Wheeled things... my other hobbies
I've been fortunate enough to have been bike commuting since college... and until winter hit in Michigan, I had never needed to car commute (!!!). I've also been fortunate enough to have been biking for fun since as long as I can remember. Road biking, mountain biking, tandem-ing, unicycling, its all great.
Biking combines my loves of wheeled transportation, physical activity, and fixing things up; I spend as much of my time possible on and around bikes. After taking an awesome welding/brazing class at Davis, I'm beginning to make my own bikes from scratch... a fun learning experience. My collection of junky (to anyone else!) bikes was massively cut down in the move from CA to MI, but I'm still biking a lot when the Michigan weather cooperates. 
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1974 Auranthetic Charger
The FIRST production electric motorcycle, by a little company in LA that lasted a few years during the early 70's gas crisis. Runs on two car batteries and had a claimed range of 25+ miles at 25 mph.
Found on craigslist - it was a rusty mess, but only took a few days of work to get it back to decent. Converted it to 1000W motor (from 750W), put a real motor controller and throttle, and upgraded to 48V for increased range. I also replaced the brake shoes and rear shocks (rusted solid) and converted it to LED lights and turn signals to keep the batteries going longer. Finally, I welded the seat pan back together, sewed up a bright orange seat cover to replace the old ripped one, and stuffed in a bit more foam. Running on 4 12V golf cart batteries in series currently. Slow but quite fun; it seems to get to about 20 mph. I haven't yet calculated it's range with this set up, but I expect it is about 10 miles per charge.
Now continuing its SLOW journey with a new owner in Miami!
The FIRST production electric motorcycle, by a little company in LA that lasted a few years during the early 70's gas crisis. Runs on two car batteries and had a claimed range of 25+ miles at 25 mph.
Found on craigslist - it was a rusty mess, but only took a few days of work to get it back to decent. Converted it to 1000W motor (from 750W), put a real motor controller and throttle, and upgraded to 48V for increased range. I also replaced the brake shoes and rear shocks (rusted solid) and converted it to LED lights and turn signals to keep the batteries going longer. Finally, I welded the seat pan back together, sewed up a bright orange seat cover to replace the old ripped one, and stuffed in a bit more foam. Running on 4 12V golf cart batteries in series currently. Slow but quite fun; it seems to get to about 20 mph. I haven't yet calculated it's range with this set up, but I expect it is about 10 miles per charge.
Now continuing its SLOW journey with a new owner in Miami!
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Really fast (not).
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1972 Saab 95
This sturdy little wagon gets 30 mpg, holds 7 (tiny) people and is generally a fun car. I had one of the best roadtrips of my life driving it up from LA the day I bought it. The weak transmission finally went, but after a new (old) transmission, a carburetor rebuild, a brake MC rebuild, a new fuel pump, new head gaskets, and more... it is running and fairly reliable again, now with a working freewheel clutch! It awaits a proper name (the previous owner called it "the frog", but that was my name for my high school car, so that won't work). |
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