In the late 70s, my grandfather bought an old mini bike in pieces and in a cardboard box from a garage sale. My uncle later put it back together and got it running again. My cousin and I rode it for a number of years until I acquired it in the late 80s. I saved for a year and purchased a new 3.5hp Briggs and repowered it. I went through at least 4 clutches and 50 feet of chain and quite literally wore the lobes off the composite camshaft and elongated the crank bushing on the clutch side so badly that oil sprayed onto my leg. Here we are in 2023 and I still have the old bike in the garage. I’ve had 4 sets of tires, 4 different paint jobs, some 10 or more clutches, probably 100 feet of #35 chain, 6 engines, and probably thousands of gallons of fuel. I’ve been darn near arrested (had to be driven home in a cop car), I’ve driven long distances from home, I’ve taken it off some jumps that I definitely shouldn’t have, and I’ve done it with more grins on my face that I could remember. Kids these days probably won’t ever know what it was like to be a kid on a mini bike living in rural northern Michigan where you could leave home on the morning and ride back roads and trails all day on a tank of gas and a BB gun strapped to your back. Good times :)
My earliest memory of minibikes was 68-69. A few older kids in the neighborhood had all different kinds of minibikes and lawnmower engine bikes. Rupps, Honda minitrails, I drooled over the minibikes in the Sears Christmas catalog and really wanted one so bad. One day my dad came home with a new minibike it was in 1973 it was a Minimate 5hp , chrome front and rear fenders. This thing was a beast… most of my friends had 3 and 4 hp minibikes so to have 5hp was unreal. Oh to be a kid again… I feel so blessed to have been a kid in the sixties and seventies.
Minibikes now are probably even more popular that they were in the late '60s and early '70s . They are a blast .😊 Harbor Freight Predator motors have a lot to do with their resurgence in popularity . You're never told to have fun .👍🏻😊
True. 25 years ago when I had a mini bike there were not any stores I could just walk in and pick up a motor like that. We had to look for used snowblowers, garden tillers, power washers etc. with horizontal shaft engines to use. I couldn't imagine being able to walk into a Harbor Freight with $200 and pickup a new engine. The closest thing was tractor supply in our area but those were $500 engines meant for work and farm so they were not priced cheap.
@@matthewrupp5526I'm restoring a fifty-year old "Montgomery Ward 424" mini bike. The exact year for its age is 1973, we're going to likely have to replace the motor, but we are going to try and repair it.
I was born in 66 my first mini bike came when I was 8 . I had one , my brother had one all my friends had one or go carts. They were wildly popular.. the only difference is now it’s not kids riding them it’s adults riding little mini bikes!! I graduated from mini bikes in the mid 70s to motorcycles.. my first was a Honda cl 125 scrambler
I had a KV 75 Kawasaki as a kid...handed down from my older brother.My dad brought it to the Kawasaki shop and had it all fixed up for me.Wasn't I thrilled....and the envy of every kid on the block.I cant even say how much fun I had on that bike,but I know now I was very fortunate and god bless my dad for everything he did for me.
Me and a buddy of mine have found two old minibikes and they get so many looks from my neighbors. Plenty of old guys give us the thumbs up but just as many dislike how loud they are.
Did that style of mower used to be more popular? I kind of remember as a kid wanting to do the same thing but only finding mowers with a vertical shaft motor.
@@snorman1911 Only because in the 60s there were still a lot of older style mowers around. The ones that looked like the old push mowers that didn't have an engine. Like a cylinder mower. They made that style for a while, and they always had a side shaft engine
As a mini bike owner of the 70's and 80's its always a pleasure to learn about the history of mini bikes ! Thank you for sharing a great reminder about the way mini bike's were meant for in times of war . A great tool for our soldiers and public as well . 💯🙌😎👍 Great memories .
Yes! The good old days! I remember the Taco brand, Sears, Bonanza, my neighbor had a 3hp Cat brand. I had the Honda mini trail70. Aka the CT70. Now modernized version is the Dachshund.😁👍
.. some great memories in this video .. and the Fantic Chopper is what every kid in my neighborhood wanted to do to their MS Dragstar ... Tip Top video mate ...
The first time I rode a minibike was in about 1963, and it looked very much like the Azusa minibike sold today. It was powered by a Mcculloch go-kart engine (putting out about 8 hp) and it was fast!
My brother had a Sears 2.5 hp mini bike. We put it thru a lot more than it was ever designed for. Just about every kid our age at that time had one. My best friend had a raked out chopper that out ran every other mini in the neighborhood, plus it was sweet as hell to look at. Didn’t take long for all to move onto true motorcycles designed for off-roading.
when I was a kid back in the 70s I had a Honda CT 70 best little bike I ever had I put about 5000 miles on it and I’m 66 years old now and I have four of them Honda CT 70s and l love them Bring back a lot of good memories
A Yellow 5hp Bonanza from Ernst Hardware. Uncountable gallons and miles on that thing. It only let me down once, when the front axle broke and the forks dug in, at speed. Right over the bars and into the blackberries. My helmet and jacket saved most of the painful part, but still received some war wounds. Dad was with the 101st Airborne Special Forces and was stationed near the Black Forest in 62, and actually took a spin on one of the Brit air-drop mini bikes they had on the base. They had several I guess, still running in 62. Dear Dad ordered the new forks and axle and bits, and got the Bonanza back on the road for me. Maybe I will look for another one.
Where I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit we had Ruttman minibikes and gokarts. Manufactured by the 1952 winner of the Indianapolis 500, Troy Ruttman. He manufactured tens of thousands of them!
Duuude… terrible accent, good humor & accumulation of facts… cheers mate! Seeing those pics reminded me of my first rides on a mini bike at 5, sitting on the gas tank, my 16 year old brother at the handlebars… I made him hit the puddles, so I’d get soakin’ wet, laughlin’ my ass off… beautiful!
@@motorcyclecafe I didn’t mean to be rude… I’m a Yankee, so you can imagine what I sound like…!? I in fact enjoy your vids a lot; keep up the good work!
I always thought that minibikes were a post-war invention up until I saw a British Airborne MK 1 Folding Motorcycle several years ago at a militia display. My own experiences with a minibike was with the remnants of a Hiawatha Doodlebug. Only the frame and front fender were original: everything else had been replaced or missing, including the brakes. It didn't go very fast but I had a lot of fun with it. Thanks for the video.
In the USA there was a company known as Bird Engineering. In the 1960's and 1970's they always had very small adds in the back of magazines such as Hot Rod magazine and many others such as Car and Driver Motor Trend etc. They would advertise their mini bikes for 99.00 dollars.
40 years ago I put a 230cc Villiers 2 stroke engine in a Bonanza minibike, it would do better than 80 mph, and could disintegrate the rear tire in a blink of an eye, what fun!
@@motorcyclecafe the experiences I have enjoyed in the course of my existence, (enjoyed, NOT) have amazed everyone most people that know me, been through almost a dozen of what is usually called "unsurviveable events" a 44 day coma almost 30 years ago, an ascending aortic aneurysm, then the repair to my aorta failed, run over by cars, trucks, badly broken neck with most of the ribs on my left side broken (not fractured, broken into pieces) with 2 holes in my left lung, the list goes on, but I always heal well, incidentally I looped it on the mini bike at high speed on the frontage road by th I-5 freeway, showing off to pack of bikes going southbound, it was my first encounter with real 1% bikers, I am one now, but you can choose to heal up, or listen to people (doctors) that say that you will be crippled for life, I ain't got time for crippling injuries, but I'm grateful for the life I have
That was a great video, brought back memories I haven’t thought of in years and years! I had forgotten where I started riding and how I enjoyed riding trails as a kid.
👍👍my firstlittle Indiango-kartthen a 4 horsepower4 horsepower Rupp Hustler mini bikeYZ80 and then alltwo-stroke Japanese motocrossbikes what a great ERA
The Benelli City Bike was a 50 cc folding motorcycle. I used one as my "Land Dinghy" while cruising in our sailboat in the Adriatic. I had to go to the Port Captain, Immigration and Customs; needed gasoline for my sailboat engine; and for locating the ice plant to get a block of ice for the ship's icebox. It folded up and fitted into my boat sail locker. If you took off the 90 degree aluminum air intake line that connected the carburetor with the engine cylinder you would find a speed limiting air constrictor. Drill that out to the ID of the pipe and your City Bike could now breathe properly and your , formerly speed limit of 30 kmH suddenly doubled! It was a little Tiger!
One of the neighborhood kids had a Sears Allstate scooter. It had a 3-speed twist shift (left side) with a clutch. We would meet him at an empty church parking lot and blast around on that thing! The 'seed' was thus planted....
I'm 42 years young and I'm riding mini bikes every chance I get even though they are not legal here in San Diego, CA we still ride them it's a undscribe feeling a great rush...MINI BIKE FAMILIA
Back in the late 1950's and early 60's we built our own mini-bikes based upon the one shown in the video at time frame 6:37, and powered them with the same type of horizontal lawnmower engines of which we could generally rob from our own parents lawnmowers or lawn edgers for free, or we could get the same type of used engines at the nearest local lawnmower repair shops for around $20.00 to $30.00 apiece. We called them; "Tote Goat's". Generally they had to be started by using the engines built in "pull to start ropes", and we usually used the front and rear brake assemblies and hand throttles of which we scrounged from wrecked full sized motorcyles in the local auto salvage yards for a few dollars. The gas tanks were usually scronged from riding lawnmowers or other gasoline powerd things such as portable generators. Very few of those "ToteGoats" we built had any clutches, or any centrifical clutches. So, when we started them we had better keep our feet on the ground as we pulled that starter cord rope so we wouldn't tip over before we got it moving and then lift them up onto the foot pegs after we got going and at the same time we had to be prepared to hang on "Tite" if we had the throttle cracked open a little too far. If the hand throttle was accidently cracked open too far, we had better be prpared for it to do an uncontrolled wheelie as the front wheel came up off the ground as it started moving and did a sudden backflip upside down and landed us on either the flat of our backs, or upon the rear posterior portion of our anatomy called the "Biblical Beast of Burden". Oh yes, those were the days of fun, and us kids had many of those days of fun riding those homebuilt "Tote Goats" around town during the 3 month summer break from school. Unfortunately I don't think any of the kids now-a-days would even know how to build something like that, let alone take the time and effort to get off their chairs and off their stupid electronic computer games to do so and go have the fun we had as kids with those Homemade "Tote Goats" of which we had built with our own hands. Yes at that age if we had our own homebuiilt "Tote Goat" we were the envy of the neighborhood from all the other kids of which didn't have one. Anyway, thanks for the great video and all the childhood memories it brought back. Those were the days, Yeseree Bob, those were the days of fun. Thank You once again.
I had one from JC pennys. Yea you read that right JC pennys! Pretty wild haha I still have some jd penny wrenches. I guess they were trying to compete with Sears back in the 60s.
Had a late 60's Fox Doodle Bug. Got pulled over by the cops riding on a busy street. Had to walk it home. My parents would put it in the trunk of the car when we went on vacation to my grandparents farm. My cousins also lived on a farm and also had a mini bike. We rode everywhere. What a blast back in the day.
thats so funny,i got fired from my paper route for using a minibike,,the paper route bass said you can,t drive that .the next day there i was,ist job got fired,,i was happy,started cutting grass,more money,i was 13 years old..65 now still have 4 minibikes,its still fun
I'm a old man rode a mini bike to middle school. Only guy to ride a motorcycle to high school. Lots of miles on motorcycles (put over 100k miles on a old BMW. Owned over 70 motorcycles rode the shit outta them..had to stop ridein cause I'm old. But damn I'm building me 2 mini bikes back to where it began 😊
@motorcyclecafe still have a couple cool ones I'll let my son deal with when I get to the finish line hehe. I have a BMW (1975) R90s that is still in the crate. Put 100k miles on one of them. And have a Ducati 900 ss superlite that has a few miles on it kinda my treasures..
@motorcyclecafe my last motorbike before I stopped ridein was a KTM 690 SM. Geeze I wish I had one of those when I was young what a blast. But I'll admit I'm excited about my new mini bike builds..2 wheels my brother
My first minibike's rear and only brake was a metal plate that rubbed up against the rear tire... Cant tell you how many times I busted my rear end on that thing. Ahh!!! good times indeed!!!!
You forgot one maker that a lot of kids wanted. Bird Automotive kids in the Boy Scouts got a magazine called Boys Life the back cover was a full page ad for their mini bikes and go karts ! They were like $300 a lot of money in the early 60s my father said too expensive! He was a aircraft engineer so he built one out of odd pieces of chromoly tubing had a 5 horsepower Briggs engine and a centrifugal clutch he even made a long loud exhaust pipe for it and had it chromed I could out run all of the other kids with that thing ! With the bigger engine it had a taller gear for higher speed . He did the same when I got into gokarting but had a west bend alcohol engine small airplane tires and a Cessna steering wheel .
Ahhhhh don't forget about the Kawasaki AR 50! One the most fun bikes I've owned! I drove it on the expressway as it would go 50 MPH (I also seized it this way)
I had both a Cushman and a doodle bug before the age of 13 and I had a blast with both but I was happy to move on to bigger and better things back in the late fifties
I wish I could have spoken to you before I produced the video. I hope I did them justice. I love that name DoodleBug its a classic. You must have been a real bad ass lol
We rode mini bikes in California in 1968. I had a Bonanza, my friend had a Taco 22. We'd give rides for 10 cents and a nickel and disappear into the desert for weeks till we needed gas money. Repeat, gas up and RIDE!!! It cost about a dime for a tank of gas back then.
I had a Honda 50 mini-trail in 1969 my friends had a Taco and a Bonanza mini-bikes...My other friend had a Benelli we all lived on the same street in Patterson Calif.
At 7:05 you show a 50cc 2 stroke pedal moped. Maybe you could do a video on the history of those? They were all street legal and manufactured and ridden all over the world, under dozens of brand names, from the 1950s up until the last manufacturer, Tomos, went out of business around 2012. I have owned 17 of them, starting at age 16 in 1975.
So glad that my dad bought me a 3 hp minbike at 8 years old (despite my mother wanting to kill him!), I then got a bigger and faster one every few years (including a Kawasaki 75) and that prepared me to ride large fast motorcycles,which I have done safely for over 30 years. Thanks dad!
Yes I remember the Cushman and mustang minis they started my love of motorcycles still riding motorcycles today even purchased a HARLEY DAVIDSON FREEWHEELER 114 TRIKE NOW I'M 66 AND STILL RIDING WOOHOO
I had a taco minibike with the 3 hp my neighbor that worked on Harleys said bring it over I’ll bypass the governor that thing hauled ass from then on..
Kawasaki V75 Harley Davidson Shortster Powell SAP 🌮 Taco I’ve had them and should have kept them all, but I picked up a Tote Gote recently… this one IS a keeper! 😎💥💣
Back in the mid 80’s we bought a minibike at a garage sale for 15 bucks. I do remember trying to jump it tumbling through the air and dislocating my elbow.
You never gave credit to the people. That coined the name mini bike, "LIL Indian was the first small bike called a mini bike started in 1959 in Detroit.know your facts before writing about what you don't know about in the US
Great video!! Very detailed and informative!! Information is brutally suppressed in America so nobody in America knows any history of any importantance!!
The Bikes and Beards channel had a Indian Papoose on it. They tried to ride it long distance but didn't do very well. Still runs though. The original Doodle Bug minibikes were built in my wife's hometown of Webster City, Iowa. They're really hard to find these days.
Had a mini bike in the 70s flat piece of plywood for a seat and a pull up throttle cable to my. I was really moving up when I got 5 horse to put on it. My dad came home from work . Drove beside me clock me a 35 mph.
I'm 41 and ride a 49cc scooter everyday, if it wasn't for minibikes my scooter wouldn't exists. Mine is a 1986 Honda Spree, it's a super fun machine for zooming around town. I'll drive it anywhere within 10 miles or so 6 months a year.
The last one that has the orange gas tank in the picture 1974 qa50 Honda automatic clutch 2-speed transmission I purchased one at a flea market and restored it I bought the last gas tank that Honda had in stock in their warehouse in California. And my son was riding it at three years old
In the late 70s, my grandfather bought an old mini bike in pieces and in a cardboard box from a garage sale. My uncle later put it back together and got it running again. My cousin and I rode it for a number of years until I acquired it in the late 80s. I saved for a year and purchased a new 3.5hp Briggs and repowered it. I went through at least 4 clutches and 50 feet of chain and quite literally wore the lobes off the composite camshaft and elongated the crank bushing on the clutch side so badly that oil sprayed onto my leg. Here we are in 2023 and I still have the old bike in the garage. I’ve had 4 sets of tires, 4 different paint jobs, some 10 or more clutches, probably 100 feet of #35 chain, 6 engines, and probably thousands of gallons of fuel. I’ve been darn near arrested (had to be driven home in a cop car), I’ve driven long distances from home, I’ve taken it off some jumps that I definitely shouldn’t have, and I’ve done it with more grins on my face that I could remember. Kids these days probably won’t ever know what it was like to be a kid on a mini bike living in rural northern Michigan where you could leave home on the morning and ride back roads and trails all day on a tank of gas and a BB gun strapped to your back. Good times :)
much more fun than any computer games ay?
My earliest memory of minibikes was 68-69. A few older kids in the neighborhood had all different kinds of minibikes and lawnmower engine bikes. Rupps, Honda minitrails, I drooled over the minibikes in the Sears Christmas catalog and really wanted one so bad. One day my dad came home with a new minibike it was in 1973 it was a Minimate 5hp , chrome front and rear fenders. This thing was a beast… most of my friends had 3 and 4 hp minibikes so to have 5hp was unreal. Oh to be a kid again… I feel so blessed to have been a kid in the sixties and seventies.
Jeez that was a good read buddy! I can so relate to your comment, it's not funny. You literally would have blown them all away, lol.
Minibikes now are probably even more popular that they were in the late '60s and early '70s . They are a blast .😊 Harbor Freight Predator motors have a lot to do with their resurgence in popularity . You're never told to have fun .👍🏻😊
My first was a CT-70. My Grosfrather bout it for me in 1977. I jumped ramps on that like Evil Knievel. Had the toy too.
True. 25 years ago when I had a mini bike there were not any stores I could just walk in and pick up a motor like that. We had to look for used snowblowers, garden tillers, power washers etc. with horizontal shaft engines to use. I couldn't imagine being able to walk into a Harbor Freight with $200 and pickup a new engine. The closest thing was tractor supply in our area but those were $500 engines meant for work and farm so they were not priced cheap.
@@matthewrupp5526I'm restoring a fifty-year old "Montgomery Ward 424" mini bike. The exact year for its age is 1973, we're going to likely have to replace the motor, but we are going to try and repair it.
I was born in 66 my first mini bike came when I was 8 . I had one , my brother had one all my friends had one or go carts. They were wildly popular.. the only difference is now it’s not kids riding them it’s adults riding little mini bikes!! I graduated from mini bikes in the mid 70s to motorcycles.. my first was a Honda cl 125 scrambler
I have over 12 mini bikes kind of addicted fun video !!!!!!
I had a KV 75 Kawasaki as a kid...handed down from my older brother.My dad brought it to the Kawasaki shop and had it all fixed up for me.Wasn't I thrilled....and the envy of every kid on the block.I cant even say how much fun I had on that bike,but I know now I was very fortunate and god bless my dad for everything he did for me.
my very1st bike was a kawasaki 100, it was beat up but it holds fonds memories
Those 75's were so fast for a minibike, drove circles around a Z50, lots of fun
@@motorcyclecafe was it a Greenie (Centurion)?
@@kevinbealer9052 buggered if I know buddy. It was too long ago. I didn't know much about bikes when I was 10 LOL.
@@motorcyclecafeI have a montgomery ward 424 mini bike from 1973 that I'm restoring
Me and a buddy of mine have found two old minibikes and they get so many looks from my neighbors. Plenty of old guys give us the thumbs up but just as many dislike how loud they are.
As kids in the 60s we'd go to the dump find an old lawnmower, Take the motor and bolt it to a bicycle. Instant Mini Bike. Great times.
Must have been a reel type mower
@@ericschulze5641 Sideshaft that ran on pulleys. We'd attach a clutch with a sprocket to drive the chain. Bottom shaft obviously doesn't work
Did that style of mower used to be more popular? I kind of remember as a kid wanting to do the same thing but only finding mowers with a vertical shaft motor.
@@snorman1911 they were common in the 40s 50s and early 60s
@@snorman1911 Only because in the 60s there were still a lot of older style mowers around. The ones that looked like the old push mowers that didn't have an engine. Like a cylinder mower. They made that style for a while, and they always had a side shaft engine
As a mini bike owner of the 70's and 80's its always a pleasure to learn about the history of mini bikes ! Thank you for sharing a great reminder about the way mini bike's were meant for in times of war . A great tool for our soldiers and public as well . 💯🙌😎👍 Great memories .
Very Good Upload. Brings back memories.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. I enjoyed producing this one more than most.
Yes! The good old days! I remember the Taco brand, Sears, Bonanza, my neighbor had a 3hp Cat brand. I had the Honda mini trail70. Aka the CT70. Now modernized version is the Dachshund.😁👍
I got a bonanza
Rode ct-70’s. Me any my best friend built a ct70 with a 190cc engine
My brother and I got a Honda Mini Trail, 3 speed, 50 for Christmas back in the late 60’s. It never broke down and we took turns riding it all day.
Yes it was amazing how reliable those honda engines were
.. some great memories in this video .. and the Fantic Chopper is what every kid in my neighborhood wanted to do to their MS Dragstar ...
Tip Top video mate ...
Thank you!
The first time I rode a minibike was in about 1963, and it looked very much like the Azusa minibike sold today. It was powered by a Mcculloch go-kart engine (putting out about 8 hp) and it was fast!
8hp thats huge for a minibike! What a weapon
I miss my 1969 Rupp Roadster. It was modified later on with the two speed jackshaft and the chrome exhaust pipe.
My brother had a Sears 2.5 hp mini bike. We put it thru a lot more than it was ever designed for. Just about every kid our age at that time had one. My best friend had a raked out chopper that out ran every other mini in the neighborhood, plus it was sweet as hell to look at. Didn’t take long for all to move onto true motorcycles designed for off-roading.
Everyone loves a minibike! Thanks for watching
They would advertise them in the Christmas catalog, and I would stare at them for hours, but I knew my family could not afford one.
Good chance the 2.5 was a Tecumseh
What a hoot! Thanks for an entertaining piece. It brought back many memories. Keep 'em coming, mate!
Great! It is not easy making something that is not that exciting even slightly entertaining! Thanks mate!
when I was a kid back in the 70s I had a Honda CT 70 best little bike I ever had I put about 5000 miles on it and I’m 66 years old now and I have four of them Honda CT 70s and l love them Bring back a lot of good memories
Loved the intro brings back memories of these minibikes we rode around the Sydney showground in the 70s
Never mess with the 'Born Losers' buddy. They are BADASS!
Same at the Brisbane Ekka grounds Sideshow Alley area in the 70s. Remember it like it was just yesterday.
A Yellow 5hp Bonanza from Ernst Hardware. Uncountable gallons and miles on that thing. It only let me down once, when the front axle broke and the forks dug in, at speed. Right over the bars and into the blackberries. My helmet and jacket saved most of the painful part, but still received some war wounds. Dad was with the 101st Airborne Special Forces and was stationed near the Black Forest in 62, and actually took a spin on one of the Brit air-drop mini bikes they had on the base. They had several I guess, still running in 62. Dear Dad ordered the new forks and axle and bits, and got the Bonanza back on the road for me. Maybe I will look for another one.
No question that was entertaining And informative. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it mate!
I wanted a mini bike so bad when I was a kid in 72
Hopped on 1968 Honda Mini-Trail in 1969. I’m still riding motorcycles (64 years old)
Same. Now 66
Where I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit we had Ruttman minibikes and gokarts. Manufactured by the 1952 winner of the Indianapolis 500, Troy Ruttman. He manufactured tens of thousands of them!
Yes I have heard of his name.
Duuude… terrible accent, good humor & accumulation of facts… cheers mate! Seeing those pics reminded me of my first rides on a mini bike at 5, sitting on the gas tank, my 16 year old brother at the handlebars… I made him hit the puddles, so I’d get soakin’ wet, laughlin’ my ass off… beautiful!
Not a lot i can do about my accent, yours would prob sound just as bad to me. I hope you enjoyed the video.
@@motorcyclecafe I didn’t mean to be rude… I’m a Yankee, so you can imagine what I sound like…!? I in fact enjoy your vids a lot; keep up the good work!
@@MrBuellMike thanks buddy all good. Im glad you enjoy the vids
I had a “ Heathkit” minibike it had a wide tire in the back and you could put an optional ski on the front and use it in the snow
never knew any minibikes had that feature
It was from the 70’s
I had one of those arctic cat mini bikes! Got it for Christmas one year. I rode it everywhere.
That brought back some good memories !!! Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
Excellent video, 👍 the Fantics were a teenager's dream!
Thank you! Those Fantics were certainly unusual thats for sure, the weirdest thing is that they were Italian 😉
I always thought that minibikes were a post-war invention up until I saw a British Airborne MK 1 Folding Motorcycle several years ago at a militia display. My own experiences with a minibike was with the remnants of a Hiawatha Doodlebug. Only the frame and front fender were original: everything else had been replaced or missing, including the brakes. It didn't go very fast but I had a lot of fun with it. Thanks for the video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
In the USA there was a company known as Bird Engineering. In the 1960's and 1970's they always had very small adds in the back of magazines such as Hot Rod magazine and many others such as Car and Driver Motor Trend etc. They would advertise their mini bikes for 99.00 dollars.
Never came across that name during my research. There were so many companies making them in the old days. Thanks for watching & the feedback buddy.
I currently own a Bird Thunderbird. Bird was bought out by Manco. Bird Engineering was also the first company to make a fiberglass t bucket body.
40 years ago I put a 230cc Villiers 2 stroke engine in a Bonanza minibike, it would do better than 80 mph, and could disintegrate the rear tire in a blink of an eye, what fun!
80mph on a minibike. I am surprised you are even still alive!
@@motorcyclecafe the experiences I have enjoyed in the course of my existence, (enjoyed, NOT) have amazed everyone most people that know me, been through almost a dozen of what is usually called "unsurviveable events" a 44 day coma almost 30 years ago, an ascending aortic aneurysm, then the repair to my aorta failed, run over by cars, trucks, badly broken neck with most of the ribs on my left side broken (not fractured, broken into pieces) with 2 holes in my left lung, the list goes on, but I always heal well, incidentally I looped it on the mini bike at high speed on the frontage road by th I-5 freeway, showing off to pack of bikes going southbound, it was my first encounter with real 1% bikers, I am one now, but you can choose to heal up, or listen to people (doctors) that say that you will be crippled for life, I ain't got time for crippling injuries, but I'm grateful for the life I have
Excellent video on the history of minibikes. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it. It was a fun learning experience producing it too.
That was a great video, brought back memories I haven’t thought of in years and years! I had forgotten where I started riding and how I enjoyed riding trails as a kid.
Same here buddy. I was thinking about my life as a kid one day and thought it would make for a great video!
We enjoyed the information and video. Thank you.
You are welcome. Sorry for the late reply, i do try to answer as many as i can sometimes i miss some.
very interesting! Good video.
👍👍my firstlittle Indiango-kartthen a 4 horsepower4 horsepower Rupp Hustler mini bikeYZ80 and then alltwo-stroke Japanese motocrossbikes what a great ERA
The Benelli City Bike was a 50 cc folding motorcycle. I used one as my "Land Dinghy" while cruising in our sailboat in the Adriatic. I had to go to the Port Captain, Immigration and Customs; needed gasoline for my sailboat engine; and for locating the ice plant to get a block of ice for the ship's icebox. It folded up and fitted into my boat sail locker.
If you took off the 90 degree aluminum air intake line that connected the carburetor with the engine cylinder you would find a speed limiting air constrictor.
Drill that out to the ID of the pipe and your City Bike could now breathe properly and your , formerly speed limit of 30 kmH suddenly doubled! It was a little Tiger!
Never heard of this one before but it made for an interesting read, cheers!
One of the neighborhood kids had a Sears Allstate scooter. It had a 3-speed twist shift (left side) with a clutch. We would meet him at an empty church parking lot and blast around on that thing! The 'seed' was thus planted....
I've got a mobylette X7 49cc pedal moped.
Looks like the corgi paratrooper bike a bit but was made in the 70's.
Great fun.
For another video are the mopeds. I will remember that name, cheers!
I wish I had back all of the Minibikes and motorcycle that I had years ago! I will add VW's to that list as well.
I'm 42 years young and I'm riding mini bikes every chance I get even though they are not legal here in San Diego, CA we still ride them it's a undscribe feeling a great rush...MINI BIKE FAMILIA
You can still ride them on private property though can't you? Surely you can.
I wish this video was 2 hours long..I'd watch every minute
Im stoked you enjoyed it so mate!!!
Back in the late 1950's and early 60's we built our own mini-bikes based upon the one shown in the video at time frame 6:37, and powered them with the same type of horizontal lawnmower engines of which we could generally rob from our own parents lawnmowers or lawn edgers for free, or we could get the same type of used engines at the nearest local lawnmower repair shops for around $20.00 to $30.00 apiece. We called them; "Tote Goat's".
Generally they had to be started by using the engines built in "pull to start ropes", and we usually used the front and rear brake assemblies and hand throttles of which we scrounged from wrecked full sized motorcyles in the local auto salvage yards for a few dollars. The gas tanks were usually scronged from riding lawnmowers or other gasoline powerd things such as portable generators. Very few of those "ToteGoats" we built had any clutches, or any centrifical clutches.
So, when we started them we had better keep our feet on the ground as we pulled that starter cord rope so we wouldn't tip over before we got it moving and then lift them up onto the foot pegs after we got going and at the same time we had to be prepared to hang on "Tite" if we had the throttle cracked open a little too far.
If the hand throttle was accidently cracked open too far, we had better be prpared for it to do an uncontrolled wheelie as the front wheel came up off the ground as it started moving and did a sudden backflip upside down and landed us on either the flat of our backs, or upon the rear posterior portion of our anatomy called the "Biblical Beast of Burden".
Oh yes, those were the days of fun, and us kids had many of those days of fun riding those homebuilt "Tote Goats" around town during the 3 month summer break from school.
Unfortunately I don't think any of the kids now-a-days would even know how to build something like that, let alone take the time and effort to get off their chairs and off their stupid electronic computer games to do so and go have the fun we had as kids with those Homemade "Tote Goats" of which we had built with our own hands. Yes at that age if we had our own homebuiilt "Tote Goat" we were the envy of the neighborhood from all the other kids of which didn't have one.
Anyway, thanks for the great video and all the childhood memories it brought back. Those were the days, Yeseree Bob, those were the days of fun. Thank You once again.
great buddy I am glad you enjoyed the doco. And you right back in those days you learnt as a kid making stuff yourself. Oh how times have changed.
I had one from JC pennys. Yea you read that right JC pennys! Pretty wild haha I still have some jd penny wrenches. I guess they were trying to compete with Sears back in the 60s.
Benelli also had a cadre of mini-bikes too - thats what the HD was based on. Enjoyed the video!
Had a late 60's Fox Doodle Bug. Got pulled over by the cops riding on a busy street. Had to walk it home. My parents would put it in the trunk of the car when we went on vacation to my grandparents farm. My cousins also lived on a farm and also had a mini bike. We rode everywhere. What a blast back in the day.
much more fun than sitting in front of a TV playing computer games ay?
@@motorcyclecafe yeah, you got that right
That was interesting and cool as hell. Thanks mate 😎✌🏻👍🏻
Great, glad you liked it. It was one of my favourite videos to produce!
Great video, thanks!!!
excellent I am glad you enjoyed it mate! Quite an interesting history really.
Used mine for my paper route in the early seventies
doubt you would have got away with doing that where I lived.
thats so funny,i got fired from my paper route for using a minibike,,the paper route bass said you can,t drive that .the next day there i was,ist job got fired,,i was happy,started cutting grass,more money,i was 13 years old..65 now still have 4 minibikes,its still fun
I'm a old man rode a mini bike to middle school. Only guy to ride a motorcycle to high school. Lots of miles on motorcycles (put over 100k miles on a old BMW. Owned over 70 motorcycles rode the shit outta them..had to stop ridein cause I'm old. But damn I'm building me 2 mini bikes back to where it began 😊
Dam it you've owned near on 20 more bikes than me 😉
@motorcyclecafe still have a couple cool ones I'll let my son deal with when I get to the finish line hehe. I have a BMW (1975) R90s that is still in the crate. Put 100k miles on one of them. And have a Ducati 900 ss superlite that has a few miles on it kinda my treasures..
@motorcyclecafe my last motorbike before I stopped ridein was a KTM 690 SM. Geeze I wish I had one of those when I was young what a blast. But I'll admit I'm excited about my new mini bike builds..2 wheels my brother
@motorcyclecafe thank you for the video fun stuff I'm gonna get up early tomorrow and sand on mini bike parts
@@johnkizziah108 no worries buddy, thanks for watching.
My first minibike's rear and only brake was a metal plate that rubbed up against the rear tire... Cant tell you how many times I busted my rear end on that thing. Ahh!!! good times indeed!!!!
How great would it be to have one of those original (or repop) paratrooper drop bikes and tube!? Great vid btw!
Yer it would be pretty cool to have one, and thanks mate!
You forgot one maker that a lot of kids wanted. Bird Automotive kids in the Boy Scouts got a magazine called Boys Life the back cover was a full page ad for their mini bikes and go karts ! They were like $300 a lot of money in the early 60s my father said too expensive! He was a aircraft engineer so he built one out of odd pieces of chromoly tubing had a 5 horsepower Briggs engine and a centrifugal clutch he even made a long loud exhaust pipe for it and had it chromed I could out run all of the other kids with that thing ! With the bigger engine it had a taller gear for higher speed . He did the same when I got into gokarting but had a west bend alcohol engine small airplane tires and a Cessna steering wheel .
Yer mate I bet I missed quite a few makers of mini bikes. I could have gone on all day with this video, thanks for watching!
Excellent video
Thank you very much!
Ahhhhh don't forget about the Kawasaki AR 50! One the most fun bikes I've owned! I drove it on the expressway as it would go 50 MPH (I also seized it this way)
I had both a Cushman and a doodle bug before the age of 13 and I had a blast with both but I was happy to move on to bigger and better things back in the late fifties
I wish I could have spoken to you before I produced the video. I hope I did them justice. I love that name DoodleBug its a classic. You must have been a real bad ass lol
@@motorcyclecafe Mr brother Kerry had a DoodleBug in the late 50's in Oakland CA, it was painted green, with a 1 1/2 hp motor
We rode mini bikes in California in 1968. I had a Bonanza, my friend had a Taco 22. We'd give rides for 10 cents and a nickel and disappear into the desert for weeks till we needed gas money. Repeat, gas up and RIDE!!! It cost about a dime for a tank of gas back then.
I had a Honda 50 mini-trail in 1969 my friends had a Taco and a Bonanza mini-bikes...My other friend had a Benelli we all lived on the same street in Patterson Calif.
Crikey I am glad I didn't live on your street 😉
@@motorcyclecafe It was fun!
The best thing about those days and our mini bikes was you could fill the gas tank for about 25 to 30 cents and ride all day ..... 😊
Great point!
At 7:05 you show a 50cc 2 stroke pedal moped. Maybe you could do a video on the history of those? They were all street legal and manufactured and ridden all over the world, under dozens of brand names, from the 1950s up until the last manufacturer, Tomos, went out of business around 2012. I have owned 17 of them, starting at age 16 in 1975.
Read my mind buddy. It's on my list, they are still motorcycles!
So glad that my dad bought me a 3 hp minbike at 8 years old (despite my mother wanting to kill him!), I then got a bigger and faster one every few years (including a Kawasaki 75) and that prepared me to ride large fast motorcycles,which I have done safely for over 30 years. Thanks dad!
A perfect introduction to motorcycling!
Great video, don't know how you found the old footage but this yankee loved it mate.
Great, glad you enjoyed it buddy. Sometimes its just worth the effort to find old footage.
Yes I remember the Cushman and mustang minis they started my love of motorcycles still riding motorcycles today even purchased a HARLEY DAVIDSON FREEWHEELER 114 TRIKE NOW I'M 66 AND STILL RIDING WOOHOO
I recently did a video on the channel on 3 wheelers
I had a taco minibike with the 3 hp my neighbor that worked on Harleys said bring it over I’ll bypass the governor that thing hauled ass from then on..
😉
Yep all my friends did that to their tacos it was hold on for dear life ha ha !!
Brilliant love motorcycles
Here in LA Taco mini bikes were King in the 60's my dad wouldn't let me have one but I rode my friends plenty ! Can't even find one now !
Kawasaki V75
Harley Davidson Shortster
Powell SAP
🌮 Taco
I’ve had them and should have kept them all, but I picked up a Tote Gote recently… this one IS a keeper! 😎💥💣
Yes buddy, mini bikes are great fun. They bring good $ these days those old ones! But yes you're better off keeping them i reckon.
1971 Rupp Roadster was probably the best there was IMO.
The Kawasaki was actually named the MT1 up until 1975 then it was called the KV75 until the last production year which was 1980
Oh righteo. My very 1st motorcycle was a kawasaki 100 KE or something i think.
Always wanted a mini bike when I was a kid, but the $99 price tag was too far a reach for my poor family...
I had a 1980 Yamaha Chappy. If I still did I’d ride it outta the plane without a parachute
Imteresting
“Manufactured the corgi” is such a fantastic line
You gotta admit, nobody could ever pick a more suitable name for that bike! Its fantastic!
Back in the mid 80’s we bought a minibike at a garage sale for 15 bucks. I do remember trying to jump it tumbling through the air and dislocating my elbow.
oh well, you live and learn, glad you survived!
LOVE YOU AUSSIES I WANT THAT DECKSON
Thanks buddy!!! They are all cool no matter the brand I reckon.
You never gave credit to the people. That coined the name mini bike, "LIL Indian was the first small bike called a mini bike started in 1959 in Detroit.know your facts before writing about what you don't know about in the US
@@regismichrina7429 rubbish!!
Sickest sicko Gang
one bike gang you never wanna mess with! i did my research lol.
@@motorcyclecafe good dudez
Great video!! Very detailed and informative!! Information is brutally suppressed in America so nobody in America knows any history of any importantance!!
Thanks mate!!! Its quite an interesting history ay. Watch the channels doco on harley vs indian its a real eye opener.
In the 1960s my dad built me a Tom Thumb mini bike I really miss that little bike
I remember that name from my research.
@@motorcyclecafe it had a 1hp motor and the chain kept snapping and wiping me in the butt, it really was a fun little bike. Thanks for the video
@@gregj4857 im glad you enjoyed it, i liked producing this video more than any others.
Funny intro.
I know at least 1 Honda Grom mini bike which commutes to and from work in town.
Sweet
You need to differentiate between a "Mini-Cycle" and "Mini-Bike"! 😁👍👍🇺🇸
The Bikes and Beards channel had a Indian Papoose on it. They tried to ride it long distance but didn't do very well. Still runs though.
The original Doodle Bug minibikes were built in my wife's hometown of Webster City, Iowa. They're really hard to find these days.
I reckon buddy. The doodlebugs are very old now
Had a mini bike in the 70s flat piece of plywood for a seat and a pull up throttle cable to my. I was really moving up when I got 5 horse to put on it. My dad came home from work . Drove beside me clock me a 35 mph.
The doodlebug looks fun
with a great name too!
Had a Taco minibike... Got it at the Firestone tire place.. After the barb wire
incident.. I was really good...!
yes watch out for that barb wire😉
Thumbs up.
I grew up in Detroit Michigan usa where they sold rutman choppers
I'm 41 and ride a 49cc scooter everyday, if it wasn't for minibikes my scooter wouldn't exists. Mine is a 1986 Honda Spree, it's a super fun machine for zooming around town. I'll drive it anywhere within 10 miles or so 6 months a year.
I too ride a scooter in the city, free parking, 1/2 price rego, 45mpg and heaps of fun!
I had a Taco 44 mini bike 👍
I like the Budweiser commercial that had the bikers meeting a bunch of guys on scooters and it was so cool 😎 they were bad to the bone ohyeah.
Anyone know where i can get a. " tecumseh 4 hp engine?"
The last one that has the orange gas tank in the picture 1974 qa50 Honda automatic clutch 2-speed transmission I purchased one at a flea market and restored it I bought the last gas tank that Honda had in stock in their warehouse in California. And my son was riding it at three years old
I had a stock '72 65cc Harley Shortster made one year only. The X-90 came out in '73 it was oil injected. I wish I still had it now.
I bet you do, old minibikes are worth quite a bit of money now.
❤
2:40? WHAT 92 miles per gallon??? WHAT?? NO NO NO FREAKING WAY.
What is so hard to believe about that mileage?
Been there and done that with my jobs
Nice video. But you didn’t mention the Honda CT 70. The king of them all in my humble opinion.
Yes a very nice machine. Sorry about that buddy. Quite a few are missing from this video its a bit hard to mention them all.
Check out Doodlebug boat plans..🍻
👍✌😎
I could not afford one so i built one with a 12 hp cushman scooter engine . It was the fastest in the hood .