Strokin’

Garelli was a popular brand of mopeds during the street-legal motorbike craze of the mid-1900s. They became especially popular during the 70s and 80s, as the American market sought to emulate the classic feeling of rolling up to an Italian coffee shop on a zippy two-stroke.

My friend Joey Arnone and I started this project in January 2020, and it has been a ride. We started looking for dirt bikes and scooters on Craigslist, with the intention of converting it to an e-bike. He’s an electrical engineer and was interested in rewiring it, sizing a battery, and potentially taking it offroad.

After pulling away from a neurotic moped mechanics house in Western Massachusetts in the middle of a blizzard, I could not have anticipated the joy an pain this bike would bring us throughout the course of Quarantine 2020 and 2021. I should note here, that we bought a dud. What our parrot-loving, basement-dweller of an acquaintance sold us was a bike that didn’t run, and wouldn’t for a long time. We didn’t know how to diagnose an engine or troubleshoot a starter circuit at the time, so we had a lot of work ahead of us. This page and it’s branches will detail some of the skills we’ve picked up during this process, where the line between momentary success and permanent failure blurs.

See below for the various mini-projects that have been a part of this restoration

Client:

Personal Project

Project Duration:

Ongoing

Item Origin:

Italian Manufacture, Sold in USA, 1981