Chapter I: A Mobbit is Born

Formerally known as a Honda Hobbit, this new bike has been christened as a Honda Mobbit MA-II. Here it is as seen in the womb via the ultra-sound. DOB: January 30th, 2011.

I'm finally getting around to working on this bike. It was orginally a Honda Hobbit PA-II. From what I've heard, this is one of the most desirable mopeds. This is also the first moped I ever bought. Now I have decided to rebuild it from the ground up for Melbert. This is the story of the first Mobbit.

Triple Tree

The Heart Case and Groin (typically known as the engine mount and pedal crank) The heart case came out great, however upon closer inspection, will require another coat.

Unfortuately the spine (main frame) will not fit in the incubator (oven) so I will have to hand feed it (paint it). Luckily the spine will be mostly covered, so hopefully not too much paint will be exposed to chip off.

Next Time: Chapter II: Mobbit as a Toddler

Ceremony, San Francisco, Sept 24-26, 2010

a few cool pictures (out of order):

Just crossed the bridge. First exit, Alexander ave.

Broadway Tunnel, SF. My favorite shot from the whole weekend.

Luckily this appeared in a time of need. Here is the end of that trail, in Daly City.

The beginning of the Great Hwy. This is at the top above the water and resturaunts.

On our way to the city. Mel's bike, the Hamm's bike, was by far the prettiest bike I saw all weekend.

Dolores Park, Saturday's meeting spot.

16th St. The ride on Saturday has just begun.

I think that this might be considered the freeway.

The view from Golden Gate Park.

The Hamm's Bike Gets a New Pipe!

Since I've started working at A & A Cycles, it has allowed me more time to practice some of my other interests. Two of these interests are welding and mopeds. On July 4th, I spent a few hours of my holiday working on Mel's bike, the Hamm's bike.

I started by putting the new pipe next to the old one. I wanted to figure out where the new one was going to best fit. I think ideally you would want to figure out how far the expansion chamber should be from the engine/exhaust port, for optimal perfomance. I did not do this not only because I do not know how, but also because I was not increasing the size of the stock exhaust header. I kinda figured that with this bike, anything would greatly improve its performance. This bike is a Peuguot 102 SP. No performance kits are available for this bike as well as no specific pipes.

Once I decided where the pipe would best fit, I marked my spot and welded on the new pipe (Boss pipe). Before welding on the new pipe, I cleaned up all the seams that I was going to be welding. I also made a bracket that I would weld on later to attach the pipe to the bike for added support.

Once the new pipe was welded on to the exsisting exhaust header, I made marks for my support bracket and tack welded it on. From here I was able to test out the support bracket and correct its angle to the pipe and bike.

The previous pipe's support bracket was perfect for putting the nut into, however in my bed frame support bracket design, this would be nearly impossible to hold the nut while trying to screw the bolt in. Instead I bent out the bracket (while it was still only tack welded) to put the bolt into. Sure it will be harder to replace the bolt if anything should ever happen to it, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Of all the improvement projects I carried out on a moped, this one, so far was the funnest. Previous projects that included welding, ususally had to be done by someone else, either because of lack of skill or facilites. This time however I did everything from putting the bike on the table to crafting a bracket. Being able to weld and to continue to improve my skills has been one of the most freeing experiences since my moped hobby/way of life began.

2 Days 120 Miles, Wet Roads, Exhaustion (part 1)

So it all started on the night of Jan. 31st. I was hanging out at State St. with Andrew and Droid. We were drinking some beers and our next rally, Stinko De Mayo 2 came up. What are we gonna do? Where are we gonna ride to and where are we gonna camp this year?

Ok, the first question is a no brainer, duh, Santa Cruz. We gotta go to Santa Cruz this year! Big Basin; Are we gonna start planning early enough this year to be able to reserve a spot to accomadate 30+ mopeders? Will we be able to get everyone in without having to pay vehicle fees on every single moped? Should we even attempt to bring our mayhem there? Well, we were gonna have to go there and check it out. So that night we made reservations to camp the very next weekend. We thought we booked Feb 6-7. We didn't check the weather either. I think a lot of mopeders are masochists. We ride tiny bikes prone to braking down, take them up hills too steep for their little engines (which results in lots of pedaling or walking) and ride in the shitiest weather. I read the confirmation email about the camping reservations a couple of days later. It was forecast to rain on Saturday the 6th. However the storm would also be done by the end of the day. Well that's cool, but that doesn't help us right? Wrong, because our reservations were actually for Feb 7-8. Sweet!

The week leading up to the ride, I put a new pipe on my bike, tuned it up, fixed some issues that had been bugging me and shined it up. I didn't test ride it though cause the day that it wasn't rainning, I finished up late and the rest of the week it rained. On Sunday, we left feeling

good about our situation. Within 3 miles, my bike pretty much stopped running. We couldn't get a good steady spark. Droid got me a condensor at Kragens and we hooked it up, but still no go, amid a bunch of 4-stroker know it alls. How 'bout we start your bike with some gasoline and matches. Some people should just keep their mouth to themselves.. A nervous push and some heavy breathing, led us back to State St. to pick up Felix (pictured above, right). Sweet, Felix is a nice bike! 2-speed Maxi with a 70cc kit. No matter what state this bike has been it, it is always a pleasure to ride Felix. This the bike that started MopedHead SJ.

Over two hours later from when we were originally trying to leave, we were back on the road. Now it was almost 4pm and there was a slight of sense of urgency as well as excitment. We left State St and headed up Almaden/Old Almaden to connect with Curtner. Made one quick stop at the Chevron at the corner of Curtner and Lincoln. Quick fill up on gas and air for Felix. Before we knew it, we were in Saratoga, skipping the last gas station for a while and jammin on. I was carrying a gallon in spare gas, we should be fine, right..

When we originally left at 1:30pm, it was sunny and warm. I stilled dressed warm, I knew it would be pretty damn cold camping in the redwoods, in winter no less. Droid and Andrew were a little more prepared than me, however. They had rain pants, better quality jackets and good gloves. It didn't take long to ascend Hwy 9 and before we knew it, we were in fog country. By the time I met up with these guys, both my hands were pretty much unmovable. Andrew was the hand saver on this trip. He was wearing leather riding gloves with secondary gloves on underneath. Thanks to Andrew for letting me borrow those insesrts. I had gloves on, but mine have the fingers cut off. It has to be pretty cold before my hands start to bother me in the cut-offs. This was one of those times.

Before long we hit the juntion and turned onto Hwy 236. The roads were still pretty wet from the rain the day before. Wet enough that I was catching some spray from the front tire after it cleared the fender. It started to get to be a bit much and I realized it was raining. All I could think about was getting to the campsite and starting a fire.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. Some Caltrans trucks passed us haul'n ass up and down the one lane parts of Hwy 236. We passed a Highway Patrol who was puzzeled when we pulled over a couple of miles later. He comes through the loud speaker "Turn off your bikes". Uh ok. "Why did you guys stop?" he asks us, duh, to let the cars behind us pass... I guess he just wanted to follow us down to make sure we didn't get hurt on the wet roads, but we were going slow with an extra emphasis on being careful, so
he took off.

Mel and Karen had arrived at the campsite a couple of hours earlier and had texted us the campsite info and gone off in search of wood and us. Unfortunately I never did let her know of our earlier problems in San Jose. Luckily we all met up and we actually encounterd them while we were on the way to the campsite, so we had our own personal escorts. Cool.

Luckily Mel and Karen had found wood even though it had been freshly cut and chopped and still had some of it's original moisture in it. Droid brought his Harbor Freight Survival Knife and saved the night, by being able to use the knife to cut kindling out of some of the wood. It took a while, but we had fire before long.


I've been going camping for a pretty long time, and we always do it up food-wise. This trip was no exception. Since I'm pretty broke, Droid offered to spot my gas on this trip. Being the person I am, I will always find a way to pull my weight. Mel and I are chefs and can do a lot with a little. The night before burgers were mentioned, so I made a loaf of bread and some rolls to bring along. I also made a pasta salad and prepped potatoes, onions and garlic to later be wrapped in foil with butter and seasonings and be cooked near the fire. I ended up not ever doing the potato deal, but I did make burgers. Droid came through with the beef and once at the spot, I thawed it, added seasonings and eggs to make hand made patties. I also brought a couple of other secret ingriendients to make the burgers phenominal. Good eats and times were had by all.

These critters weren't far behind, either. It seems they made out pretty good too. At one point while the Pathfinder was open, two raccoons got inside and attempted to steal one of the six cinnamon buns Karen brought. They managed to get one, but Andrew caught them and scared them, so the one raccoon dropped the bun in favor of running away. Them raccoons don't give up easily though and were scrurring all over Karen's Pathfinder all night trying to get in.

Where Are They?

Good Times

The next morning we weren't able to revive the fire, but that didn't stop us from enjoying some fine coffee, cinnamon buns (now only 5, luckily the same number that we were) and bacon and eggs. Shortly after breakfast, Mel and Karen left, once again we were three. Andy made the mark of MopedHead on the bench and suggested we continue on to Santa Cruz. Sweet. Stay tuned for part 2.

Update: New Muffler for the Hog

Not much downtime here. In fact whenever something happens to the Hog that keeps me from riding it, I jump on the case to fix it, since it is my primary ride. So my muffler (Boss pipe) broke and fell off on Sunday evening on the ride back from Hicks Rd. On Tuesday (Feb. 2) I was down at the foundry working on putting this pipe (Proma pipe) on my bike. For the Proma pipe, I had to match it up to the existing header and build the silencer you see on the back. I had a lot of fun doing this, especially putting together the silencer on my own bike. Awesome! Props and many thanks to Andrew and Droid for doing all my welding! The cone shaped silencer was Droid's idea. I think it looks pretty cool.

The next day (Wed), I then did a tune up. I had to make sure the jetting was correct for this pipe. However, for quite a while my bike seems to have been running funny. At the end of last summer, I had to put another carb on it cause I was running this 15mm Dell'orto knock off and basically it became a piece of shit through my wear and tear. At one point the damn thing had cracked and I had to JB Weld it back together, as well as to my intake. It did last me a fairly long time in that state and that was the carb I was using when we rode down to Los Angeles. So yeah, I changed the carb and put on a stock Bing 12mm. Of course going down to a smaller carb size would reduce my performance. However, it seemed like more than that. During my tune up, I re-checked my points and sure enough they have been opening to wide. Among other things I did were, tighten my front axle and forks, clean and readjust points, changed front sprocket back to 18 tooth, clean up bike and paint the Proma Pipe. It got late and I didn't really want to be test riding at night, so I still haven't really taken it out, so I'm not sure if all my problems are fixed, but I'm sure it's ride-able, so in my next outting, I'll know for sure what to do next.

MopedHead Expands!

Last Sunday, Jan. 31st, 2010, five prospects were made official MopedHeads. We now stand 16 strong. The brief ceremony was held at State St., with Droidy Pendejo swearing in the new members.

Andrew & Dave

Robbie & Nicole

Ben Jamin

After a some cheers, we went in search of the perfect group photo. The first place we gathered was an alley between 2nd & 3rd and Virginia & Martha. We got some good photos here, however I think the next set with the water tower were way cooler.

After the photo shoot, we were off for another epic ride. Droid had planned a doosy for this one. Hicks Road with plans of riding to the summit of that area and then coming back out in Los Gatos. Well we got a bit of a late start and it turns out that one of the roads we went in search of was actually a trail.

Since it was evident that Woods Rd was actually a dirt trail and Mt Umunhum is too steep for the average moped, it was time to turn around. Actually we kept going, and took Hicks down to Alamitos Rd.

After everyone caught up we went left on Alamitos Road. Alamitos Road connects with Old Almaden and then spills into Almaden Expressway. While we were jammin down Almaden Exp. my pipe broke and fell off. I knew something was up cause suddenly my exhaust got a lot louder. I just thought that my pipe was loose. Yeah it was loose alright! Here we tried to create a coupling out of a Hamm's can and some hose clamps.

That lasted for almost a 1/4 mile. Ha! After looking around the second area where we were forced to stop, we decided that if I wanted to make it back, I'd have to ride my bike without a muffler. Just the exhaust header and the remains of the Hamm's coupling, kinda crimped to create an illusion of back presure. At this point we were down to five riders, two in front of me and the unlucky two behind me. Luckily we were on Almaden Expressway, on a Sunday evening, so we didn't draw to much unwanted attention.