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What are Mini Bikes?

A minibike, also recently known as a mini moto or pocketbike, is a miniature motorcycle. Most traditional minibikes use four stroke engine to turn the rear wheel via a chain. Small cheap gasoline engines like ones produced for yard equipment are most often used, though most designs require a horizontal crankshaft engine. This means that typical walk behind mowers, which use vertical crank engines, cannot be used.

Some models use a two stroke engine, and electric-powered models are also available. A 2-stroke engine usually creates a louder, higher frequency noise than a typical four-stroke engine, this is because a two-stroke engine has a power stroke, and subsequent exhaust pulse for every rotation of the crankshaft, while a four-stroke has a power stroke, and an exhaust pulse every other rotation of the crankshaft. In effect, two-strokes sound as if they are operating at double the speed of a four-stroke engine. Also, an improperly tuned two-stroke often releases unburnt fuel, and thick blue smoke out exhaust during normal operation, these features, along with a minibike's small size, mean that minibikes are rarely street-legal.

Today minibikes have evolved into several specialized types, all around the concept of a mini motorcycle:

Pocketbike/Minimoto

These look like sport bikes and are used to race (Pocketbike racing) on tracks used for kart racing. The usual size of these bikes less than 50cm in height and 1 meter in length. The engine usually packs a 39cc to 50cc two-stroke engine with a maximum of 15 horsepower. Maximum speed varies between 30 to 70 km/h. Pocketbikes are available in both gasoline and electric versions. Popular brands are Polini, GRC, Stamas, DM Telai, ZPF, Blata, and DSF. The popularity of these types of minibikes grew due to the influx of cheap pocket bikes imported from China. Brands from P.R. China are V-Racer and Sendai. A pocket bike is a miniature version of a Grand Prix (GP) motorcycle. GP moto is the nickname for a racing motorcycle. So, in general, a pocketbike is a scaled-down replica of a GP motorcycle. There are two engine types that pocketbikes come in. The most common pocketbikes are two-stroke engine ones, although newer designs are pointing towards the creation of four-stroke units - due to even-more restricting pollution laws.

Pit bikes

True to the original concept of a small scooter used to quickly move around the pit areas of motor racing tracks and events. They look like motocross motorcycles and are also used in some motocross competitions. Recently the sport of mini moto (racing pit bikes on motocross and supercross tracks) has taken off. There are numerous series in the United States and there are also full fledged mini moto pros. The Las Vegas Mini Supercross is the biggest mini moto event of the year. Known brands include ThumpStar, Xsport, Explorer, Pitster Pro, BBR, MotoVert, OGM and Workz, Xtreme Motor. Co.

Mini choppers

Mini choppers are mini bikes that look like Choppers,but still have the general look of a pocket or mini bike.

Midi motos

Midi motos are similar to the Pocket/Mini moto in style etc but they are slightly bigger. They are still tiny in comparison to a real bike of their replication but the seat height is about a foot to two foot higher than a mini motos seat height. They started off with 47cc 2 stroke engines (capable of around 48-64 kmh/30-40 mph) in the midi moto's and then all the way to 110cc 4 stroke engines (capable of around 86-105 kmh/55-65mph) - some sites selling them may say 113 kmh (70mph) but these chances are rare. Most midi bikes are made in China and usually outfitted with a Honda engine or replication of a Honda style engine. Besides Honda (which has the popular Honda Dax and Honda Monkey midi-motos, other brands are Yamaha and Sachs.

Quad bikes

Mini bikes that look like quad bikes which are four wheeled off road motorcycles (all terrain vehicles).

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Minibikes"