#AZUSA ENGINEERING MINI BIKE KIT MOVIE#
Next we set about dry fitting our oversize engine, which, like the movie bike, we equipped with a Comet CVT to boost our gear range. Zack is smiling because the handlebar clears his knees (there was a concern that it wouldn't). My eyes are closed because I'm envisioning what it's going to feel like to sit in that position for four days en route to Aspen. Our first test fit of the limousine Hog chassis. It was going to be an intimate ride up to Aspen. Propping the seat on the frame we confirmed that it fit this 2021 version of Harry and Lloyd. We were careful to make our cuts and welds in the same places as the movie bike, and matched the gussets at the bottom of the frame cradle as well. Since Zack and I had already perfected our bike-lengthening formula with a five-person BMW R 1150 R, modding the little tube frame was easy. With a poster of the original prop bike taped to the wall as a template, we dove in. In no time we had a pile of parts amassed in the RevZilla West garage. One stretched mini-bike frame, coming up! We were lucky to find some DOM chromoly tubing with the same ID as our frame tubes' OD. Zack and I then began sniffing out key accessories - a basket, bell, and yes, a raccoon tail, among other things - to complete the build. We were actually going to try to ride this thing up to Aspen, after all. He confirmed our frame choice, identified the appropriate (five-inch!) wheels, and dialed us in with the right parts and advice for modifying our bike’s engine and drivetrain, which we decided would be the popular 6.5-horsepower Predator engine rather than the 3.5-horsepower Tecumseh that powered the movie bike. Photo by Spenser Robert.Ī bigtime minibike enthusiast and the lead technical advisor at OMB Warehouse, an East Coast minibike and go-kart parts purveyor, Eric understood and appreciated what we were aiming to do. You can pick up a Predator engine at your local Harbor Freight. Those kits are still available, and match the movie bike all the way down to the Carlisle Stud tires. The original Hog appeared to have been built from a classic Azusa Engineering minibike kit. Then I got hold of Eric, known on YouTube as the Gray Goat, and knew we’d struck gold. We needed guidance, and sadly my calls with retailers were received with disinterest and a discouraging lack of knowledge. But that still left engine and drivetrain setup, and many other components, as big unknowns. One SoCal manufacturer offers a frame kit that is a dead ringer for the one used in the movie, all the way down to the footpegs and grips. Veering away from ready-made bikes and into the realm of DIY kits unearthed a slew of legacy companies that have endured since the minibike boom of the 1960s. However, the bike would need to be modified to fit two full-grown men, so if we were going to chop it up anyway, why not double down and build a full-blown replica? Our initial idea was to flog a Monster Moto or a Coleman rig as sold through Amazon and Walmart. This is the story of how that minibike came to be. The original bike sold at auction for $50,000. Throughout the build, we had this picture of the movie bike on the wall as a guiding light. What isn't mentioned in the video is that the whole idea for the adventure sprouted from a half-serious suggestion to ride a pull-start minibike up the eastern flank of the Rockies a la “Dumb and Dumber." That kernel of a concept eventually grew into a committed effort to reenact the scene from the movie, all the way down to the ill-fitting outfits and that ridiculous little machine. By now the outcome of that endeavor is well documented in an episode of CTXP.