Between work, my 10 million other hobbies fly fishing, paintball, rock stardom, backpacking, etc… and moped parts blowing up see NYC Streets vs French Pipes I seem to always have some past moped project to write about. With this post I might actually be caught up to the present completely!
My dad once said that his favorite hobbies were the ones he shared with my mom…mushy I know, but if you’re going to spend forever with someone you might as well spend time together doing fun stuff! So I’ve been trying to get Leah (my wife as of Sept 17…now it’s in a blog so I can’t forget the anniversary) to ride almost as soon as I got my first moped. On a trip to the fabled HandyBikes in Columbus, OH, I found a near perfect Tomos Silver Bullet sans engine. I picked it up planning to build it for Leah. To my delight she said she wanted to build it herself! Then we moved to NYC and the moped sat disassembled in a closet for a couple years…mopeds aren’t quite the priority for her that they are to me but this past year she got things underway…
and soon learned that putting tires on sucks!
but she got the rolling chassis together in an afternoon with minimal help from me…one of the many reasons I married her…that and she asked me!
This past summer she rebuilt the engine from the ground up. She only has to put up on a pipe and wire it up. She hasn’t built it quickly but she knows everything about that moped. In the interim she’s been riding The Tomonstr but my mopeds are a bit over the top and the riding position doesn’t really suit her.
That got me thinking that I’d build her something and my friend Johnny had the perfect bike. A nice clean Moby 50V. It took a little while of working on him to get it but he eventually relented to my groveling. He hooked me up with a 70cc Parma kit and a 15/15 SHA! So I cleaned up all the chrome, kitted the engine, and tuned it up (still a little rich for break in). The moped runs great and the orange is Leah’s favorite color win/win! On to the goodies.
She had mentioned that the collapsing saddle baskets on bicycles were cool so I ordered a set of Wald 582 Folding Baskets with basket liners. I think these look great, are built really well, and they were easy to mount up. All in all I think the moped turned out great!
I was going to make this a Christmas gift but I couldn’t stand to wait so it became a Birthday present! Leah thought I was going to show her something I bought for myself. After I finally convinced her that the Moby was for her I was pretty sure she liked it.
and considering she wanted to go for a ride ASAP…
I’d say I’m positive she liked it. I have a ninja pipe sitting on the shelf for when she’s ready!
I’ll keep you posted for when her Bullet is finished as I’m sure it’s going to be a mover too!
