Too Busy For Words - the PaulWay Blog

So, tell us a story, Uncle Paul.

Sure. One time when I was in Rovers, ...

No, tell us the story of how you got your electric motorbike registered!

Oh, okay then.

It was the 20th of February - a Friday. I'd taken the day off to get the bike registered. I'd tried to do this a couple of weeks before then, but I found out that, despite being told a month beforehand that the workload on new registrations was only a couple of days long, when I came to book it I found out that the earliest they could do was the 20th, two weeks away. So the 20th it was.

That morning I had to get the bike inspected by the engineer, get his sign-off, and take it down to the motor registry to get it inspected at 8:30AM. I also had to meet the plumber at our house, which meant I left a bit late, and by the time I was leaving the engineer it was already 8:15AM and I was in traffic. Say what you like about Canberra being a small town, but people like driving in and the traffic was a crawl. I rang the motor registry and begged for them to understand that I'd be there as soon as possible and that I might be a couple of minutes late. I squeaked into the entrance just as they were giving up hope, and they let me in because of the novelty of the bike and because I wasn't wasting their time.

The roadworthy inspection went fairly harmlessly - I didn't have a certificate from a weighbridge saying how heavy it was, but I knew it was only about eight kilos over the original bike's weight, so probably about 240 kilos? "OK, no worries," they said, scribbling that down on the form. The headlights weren't too high, the indicators worked, and there was no problem with my exhaust being too loud.

(Aside: at the inspection station there they have a wall full of pictures of particularly egregious attempts to get dodgy car builds past an inspection. Exhaust stuffed full of easily-removable steel wool? Exhausts with bit burnt patches where they've been oxy'd open and welded shut again? Panels attached with zip ties? Bolts missing? Plastic housings melted over ill-fitted turbos? These people have seen it all. Don't try to fool them.)

Then we came up to the really weird part of my dream. You know, the part where I know how to tap dance, but I can only do it while wearing golf shoes?

Er, sorry. That was something else. Then we came to the weird part of the process.

Modified vehicles have to get a compliance plate, to show that they comply with the National Code of Practice on vehicle conversions. The old process was that the engineer that inspected the vehicle to make sure it complied had blank compliance plates; when you brought the vehicle in and it passed their inspection, they then filled out all the fields on the plate, attached the plate to the vehicle, and then you transported it down to Main Roads. But that was a bit too open to people stealing compliance plates, so now they have a "better" system. What I had to do was:

1. Get the bike inspected for road worthiness.
2. They hand me a blank compliance plate.
3. I then had to take it to the engineer, who told me the fields to fill in.
4. He then told me to go to a trophy making place, where they have laser etchers that can write compliance plates beautifully.
5. I arrive there at 11AM. They say it'll be done by about 2PM.
6. Go and have lunch with friends. Nothing else to do.
7. Pick etched compliance plate up.
8. Take compliance plate back to engineer. Because he's busy, borrow a drill and a rivet gun and attach the plate to the bike myself.
9. Take it back to Main Roads, who check that the plate is attached to the bike correctly and stamp the road worthiness form. Now I can get the bike registered.

Yeah, it's roundabout. Why not keep engrave the plates at Main Roads with the details the Engineer gives to them? But that's the system, so that's what I did.

And so I entered the waiting department. It only probably took about fifteen minutes to come up next in the queue, but it was fifteen minutes I was impatient to see go. We went through the usual hilarious dance with values:

• Her: What are you registering?
• Me: An electric motorbike.
• Her: How many cylinders?
• Me: Er... it's electric. None.
• Her: None isn't a value I can put in.
• Me: (rolls eyes) OK, one cylinder.
• Her: OK. How many cubic centimetres?

Many months ago I had enquired about custom number plates, and it turns out that motorbikes can indeed have them. Indeed, I could buy "3FAZE" if I wanted. For a mere $2,600 or so. It was very tempting, but when I weighed it up against getting new parts for the bike (which it turned out I would need sooner rather than later, but that's a story for another day) I thought I'd save up for another year.

So I finally picked up my new set of plates, thanked her for her time, and said "Excuse me, but I have to do this:" and then yelled:

"Yes!!!!"

Well, maybe I kept my voice down a little. But I had finally done it - after years of work, several problems, one accident, a few design changes, and lots of frustration and gradual improvement, I had an actual, registered electric motorbike I had built nearly all myself.

I still get that feeling now - I'll be riding along and I'll think, "wow, I'm actually being propelled along by a device I built myself. Look at it, all working, holding together, acting just like a real motorbike!" It feels almost like I've got away with something - a neat hack that turns out to work just as well as all those beautifully engineered mega-budget productions. I'm sure a lot of people don't notice it - it does look a bit bulky, but it's similar enough to a regular motorbike that it probably just gets overlooked as another two-wheeled terror on the roads.

Well, I'll just have to enjoy it myself then :-)