One afternoon in 1974, aged seven, I took my first wobbly ride on a mini-bike, and IвЂ™m pretty sure it was a Deckson. If you still have one in the back of your parentвЂ™s shed, we would love to hear about it. If you wanted to have the fastest mini-bike in your gang, a range of hot-up parts were available, including a high-compression head and tuned exhaust.Д®xamples of original mini-bikes now swap hands for healthy figures. On early models the front fork continued up to form the handlebar, but later models had folding handlebars. Drive from the engine was usually via chain and centrifugal clutch to a jackshaft with different-sized sprockets, and then onto the rear wheel. Among his many inventions was a two-stroke rabbit fumigator and a self-propelled mower.Д®arly examples of the Deckson (Deck and sons) were so simple they included a lawnmower friction-type throttle with no return spring. John Deck had a Sydney engineering business and a passion for motorised equipment. The Deckson is believed to be the only Aussie-designed and built mini-bike that was available in the 1960s.

These days they are lovingly restored by people with fond memories of learning the basics of motorcycle riding on one. Many were taken to the tip, or simply rusted away. It wasnвЂ™t until the advent of bikes like HondaвЂ™s XR75 and YamahaвЂ™s PeeWee 50 that the old square-framed mini-bike, with its little fuel tank and oversized seat, began to look a bit odd вЂ“ even daggy. The Deckson was just one of a number of oddly shaped, pull-start, lawnmower-engine-powered machines lovingly referred to back in the day as a mini-bike. If you were a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, this was a machine to envy 06 November 2016 / Text Size (-) (+) / Print

Lawn mower engine mini bike kit