So about a year ago, with gas prices shooting up for summer months I was looking for a way to get to the beach cheaply. I live a couple of miles away and didn’t want to ride my bike (save maximum energy for surfing). I wanted to get creative with saving MPG’s and looked at a bunch of options.
I began considering all different types of alternatives. Finally decided that I would side mount a surfboard to a motorcycle. I wrote a post on this board asking if anyone had done it before.
I’m glad I did because some swalockian slapped some sense into me and told me what a stupid, dangerous thing that idea would be to do.
Anyhow, I reconsidered, and looked for other options. I looked at just about everything and found a company that makes these bicycles with motors on them that get 150 MPG. With shipping, they were less than 700 bucks (it looks like they’re even cheaper now). I ordered one.
I’ve found it to be the perfect way to get to the beach, avoid all parking hassles, surf places that are out of the way, enjoy being outside on your way to the beach, and most importantly, save gas. I filled a five gallon tank over a year ago and I’m still going on it.
I’m super happy with it and thought other people here might enjoy having one. Its a small business and the guys that worked there were helpfull so I thought that I would spread the word a bit.
Anyhow, thanks for steering me away from the motorcycle idea.
We use to travel with our van and if we’re going to stay out of home more than two days we put our bycicles on the rack, but the truth is that if we are on an area with hills we end using the van for almost everything (buying fresh food basicaly), so first we thought about how cool would be having an small scooter bike with us, but we would love to avoid air pollution and noise (that’s why we use our bycicles), so that electric option in the link you posted looks great… if it truly works.
Do you have any information on how those electric kits work? Do they work under rain? Are they worthy?
So about a year ago, with gas prices shooting up for summer months I was looking for a way to get to the beach cheaply. I live a couple of miles away and didn’t want to ride my bike (save maximum energy for surfing). I wanted to get creative with saving MPG’s and looked at a bunch of options.
I began considering all different types of alternatives. Finally decided that I would side mount a surfboard to a motorcycle. I wrote a post on this board asking if anyone had done it before.
I’m glad I did because some swalockian slapped some sense into me and told me what a stupid, dangerous thing that idea would be to do.
Anyhow, I reconsidered, and looked for other options. I looked at just about everything and found a company that makes these bicycles with motors on them that get 150 MPG. With shipping, they were less than 700 bucks (it looks like they’re even cheaper now). I ordered one.
I’ve found it to be the perfect way to get to the beach, avoid all parking hassles, surf places that are out of the way, enjoy being outside on your way to the beach, and most importantly, save gas. I filled a five gallon tank over a year ago and I’m still going on it.
I’m super happy with it and thought other people here might enjoy having one. Its a small business and the guys that worked there were helpfull so I thought that I would spread the word a bit.
Anyhow, thanks for steering me away from the motorcycle idea.
I’m not sure I understand how carrying a surfboard on a bicycle converted to power can be considered to be mostly safe, and carrying the same board on a motorcycle mostly dangerous… Do not both contraptions balance on 2 wheels? Isn’t your center of gravity much higher on most bicycles? I presume that the plan was to mount the board to some kind of rack on the motorbike and that you are carrying “free hand” on the conversion. Many or most bicycles require two hands to safely steer and work the brakes (assuming two wheel braking, which I would consider a “must” on a conversion). The obvious difference is speed, but it is easy enough to ride slower on a motorcycle. NTM that motorcycles are designed for motor power from the get go, bicycles are not. Personally, I’d feel a lot safer at 25-30 MPH on a motorcycle with the board on a rack, than at 15 MPH on a converted bicycle with the board under my arm. I would have been inclined to go with a side car and rack on the motorcycle. Another option (one I’m actually considering as a long term, background project) would be an old Cushman Truckster or similar (meter maid vehicle). They get good mileage, can be enclosed (i.e., a place for a roof rack), and seem like great candidates for conversion to electrical/battery drive with solar panel augmentation…
Since we moved closer to the surf(nearest spot is about two miles away or three kilometers) I’ve been looking for a simple way to get there. Problem is downhill to the surf, uphill the other way. I actually think the el-powered bike is a great idea. There are post in the archive about making a board holder from PVC pipes for bikes. However I think the side mount is kind of dangerous in wind. Making a simple (or buying http://muletransportsystems.com/index.html) a trailer is a better option IMHO.
I actually did the side mount on a motorcycle. Honda 90 little putt-putt in 60’s. And yes indeed side winds are a disaster. Try heading North from Sant Cruz on Hwy 1 that way with big trucks blastin by. Then coming home tired from 4-Mile w/ the afternoon onshores blowing plus the trucks. Also, closer to home, I got attacked by a rather large dog while stuggling up steep hill from my house to the road. At that point in the journey the max speed was about 5 mph. Needless to say that set-up was soon abandonded.
Onuela, love that “thigh-master” set up in the pic you posted. Better pack plenty of food in that trailor to fuel up with on the way.
Yeah, I considered a motorcyle w- some type of hand made rack attached and using it to go up and down the coast. With traffic around here, that would mean at least 45 - 50 mph.
With these bikes you can use bicycle surf racks and they are legal for all bike lanes so your doing 15 -20 mph instead of keeping up with automobiles.
Don’t need a licence for one. They’re cheap. No insurance. No registration needed. If a cop pulls you over, they are legal, so tell him to take a hike and that you’ll see him in court. I carry a copy of the law regarding them in my backpack just to make the point.
Haven’t tried the electric motor ones. I have a 49cc 2 stroke.
The best thing is being outdoors on the way to the beach though. Yes, there are a million other options/ ideas… Just wanted to spread the word a bit for these guys.
I have this idea that since Harleys are capable of pulling a small trailer, the same trailer could be rigged for beach duty and strapping boards to on top, fin up and forward, aerodynamically-correctly etc. If you have a heavy motorcycle with good torque and a decently heavy half trailer, I think boards would ride all right on top.
Here’s a (low-speed?) billboard setup.
motorcycles and surfing seems like a cool combo – maybe not so much beer post-sesh
The aero – I’m thinking a kind of low-profile faired glass truck kind of deal with boards on both sides…a low triangle with a rock-guard
There is a guy that shows up on a motorcycle at Malibu with a big back pack. He has a blow up longboard....pumps it up....paddles out and gets some of the best waves out there. He is from Hawaii.....surfs without a wetsuit and always surfs with Aloha.
Could easily be fit onto a motorcycle. I saw some 600cc enduros in Central America a few years ago that had welded U-shaped mounts to the frame to carry a board. Looked solid and they got around everywhere, although Centro dirt roads are a far cry from Hwy 1. It’s doable though.
I made a DIY rack similar to the Carver ones out of PVC. Works reasonably well but I made it out of 1/2 sch. 40 and it’s a bit flexy and I had to re-inforce the horizontal arm with a piece of thin wall 1" pipe. If I had it to do over again I’d just make it out of 1" and it would probably be fine, but it only cost about $10 and a couple hours to make:
I rode it down to the beach the other day with 15knot crosswinds, a little squirelly but manageable. I didn’t want to drop $90 on a bike rack just to leave at the beach, this one is ghetto enough I can just throw my bike in the grass and no one takes a second look at it.
WRT crosswinds, a trailer would likely be better for transporting a board with a motorcycle, but I’m not certain that translates to the same advantage for a bicycle. We’ve all seen travel trailer rigs out of shape in crosswinds where the “tail is wagging the dog” seems like that would be all too easy to achieve, particularly with a lightweight bike. At least a side rack could be set up to carry the board “horizontally” to minimize “sail area”. Even my idea of a Cushman with rack on top has some problems, as Cushman-type vehicles are already suffer from a higher than ideal CG, and the board on top is adding forces at the worst possible place. Now if a surfboard could be made durable enough without being too heavy to ride, you could strap it to a wheeled chassis with a small motor attached and skateboard it to the beach.
when i was in chile surfing pichilemu, i met a guy in the line up from brazil who had riden his motorcycle w/ shortboard from brazil, through argentina, to chile and was heading to peru. i didn’t see his set up, but it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to ride a motorcycle w/ a shortboard over the andes…
My SUV has a cracked head, and the mechanic says that it will cost about $2500 to fix. That is about the same price that I could sell it for, so I am going over all of my options. The little GEM car, shown above sounds like it might work. It looks like it would be pretty simple to add a surfboard rack to the top. The only think holding me back is the price. At $10,000 it seems like a bit too much to replace my primary vehicle. My wife has a car that I could use for longer trips, but it would definitely cut into my mobility. The other thing that I’m worried about is the fact that we live on a small Hill. I could just see myself coming back from a surf, and the battery dying half way up the hill.
