Well there's your answer then.. Go give the ignorant something to think about.. I've a friend in London who cycles to work each morning with sticky labels that say "Bike lanes are for bikes" and "Idiot, MIRROR signal THEN manouver" which he sticks on windscreens of people who upset him, apparently they're a real pain to peel off but then he's quite a big chap and I can't see many people picking an arguement with him.. but the Swiss police would probably take exception to that kind of vigilante behaviour.

I think I would probably refrain from sticking them on the windscreens of Swiss police cars then.

Rather than start a new thread ... heres one for the leather monkeys to tear to shreds :

Track T-800CDI: World's First Commercially Available 'Diesel Powered� Bike


its built by these guys EVA Products

& looks like this :

Aaaarrrggghhhh... Why on earth would anyone want a diesel bike?? I'd rather go pedal power!

It looks like a steath bomber.. Are they trying to avoid being seen while they polute the atmosphere? Ugly ugly thing.

Typical, it's Dutch... They'd been smoking to much when they came up with this!

Actually, I take that back.. I've just read it can run on Vegetable Oil, which means you're going to see them outside the back of chip shops running on old chip fat, but it's be pretty good in 3rd world contries, and not too bad for the environment.. With "Suzuki Hayabusa-like torque.", I can see why someone might want one..

If they were blind! It's SERIOUSLY ugly!

A truly ugly looking beast that one. At 214kg dry, not as heavy as it looks. But it looks like a lot of the weight would be sitting pretty high, making it potentially a handfull to ride. Especially when one of the optional extras is a jack to lift the bike if it gets stuck in the sand.

I'm also suspicious of a bike developed in the Nederlands. No hills means not a lot of windy roads.

But then again, it has potential. 10 years ago people never imagined high performance diesel cars. Also as a touring bike for remote areas it could be pretty useful. In some remote parts of Australia where most of the vehicles are work vehicles, you can only get diesel. If you want petrol you have to order it two weeks in advance. I'm sure that there are parts of Africa, Canada and Central Asia with similar restrictions.

But, geez, they could have made some attempt to make it less ugly.

__________________
If you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much space. But I'm greedy and like my space.

They say you shouldn't drink and ride, but that's a 6 pinter with a bag over its head!

Well, yes, while it may pollute more per liter of fuel used, it is also using less less liters of fuel per kilometer traveled. So unless you balance the two, you won't really know...

As to why one would want one

- any 14 year old kid can take the motor apart and put it back together
- it costs next to nothing in insurance and gas
- a separate driving license which you keep in case the other one is "unjustly" taken away by the police

For those who are unhappy with the factory-designed speed, i've heard from uhmmm... a friend that you can straight swap the cylinder and piston for one with a bigger bore, adjust the pinion gear ratios and you can chug along at about 80km/h which in town / suburban traffic is vastly sufficient.

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The opinions expressed above are not necessarily the opinions of management and in fact may be the opposite of that intended in order to confuse and obfuscate trolling readers.

I don't agree.. The reason why two strokes have been phased out for mopeds and so on is because they pollute.. If this goes no faster than a bicycle, get a bicycle and stay fit!

1) Yeah, I guess, but I'm not 14, and with the help of a Haynes manual, I managed to reduce the engine in a Talbot Alpine to a pile of oily nuts and bolds and metal bits and get it back together again with no left over parts. (I did have a reason.. I was a student and it was all I could afford..) So most bike engines are.. Not too difficult.
2) Nor does a moped.. Slightly more, but they're safer.
3)That's a good reason to get one after the busies take your licence, not before!

Ooohh Scary.. 80km/h on a bike with brakes and steering designed for less than half that!!

Sorry, still a long way from being convinced!

A bit more than slightly more...

You'll find that the 35 km/h limitation is a Swiss particularity, not a "design feature" ab initio. The carburetor and intake pipe are modified in order to reduce speed to abide by that limit. The Maxi Puch models have been frequently taken up to +/- 100 km/h without a string of horrid deaths ensuing.

Diesel bikes are coming - you only have to look at what they've done with the turbos on the endurance cars and commercial cars like the BMW 530d to realise that as soon as they can get the weight down and find a turbo combination that delivers that certain adrenalin rush then they will be produced by the likes of Honda.

So I can definitely see that there will be a diesel bike I can ride and enjoy.

This one isn't it of course.

That's not the point.. The point is that if I want to go that fast on two wheels, I'll go on a bike designed for that speed that has the ability to handle it, not one that I've had to put a not so legal engine in which would invalidate the insurance, so if you did find yourself needing to turn quickly at 100+/-kph and failing dismally, apart from probably winding up in hospital, followed by a quick court appearance, I'd then have to pay for any damage I did out of my pocket and then lose both the licence plate and the licence! This cheap mode of transport is beginning to look rather expensive!



I'd tend to agree with you, I'm just adverse to diesel per-se I think.. So long as when I twist the throttle, the bike tries to rip my arms off, I don't really care if it runs on farts!


Choke!

Ok, let me try again. Those weren't designed for 35 km/h but rather 50 to 60. That was my initial point. Happy?

By the way, how do you know you'd fail dismally?

Hi All

i spoke to my son, one of his friends just got done for speeding on one of those, his speed.
121Kph, as clocked by the Police!

t

Better, but Shorrick, I'm not arguing with you, there's just no way you'll convince me that one of those things is in anyway better than a motorbike or moped.. My mind was made up about 3 months ago.. My wife works in intensive care and she came home in tears one day after having to nurse a 14 year old who was on one pushing it as hard as he could down the mountain and came off at 100kph after failing dismally to negotiate a bend and ended up with a handlebar puncturing his lung.

Because the bike looked a bit like this

Mmmmm, so double Shorrick's recommended maximum speed and nearly 4 times JonP's. Sounds like a potential candidate for Darwin's theories regarding natural selection. I'm glad it wasn't your son doing that.

well he keeps trying to get me to order the parts...

its funny onthe web site it tell the boys how to make the bikes go fast, but there are on part to make it stop!

T

I'll second that.. It's a shame that the candidates for the Darwin Awards are getting so young.

My son can have one, but it'll be limited to 35kph, then when he's proven he's not an idiot, he can have a moped at 16 if he likes and move up to big bikes when he's allowed and able to handle the power.. I've nothing against bikes, it's people riding beyond the bikes capacity and the riders ability and the roads conditions that causes accidents, that and blind drivers of four wheeled moving roadblocks who forget they have wing mirrors, and side windows when they come out of turnings!

BTW JonP, when the police got this boy, basicly they "fixed " the bike outside the police station, with a Hammer and drill, and told the kid not to litter!

T