As my girlfriend often says, size is not important. The same can be said about having a lark on a motorcycle. The size of your engine is not really related to the amount of fun you can have with it. I have proved this to myself by the amount of frolicking I reaped out of riding a 50cc moped. At this point, do not for one moment think the moped in this story was one of those awful, restricted, ditch creeping, scum sucking, spineless pieces of shit that are sold today. This is far from the truth. This 'ped was a fire breathing Italian beast. Revving to about 12000rpm and delivering a tarmac scorching 7hp (before you laugh, remember I was only a tender 16 year old).
The moped was made by an almost unheard of (in England) manufacturer, Garelli, and it was a Record model. I've heard of another model they produced that was known as a Tiger, which was the same bike dressed as a street scrambler. The model I ran was a fairly classic (read basic) shape. It was quite primitive in design but then it was a P reg. A simple two stroke single cylinder was cooled by huge aluminium fins stuck out into the airstream. It was made in the days before reed or rotary valves were very common and so didn't bother with any.
When I bought it, the poor little animal was lumbered with ridiculous pedals that were welded in a flimsy way to the frame. These gave the impression that the pedals were added on afterwards in a typical Italian manner to comply with the equally flimsy regulation that was enforced in British law. These were left on for the MOT but afterwards were discarded forever.
Despite the engine's primitive design, once running it gave an unbreakable frenzy of adrenaline producing kicks. This was when it actually ran. For a long time the starting remained poor. As the 'ped had no kickstart (the pedals had doubled as this) I had to bump it all the time. But as there was so little weight and so little cc this was a fairly easy job even if the 'ped didn't feel like starting.
The only time I ever really wished for an electric start was when I was caught outside a house trying to start the reluctant sod as a pack of rabid dogs swarmed around the corner. Had I been able to rapidly fire the bike into life I wouldn't have been bitten. As it was, the reluctant starting allowed the savage man-killers to maul my leg.
The problem showed up months later when I was indulging in a spot of off-road work on a frosty night. I fell off and whacked my knee. As a result of the spine tingling pain I was unable to hop fast enough to fire the engine, so I had to dodder the 'ped up the hill then sit on the beast as it rolled back down to get the engine chiming.
The suspension was very reticent in its action. About one inch of movement was apparent both at the front and back. This led to a very direct ride. Had the moped been capable of illegal speeds then this would've been a problem. Because it only ever reached 65mph (on a good day) and it was so light that even as a sweet sixteen year old, I could just about pick it up in my arms, this was not really too traumatic.
The only really bad point as far as the engine was concerned was the electrics. The only good thing that can be said about them is they ran the ignition circuit. The rest was simply pathetic - a dim orange/yellow front light and an intermittent back one plus a killswitch that electrocuted you when employed. No indicator, no horn, no battery, no hope of any reliability or sophistication at all. So much has changed with Italian electrics (heavy sarcasm).
Bear in mind that this was my first powered vehicle. Before that all my travelling had been accomplished by hitch-hiking or push-biking. A powered vehicle opened up whole new frontiers for me. Being able to zoom up a hill without becoming all sweaty and out of breath was a strange but welcome new concept.
My first impression was of massive size and weight combined with enormous amounts of power that never became tired. The steering seemed to be almost solid after the rickety, wobbly ride of a push-bike. It took some getting used to - the combined mass and awesomely powerful centrifugal forces generated at speeds.
An excess of very dangerous riding was indulged before I got the hang of it. For example, on my maiden voyage on a wet back road, I whizzed happily along for three miles before coming upon a tight corner. Well, I knew how to go around corners, you just lean off the side, the faster you went the further you leant. In my blissful ignorance, the idea of leaning a bike until the pegs scratched on a wet road did not even stand out as an erroneous idea.
The corner flashed up, I began to regret the speed I was doing. I leant the bike down. Completely beyond my anticipation the Garelli carried on dropping further as its tyres let go and I hit the road. This was sudden and utterly unexpected. I was still stuck in the 'I can get round this corner' mode of thought.
As always happens at these critical moments, a car came from nowhere, which bike and I bounced off. Everything stopped. I stood up bruised and muddied but unhurt. The driver leapt out of the car, I felt utter embarrassment as only an adolescent feels. ''They don't make these roads like they used to,'' I said in a last ditch attempt not to look like an idiot. After being called a silly bugger and told to slow down we went out separate ways.
The performance was fantastic for a moped. It was easily the fastest moped around where I lived. During my time riding the bike, its top speed went from 45mph to 65mph, as a result of careful fiddling with the carb (a good clean and reset according to the manual) and ditching the airfilter to prevent the engine choking up at low revs. Also a thorough decoke as these old-fashioned bikes need one occasionally and the exhaust heated red hot in the fire to burn off the carbon.
Lastly, perhaps most importantly, a new sports piston. This had a strange hole just under the rings, presumably an early attempt at radical porting. Whatever the reasons behind this vaguely Mad Max type of design it certainly worked. The bike assumed a personality of willing ferocity. Before this work on the engine the 'ped had been about the same as the Yam Fizzies it was raced against. After the work, it left the Jap pretenders smoking in its wake. This is quite a literal description as they seized up when they attempted to keep up with the rocketing Italian beast.
One quirk that was always evident was the lack of bottom end power. This is not really surprising in view of the relatively huge increase of power above about eight grand, and in reality it generated the same pleasure and addictive attraction to me as smack does to a junkie. The 'ped would drone along below the power band like a wet bumble bee. At the magic point the exhaust note changed from NORRRRRRR to HONNNNNNN. When the power came in the bike would wheelie in first just on the throttle. To a 16 year old the sudden rush of power was more intoxicating than three pints of illegal scrumpy. Once on the power the engine felt very happy.
The over-heating problems that were apparent at low revs on a hot day vanished. The power the engine produced was somewhere between 6 and 7hp - about 120 to 140hp per litre. Much the same sort of power output per litre as a modern race replica 1000cc machine. Once the engine was improved I invested in some new points, these took months to arrive but when they came they improved the starting to the point that it would fire on the first turn of the mill.
I soon found that the front brake was rapidly losing its ability to slow the bike. On looking at the shoes, they appeared down to the rivets. As the front tyre was in the same state and the wheel rusty, I opted for a smaller front wheel off a 125 Honda. All that was needed was an anchor point for the front brake. A little intelligence would have suggested welding one to the fork arm but because I'm often stupid I glued the anchor point on.
Then I took the 'ped out for a test blast. I thought that the best way of testing the brake was to do some 'endo's (have I ever been a BMX boy?). Lucky I was going slow when I tried this manoeuvre. As you have probably guessed the glue failed on the first attempt. The brake cable wrapped around the spindle, jamming the brake on and I was thrown over the bars.
I rode miles and miles on the Garelli. The South Coast, Wales, up North. During one my trips, my friend's Fizzie broke down and I towed him for miles. After about 50 miles the gearbox sprocket shattered. As it took abut a month to buy a new one, I salvaged an old one of much the same mounting. The only problem was that because it was larger it geared the bike up to a silly degree. Pulling off became slow and top speed dropped by about 10mph, only achievable in third as top was simply too tall to use on the flat. There was an unexpected benefit, down steep hills top gear gave in excess of 70mph.
The Garelli moped was a fantastic vehicle on which to enter the wacky world of motorcycling and as far as fun per cc goes it outweighs other much larger motorcycles. In light of this it shouldn't be scorned for being so small, but saying that I would not like to go back to it.
Kieran Toner