Tiny bike

Driving in this morning I spotted something on a side street that freaked me out for a minute. It looked like a guy, in full motorbike gear, zipping along the sidewalk at roughly knee level. He was a block away and behind a row of parked cars, so I couldn’t see what he was riding, but he was nearly matching the speed of car traffic on Washtenaw. When it got to an intersection, I was able to spot that he was scooting along on a tiny racing motorcycle.

Now, I’ve heard of these things before… Apparently they’re big in Japan. They’re called “Minimoto” or “Pocket Bikes.” I did a little bit of web searching and I found a place with more details about them… From what I can tell they’re not street legal, but they look like a lot of fun.