Resurrecting 30-year-old mopeds ain't easy. Even for a whiz mechanic, finding the right parts can be a nightmare and installing the wrong ones can be downright catastrophic. Thankfully, moped enthusiasts can tap the wisdom of the crowd.
The Garage is the destination for moped gearheads eager to share some of their coolest modded mopeds and a place where n00bs learn how to overhaul that heap they just picked up.
The concept is simple: Mechanics — or aspiring ones — can upload pics of whatever they're working on, outline its tech specs and run down the mods they've made. Riders with similar rigs can find out what modifications might work and avoid those that don't. Want to know if you can put a Puch Gilardoni 74cc cylinder kit on that 1978 Puch Maxi you just got on Craigslist? See if someone's already done it.)
The social network, which launched in beta last week under the tagline "Let's make something together," is an offshoot of the site for online parts retailer 1977 Mopeds. The concept came to 1977's founder Daniel Kastner after he spent waaaaay too much time Googling to find a lens that worked with his new Canon DSLR and realized the same problem had plagued the moped scene for years.
"I run a website where I sell moped parts every day, and every day I get a pile of calls and emails asking what part works with what bike," Kastner, who is also one of the founders of Moped Army, said in an e-mail to Wired. "That is where the idea of Garage started to come together."
>'I run a website where I sell moped parts every day, and every day I get a pile of calls and emails asking what part works with what bike.'
— Daniel Kastner, founder 1977 Mopeds
It's about time moped riders had their own social network. The bicycle/motorcycle hybrid was super-popular in the United States in the 1970s and '80s, but had largely fallen out of public consciousness until the likes of Kastner and his ilk began salvaging them from garages, junkyards and other unfortunate locations. Many of them started Moped Army gangs — there are currently 22 branches in the United States — and built a network online to swap upgrade tips. Problem was, the forums were a bear to navigate, and unless someone answered your question in a thread, figuring out how to rebuild that old carburetor or replace a set of brake shoes could be damn near impossible.
That's where Garage comes in. At the time he Kastner thought of the concept for the site he was managing a 1977 Mopeds store in San Francisco. (It's since closed.) "I think I was super inspired by the startup fever out there," he said. But as the idea for Garage took on new and hard-to-code forms, Kastner couldn't pull it together while running a business. But finally he hooked up with an Los Angeles-based programmer named Tyler Brekke, who he teamed up with artist Caleb Larsen and Noah Love (a former clerk at the 1977 store in San Francisco) to build the site. It's still in the early stages, but Kastner's goal is to have Garage be a database for anyone looking to work not just on mopeds but anything that runs on two wheels.
"We are slowly introducing new features, and will be opening it up to other two-wheel vehicles shortly," said Kastner, whose 1980 Derbi bike "Diablo" is pictured above. "There are show-and-tell bike sites, but the difference on this one is the fact that every facet of your customization is going to be databased."
Check out some of Kastner's favorite builds on Garage so far (and the engines, cylinders, exhaust pipes, and carburetors needed to make them so rad) in the gallery above.
Images courtesy Garage/1977 Mopeds
