The Gila Monster gas-powered bike

Here’s the first look at that bike I’ve been going on about for a while now. It’s powered by a Grubee Skyhawk 2-stroke engine. This one should produce a little over 2HP, and once the break in period is though could theoretically get me up to 30-odd miles per hour.

Building it has been much more time consuming than I expected, and it’s currently out of commission, but not before I got some sweet video of it idling!

It turns out Huffy wheels don’t have the same shape hub as the Schwinn Cree built hers with, and the rear drive sprocket doesn’t fit on a Huffy very well. I got it pretty well centered (less than a millimeter off) with my eyeball, but it slowly worked itself more off center and eventually just snapped the chain.

I’ll be getting a replacement rear hub in the mail, probably some time this week. I ordered a heavy duty axle replacement - one that has mounting points designed for the left side drive sprocket and is all around built to withstand the speed and vibration of a gas bike.

That’s probably for the best anyway, as I’d like to try and ride this bad boy to work once it’s up and running! I’d feel a lot more confident putting 75 miles a week on a hub that’s designed for that kind of abuse.