News: Cars and Bikes

Siblings L-R on the Honda CX 500 : Colette, Sarah, Helene,

Me & Alexandra

Racing at Brands Hatch. Healey Silverstone, Simon and me.

Cruisin' around the back garden on the Honda Express and Cub 90.

Health and Safety- Helene and me; Colette in the cart.

We had two or three of the Honda Express mopeds. They were a

great bike for us to play around with in the garden when

we were young. At 10 /11 years old I'd seen a few mini motorbikes

like the Italjet and Honda below and wanted one BAD. I wasn't ever going

to get one. They were £150/£200 and my father would pick up an old Express or Cub 90 for £20.

I remember excitedly discussing with him how we could make it less like a

Frank Spencer moped and more like a Motocrosser... The tank

should be moved to the front. Handlebars much lower and different seat.

We never got round to it. These memories stirred when making the

Moto-Bike a few months ago.

People have been tinkering with bikes and engines for a long time:

Félix Millet showed a 5 cylinder rotary engine built into a bicycle wheel at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. Millet had patented the engine in 1888, so must be considered the pioneer of the internal combustion rotary engine. A machine powered by his engine took part in the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race of 1895 and the system was put into production by Darracq in 1900.

Soichiro Honda adapted WWII suplus engines, originally designed to power army transmitters, for use on comon bicycles. The above image represents the crude but important beginning of the Honda legacy. Honda's Model A of 1947, the first production engine of Honda design, also intended for fitting to commercially available bicycles.

When mounting an engine in a bike goes wrong: