Thursday, November 13, 2008

gina's bike walter

The big ole chain saw sounded promising. Walter got back on the net to search for a chain saw at the local stores. He found a 42cc chain saw at Walmart for a hundred and a fifty dollars. It sounded like a lot till he considered that a months gas and insurance premium on his car ran as much. The motorized bike would use less than a gallon of gas and no insurance at all in that same month's time. The same would be true every month for as long as Walter could stand it.

Walter found a Chinese engine kit on the internet and looked it over carefully. He even read a lot about it and found that it would be difficult to install for someone with Walter's lack of skill. Walter liked the simplicity of Gina's bike. He really did think that he could build one like it himself.

He stumbled onto a forum which specialized in the china bike kits while he was researching them. The forum also had a thread for people who built home made bikes. Walter found several entries for friction drive bicycles. Before he bought anything he spent the rest of that Friday just reading about them. it was pretty late in the afternoon when he finished reading all the entries. Several people posted in that area but two of them were the most prolific. One was a man a few hundred miles away. The other was a woman of all things. She was also several hundred miles away. The forum had contact information for both. Walter sent them both an email before he rode Gina's bike out to dinner.

The man answered sending along a very generic set of instructions for the manufacturing of an engine mount. Walter realized that the mount wouldn't be difficult to build but it would be challenging. The plans had everything he needed except that they needed to be taylored to the engine. A trip to the hardware store was in order but he decided that it should wait for the next day.

The woman's email showed up just before bedtime. She offered any advice he needed and suggested he contact the man who had sent him the set of plans for advice as well. He replied to her then sat down to watch late night TV.

The tonight show was a bore, so he tried the computer instead. He checked ebay for chain saws and found a brand new saw just like the one he was planning to purchase from Walmart. By the time he added in the shipping it was going to cost twenty dollars more on ebay. Walter chuckled at that then moved on to the forum for motorized bicycles.

Walter made a post in the homemade bike area of the forum. He introduced himself and explained what he planned to do, then he went to bed.

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