pocket bikes

Has anyone had experience with these new 50cc pocket bikes? I'm wanting to
buy one for my 6 year old (we have some land so it's not for the road). I'm
sure he'll be able to ride it OK but what about the engines. The one I
looked at was a $700 four stroke. Simple enough and looks easy on
maintenance. I'm sure all that pretty bodywork will get bashed around over
time but I'm mainly concerned whether the no-name engine will go the
distance and whether parts are available. Can you recomend a brand they all
look the same.

 

if your in Vic, they have been made illegal...
EG your kids get caught on them, full ass $1000+ fines.

most of the chinese made ones are fairly disappointing in quality, but
you get what you pay for.

buy a PW or QR50 or similar.

 

None......buy a real bike, it will cost you but it'll be worth it
rodent

 

Yea.. more of a general warning..

you saw heaps of them around late last yr here, now you see none...
Wonder where all those $1000 things are now?

 

Unless you have private roadway (like your own go-kart track), buy a PW50 or
something instead. Those pocket bikes won't handle a dirt area very well at
all.

 

Thanks for the reply.
It's interesting that the people who sell them at our local markets also
sell cheap looking asian trinkets (pocket games, toys etc.) which stop
working on the way home. I'm thinking that these bikes are an extension of
that class of merchendise.
I've decided to stick with the big four Jap brands and buy something that
might last.

PS. These bikes took the authorities in Qld completely by surprise with no
legislation in place to stop kids from riding them on the footpaths
everywhere (without a helmet too) since they didn't fall under the catagory
of bicycle or road vehicle. I think that's changed now.

 

I'm guessing that there might be something of a second
hand market in these things about to spring up. Plenty
of folks will be sufficiently discouraged by the new
legal status of the bikes to cut their losses and sell
before their price drops to nothing. Watch the classifieds,
maybe even run a want ad. If you've gotta pay full price,
you probably don't want one, but for a few hundred bucks,
maybe.

G

 

for a bike in that size, look beyond the big 4. Go to the local motorcycle
club and see what the kids are racing these days. Other Asian countries make
50 - 80cc mini motorcross bikes that are as good as the Japanese.

smack
60cc Duc

 

It's interesting that the people who sell them at our local markets also sell cheap looking asian trinkets (pocket games, toys etc.) which stop working on the way home.

BINGO.

 

Aah, not necessarily, grasshopper. Your local council's bylaws may
expressly prohibit the operation of motorised recreational vehicles on
landholdings of less than a couple of hundred acres. You have to apply to
council for a permit to operate one. If the neighbours even hint at saying
no, bad luck. Baw Baw Shire and Cardinia Shire are two examples of where a
permit is needed.

I'm going to fsck them all up by building my own jet turbine go-kart.

- sanbar

 

And rightly so.

This will encourage your neighbours to build one too. Do you want your
neighbours to hate you that much?

Mate of mine lived next to a bloke who insisted on mowing his lawn at 9 pm
on a weekday night under floodlights. They weren't friends.

Theo

 

You may be required to have third party insurance also ,even though you
are operating on private land .
If your kid runs over a spectator (other kids ) even though you are on your
own property you are liable ,for any injuries .That's the way it is in the
NT anyways .

 

This will encourage your neighbours to build one too. Do you want your

then if you have one each, you could race them.. and the neighbours
couldnt complain about noise

I would have mowed mine 3am then

 

I would have spelled out *precisely* what I thought
of him, in three foot high letters in roundup on his
front lawn. At 3am.

G

 

there are apparently about 30 manufacturers of minibikes/pocketbikes etc in
China. A couple of mates got little fully faired road models to make into
replicas of their own big bikes. The motor is a replica of a Mitsubishi
(surprised me...) made brushcutter motor. The build quality is generally
pretty average - rear sprocket was mounted off-centre, front disk caliper
didn't line up with disk, carburation not set up well, sharp edges on metal
etc. For the money a second hand PW or QR50 might be a better bet, or one
of the more well know pit bikes that are around now. A dirt bike magazine
should have more info about them.

 

What a shame an Australian company couldn't come up with a good quality
frame with a proven motor and market something that lasts. Surely there's a
custom bike manufacturer that wants to come up with simple design even if
they base it around a Briggs and Stratton engine. Surely it could be sell
for less than $800. What ever happened to those square framed pull start
minibikes we used to ride as kids?

 

The bikes my mates got were $400 each. They are around some other places
for between $600 and $800 or so. If they were made in Australia they would
probably cost twice as much.

 

Go for it, would be interesting