News - Local News

POSTED: Friday, Dec. 26, 2008

With three tools, Bellingham man makes own transportation

BELLINGHAM — The trying times for the Big Three car companies doesn’t weigh heavily on the mind of Gavin MacWhyte.

He’s his own automaker, and he’s far from needing a bailout.

MacWhyte, 22, is putting the finishing touches on his own battery-run motorcycle, built from a junked-out 1983 Suzuki he bought in July for $350. “I basically built it with three tools: a crescent wrench, a crimper and a wire cutter, and I did it all in my backyard,” he said. “If anything says that we aren’t dependent on big corporations, it’s that some kid with no training can build (this) in his backyard with no tools.”

The battery-run motorcycle is his quiet revolution. It’s his affirmation to himself and anyone who asks that transportation isn’t limited to what the major car companies put out on the market.

“This bike was a way for me to say that I’m still in control of how I live my life,” he said. “People think they’re helpless. If they don’t own a corporation and a factory and a million employees they can’t get something done, and that’s not true. Anything is possible.”

The silence of the motorcycle after he clicks it on is proof. The bike runs off four 12-volt batteries that MacWhyte can plug into any outlet to charge. On one charge he estimates he can go about 100 miles, running smoothly at top speeds of about 45 mph, both of which would improve if he ran the bike off six batteries.

Before this project, MacWhyte had no real mechanical experience. He’d never fixed cars with his dad or taken automotive classes. He got the idea to build the bike in a physics class at Whatcom Community College, and then he started researching what kind of electric vehicles were out there. He remembers seeing a video of Henry Ford building a car in his barn.

He could do it too. Even if he did have to start out with a total junker that was only good for its frame.

“It was this frozen up, rusty thing. I didn’t know what to think,” said his mother, Marie MacWhyte, of the bike her son worked on in her backyard near Cornwall Park. “He said, ‘I’m going to make it run.’ I didn’t know it could be done.”

But his mother’s skepticism turned to pride the first time she didn’t hear the engine roar. Because the bike runs off batteries, it’s nearly silent, defying the conventional rev and roar of most motorcycles.

“My friends say, ‘Gavin, your bike doesn’t do the vroom-vroom. What’s the point of having a bike if it doesn’t vroom?’” Gavin said. “I don’t waste power in cool sounds or appearance. It all goes into getting me where I’m going.”