Motorrific: Decatur Man Fits Engine To A Bike And Is Riding High

DECATUR - Just when America thought it was helpless in the face of highway robbery gas prices, along comes Scott File on a motorized mountain bike.

File, a 6-foot-tall draftsman with an easy smile who works for a contractor out at Archer Daniels Midland Co., doesn't look like an ambassador from the future. But he might just be riding the shape of things to come with a bicycle armed with a 49cc gas engine that gets 150 miles to the gallon.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, ExxonMobil.

"It's like this guy told me the other day when he saw my bike, I'm ahead of the curve right now," says File, 38, who lives in Decatur. "But I think, down the road, you are going to be seeing more of these."

He'd first seen a motorized bicycle in Decatur in the fall and knew they were out there, so he took his eyes for a ride online. He recently bumped into kingsmotorbikes.com, which offered motorized bicycle conversion kits. With shipping, they work out at $250, sent to your front door. EBay also is full of different versions.

For File, who already was pedaling his 21-speed bike six miles to work on dry days because he took a vow to save money when gas hit $3 a gallon last year, it was the best $250 he ever spent. "I tell you, I was champing at the bit, waiting for that FedEx guy to come," he says. "I kept looking out the window."

His trembling fingers opened the package to find a tiny two-stroke motor measuring 10 inches high and 5 inches wide, along with the gas tank, a chain and sprocket, plus clutch and throttle controls, exhaust and other bits of hardware. The motor bolts to the frame just above the pedals, and the sprocket goes on the back wheel opposite the regular gears, driven by its own chain. The twist throttle forms the right handlebar grip, and there is a little lever to engage the clutch next to the left hand grip. The tank goes on top of the crossbar.

File added a speedometer with odometer because he thought it would come in handy and, besides, it makes it more fun. It took him only an afternoon to refit his mountain bike for the journey into tomorrow. With the clutch disengaged, he can ride the machine just like a regular bike, using the 21 gears. When he wants to fire up the motor, he activates the clutch and his pedaling starts the engine and - vroom with a view - he's off and running with the pedals now just foot rests.

"She'll go 25 to 30 mph without the throttle being wide open," he says. "Now, when I was pedaling my bike, I could get to work in maybe 40 minutes going downhill with the wind at my back, and then maybe 50 minutes to come home when I was tired after my shift. With the engine, I can get there in 15 or 20 minutes, and I'm not breathing hard. It's really cool."

His daughters Breanna, 9, and Jessica, 12, are a little nervous about trying daddy's new chariot until they've got a few more years of riding experience under their belts. "I'm afraid I'd wreck," said Jessica. "I wrecked a go-cart once with my sister on it."

Their mom, Karyn, remains unruffled because the tiny motor is so unthreatening, and she also believes her husband is making a stand for something noble. "It's pretty neat, and I think it would be great to see more bicycles out on the road," she says. "Then maybe demand would go down for gas, and we'd see the prices go down a little bit, too."

Public reaction from his fellow road users ranges from bemusement to desperate curiosity as this guy on a bike who's not pedaling keeps up with their sport utility vehicles in traffic. "The bike's just a real head-turner," File says. There are some who laugh, of course, but he laughs right back. "And I keep smiling when I come to the gas stations and keep on going," he adds.

His only complaint is that since the bicycle, as transport, has become an endangered species in our pathological car culture, there aren't too many convenient places to park. "Bike racks," he says. "You can't find them anywhere."