to the ADR rules for motorbikes. Those 2 stroke kits can never be ADR compliant. I wouldn't trust my child (if I had one) riding those cheap 2 stroke motorized kit bikes unless I've constructed them. There's a whole host of safety issues such as chain jamming, fuel leaking, engine jam due to rod bearing failure, etc.

If motored bikes are to be made legal, then the 2 stroke kits have to lift their game or be illegal. A backyard made motorized bike can also never be made legal because there's no way of ensuring its safety.

The only way it can be made legal is a reliable kit that's been officially tested, and given our current options the best candidate is the latest incarnation of the huasheng 4 stroke.
 
safety impaired by current legislation

The issue is safety, which leads to the ADR rules for motorbikes. Those 2 stroke kits can never be ADR compliant. I wouldn't trust my child (if I had one) riding those cheap 2 stroke motorized kit bikes unless I've constructed them. There's a whole host of safety issues such as chain jamming, fuel leaking, engine jam due to rod bearing failure, etc.

If motored bikes are to be made legal, then the 2 stroke kits have to lift their game or be illegal. A backyard made motorized bike can also never be made legal because there's no way of ensuring its safety.

The only way it can be made legal is a reliable kit that's been officially tested, and given our current options the best candidate is the latest incarnation of the huasheng 4 stroke.

I agree up to a point, the two strokes (and even the standard Huasheng kit) are very dubious, being designed and made for a poor and cheapness obsessed market. I would prefer the Federal Government to commission a design with economy, quality and low emissions in mind. I would prefer if the states ceased to exist as anything but sporting districts. I was given a copy of the draft legislation drafted by the NSW dept of transport. I made a submission.

The legislation is designed to keep cycling as pedal cycling, and motorcycles as motorcycles. It ignores rural areas, people on low incomes living there, pollution concerns and the convenience / potential of a huge source of well engineered transport options for people no longer fit enough to pedal everywhere in an ageing population. If safety were a prime concern, there would be no 200kw sports sedans available to the 21 year old public. My first car had a 2 cylinder engine and 12kw. These days a learner motocycle is far more powerful than that. Our legislators are impractical, pampered soft-option specialists, like their masters in politics. The main concern is monetary, with insurance and registration being the top priority.

So called safety concerns are directly allied with pressure from insurance companies. The cost of compliance with such things can put anything but pedaling out of an aged person's reach in a country area where there is no public transport worth the name (compared to the cities), yet that is entitirely ignored by the pen pushers who all live in over-serviced environments which they pollute into unbreathable areal sewers. If they consider that safe, well, there's no way to convince them.

The outcome is civil disobedience, the use of clumsy, badly designed and poorly made vehicles which no one wants to properly develope because they could be banned or off the road tomorrow. Money again. I would suggest that the legislators concentrate on enabling something useful and effective rather than just keep the motorised cycling option in a dangerous and rubbishy no-man's land. Those two strokes are disgusting things, and not easy and safe to handle or ride.

There are plenty of good examples of well engineered kits in the states, where the laws are much saner and designed to enable light , affordable light transport. Look at Staton Inc site for some inspiration. http://staton-inc.com/home.shtml

Chrustie
 
Those 2 stroke kits can never be ADR compliant. I wouldn't trust my child (if I had one) riding those cheap 2 stroke motorized kit bikes unless I've constructed them. There's a whole host of safety issues such as chain jamming, fuel leaking, engine jam due to rod bearing failure, etc.

That's the reason why you install a SickBikeparts shift kit - safe as houses and two stroke engines are far more reliable than you make them out to be.
All of my engine failures have been from detonation. A problem that is easily fixed by switching from the standard CDI to the Jaguar CDI.
 
Hi Fabian - Yes, that's a good kit. I have a couple of fan cooled two strokes in use, 43cc and 52cc. The smaller one is o.k. with a geared setup, and well tuned can produce a reasonable fuel consumption. But it still suffers from over-heating and plug-whiskering when climbing under load, and uses far more fuel than the smooth and quiet four-stroke Huasheng motors I use on other bikes. I have used both types on the same bike setup. The four stroke was only 31cc, but so much better in use that I only use the two stroke on short runs to the swimming hole, etc.now. I have recently travelled 250km in one trip with a standard 49cc four-stroke kit on an old mountain bike and that returned 60km /liter while climbing a lot of steep hills. I helped a bit with the pedals, but not too much. The kit was new - the exhaust pipe broke off the flange and had to be welded back on. It did make it home the 100km but I will provide more flexible mounting on the frame for the new exhaust, to take care of vibration. The engine ran like a watch all the way apart from that. The noisy gear box was terrible, the huge chain and tensioner required much maintenace (I ground some metal off the engine which was catching the chain),but the setup provided good engine braking down some of the steep hills on the Buchan to Bairnsdale run.

And to get back to the topic I am also interested in - let's campaign to change these silly powered bicycle laws in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Let's go for a 1kw power limit, a weight limit of say 9kg for a kit, and so encourage companies like Shimano to manufacture some suitable components so we don't have to compromise and butcher around with all sorts of second-rate gear. I want a an internal gear hub like the Nexus with two flanged blank external free-wheels on it, and a range of sprockets to bolt to that. Then a little four stroke with a simple geared reduction box ($50 to $200 or so) could turn a bicycle into viable transport in the country where power points are far apart and roads are long, rough and hilly. chrustie
 
That's the reason why you install a SickBikeparts shift kit - safe as houses and two stroke engines are far more reliable than you make them out to be.
All of my engine failures have been from detonation. A problem that is easily fixed by switching from the standard CDI to the Jaguar CDI.
Even with the shift kit they are dubious at best when it comes to safety, especially with the fuel leaks. The shift kit doesnt magically make the rest of the kit reliable either.

Importantly, it doesnt solve a very big problem of engine vibration, which could snap some thin alloy frames because aluminium sucks at fatigue. Both the bike and the engine have to be suited together.


Actually, the best bet at legality is probably electric.
 
Hi Iron Monkey - electric is fine if you aren't going far, don't have hills to suck your battery dry, and don't mind the thought of using a wheelbarrow full of brown coal to do 20km. I travel 200 km to the town with the amenities like supermarket, etc..The bus which services our area goes Wednesdays and Fridays, but only spends 3 1/2 hours there. Can't do very much in that time. So to socialise I ride the bike in - three hours travel, 2 liters of fuel, come back the next day. No electric bike can do that. I also generate all my own power, and only use 20 liters of fuel a month. The solar stand alone doesn't put out enough yet to keep an electric bike going. I can't yet afford fuel cells and a hydrogen generator, but one day, if I live long enough, that's where I'm going. The powered bicycle law in most Oz states is not a practical or green option, it's just a fiscally motivated bit of politics. Chrustie
 
@ Iron Monkey

Granted that my preference is for a steel frame but i'm satisfied with the structural integrity of aluminium frames, given competent installation.
After 37,000 kilometers on my alloy frame with high specification disk brakes and shift kit - your comments are lacking validity.

Surprisingly, my fuel tank has never had a fuel leak, but then again it was never over tightened, which obviously will cause the stud welds to crack.
Vibration is much less of an issue than i would have initially suspected but it's more reduced with the Jaguar CDI.

All the problems you have describe relate more to operator error than manufacturing defects.
 
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