We were on Box Hill this weekend and there were some lovely, super-expensive, drool-inducing road bikes with state-of-the-art gearing and featherweight frames, but this was the one I *hearted* the most:





I got chatting to the fella and he said he'd got the 50 year old petrol-driven 'Mini Motor Gearless Cycle Outboard' engine from eBay, and it had successfully powered him to the top of the hill.

In true Brit eccentric style, he was also building five other bikes at home (including one for his girlfriend who had arthritis and couldn't pedal any more).

He had to drive the bike over to the licensing place to get it registered (it has a 50cc engine running hand-mixed two stroke fuel), so it has a numberplate on the back and a tax disk on the front too.

The bike's motor runs against the rubber of the back tyre and apparently hits around 18mph max, notching up around 250 miles to the gallon.

I love it!

Labels: bicycle, box hill

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Close to the southern outskirts of London, Box Hill stands on the North Downs of Surrey, overlooking Dorking to the south-west.

Named after the box trees on its steep southern and western flanks, Box Hill occupies around 490 hectares of wooded downland and is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation.

With the New Year's hangovers still hurting, we took a bracing walk around the top of Box Hill:






Pile on!



More walks here: urban75 walks

Labels: box hill, surrey, walks

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