Motorcycle Explorer November 2016 Issue 14 | Page 43

tailgate at your own risk
In fact it is clear that there is no business that
cannot be motorised by strapping it to a ‘wee bike’.
We’ve seen mobile fast food stalls serving
delicious, freshly steamed and fried foods with
iceboxes for cool drinks and 125cc ‘ice-cream vans’.
‘Wee bikes’ are adapted to transport huge
quantities of foodstuffs from milk and eggs,
coconuts and pineapples or whatever has just been
harvested from the ground or gathered from the
trees. They are the means of delivery for gas
bottles, beer bottles, water bowsers and general
groceries. There are astrologers, plumbers, dentists,
electricians, yoga masters, furniture removals (I kid
you not) and haberdashers all discernable from the
fact that they wear the accoutrements of their trade
on the outside of the vehicle; their own adaptation
of the ‘wee bike’. In Malaysia, when the loads on
the bike are great, they even have special spring-
loaded stands mounted like ski poles behind the
rider. When he comes to a halt, he just reaches
back, triggers the release and the two poles shoot
down to the ground stabilising the bike so the rider
can dismount and tend to his business of loading or
unloading his bric-a-brac.
This is the world of the Tuk-Tuk and the trailer and
there is a bewildering variety of types and styles,
nearly all driven by nothing more powerful that a
150cc motorcycle engine. The name ‘Tuk-Tuk’ is an
onomatopoeic term, taken from the sound made by
the small two-stroke engines found in the early
models. Today most engines are four-stroke or
powered by liquid natural gas (LNG). In India there
are purpose-built Tuk-Tuks from Bajaj and Piaggio,
nippy little three-wheelers with the ability to take
four or five passengers in the back (or a lot more if
you stuff them in and have no respect for your
vehicle suspension and ground clearance). In
Thailand the Tuk-Tuks mainly seem to transport only
two passengers but there are some brilliant designs,
including a boat-shaped type we saw in Ayutthaya,
which can carry up to six passengers. In Cambodia
the Tuk-Tuk is different again using a small
motorcycle to actually pull a passenger-conveying
trailer by means of an inverted yoke mounted across
the rear seat of the bike and fixed to the top of the
shock absorbers. This configuration is also used to
pull much larger trailers and we have witnessed
enormous quantities of building supplies and even
mobile restaurants, complete with kitchen, food-
store, tables and chairs all hitched up to a ‘wee-
bike’.