Cubans have a talent for making and maintaining vehicles – they have to, what with 40 years of US embargoes and then the collapse of communism making life difficult. So what do they do for bikes?
Take a Chinese bicycle, attach a stolen chain-saw motor, a plastic bottle for fuel tank, a bent pipe from a bed frame for the exhaust and voila! The Riquimbili.
Cobbled together from scrap-yard parts of old motorbikes mounted on a light bicycle frame, usually powered by a 50cc to 125cc two-stroke engine obtained on the black market, their fuel efficiency is unbeatable. Most do 50km per litre of petrol.
The idea was copied from a pre-World War 2 American moped called the Whizzer that was introduced to Cuba by the postal service for telegram dispatchers in the 1940s. Some vintage Whizzers can still be seen puttering along Havana streets.
The Cuban government have declared these bikes illegal and the owners face heavy fines (in Cuban terms) if caught using them. But the police are increasingly turning a blind eye as the public transport situation worsens.
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Originally Posted by Hitcher
Those who dont learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.
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