ART Motorcycle Rider Training & Testing

Mopeds

What can I ride at 16 years of age?

In the UK you will need to have a current vailid provisional licence, this can be applied for up to 90 days before your 16th birthday. Once you have your provisional licence and upon reaching 16 years of age you will need to take and complete a Compulsory Basic Training course (CBT). This is not a test but instead a training course where you will have to demonstrate a safe level of ability. Current statistics show that 1 in 5 people that take a CBT do NOT complete on the first attempt. This is mainly due to two factors, firstly not enough machine control but the most common reason is a complete lack of understanding the Highway code!

Starting out riding mopeds at 16 years of age will give you fun, freedom, independence and most importantly gives you experience that will help prepare you for taking the test on a larger motorcycle when you are older.

So what is a Moped? There are a number of historical factors to take into account here, but the original definition was that it was no bigger than 50cc and you had to be able to ride it by pedals without the engine running! The classic examples are late 1970's "sports sixteeners" such as the Yamaha FSIE and the Suzuki AP50. If you were or are lucky enough to have owned one of these special mopeds then there were no speed restrictions, but most of them still only did around 45 - 50 mph anyway!

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After August 1977, the definition in law of a moped was changed to " A machine with an engine size of no greater than 50cc and a maximum design speed of no more than 30 Mph" pedals were no longer required. The late seventies and early eighties were flooded with mopeds that were made to look more like their bigger relatives in the hope of encouraging younger riders to buy them with more modern design, as the speed element had been restricted!

Yamaha RD 50 MX, Kawasaki AR 50, Honda MT5 & Suzuki ER50 being some of the more popular choices.

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Moving onto to current legislation, as of the 8th of August 2003 right up to the present day, all mopeds are now restricted to 45 Kph (28 Mph) this is a result of Directive 92/61/EEC being implemented in to UK law. This now put even greater pressure on the manufacturer to provide the market with manual machines that fit within the legislation. Sadly most of the Japanese manufacturers decided that this was to difficult not to mention expensive! The amount of geared mopeds fell drastically and the use of automatic scooters rose. Some good Japanese and European examples below include the Suzuki Katana 50, Honda Zoomer 50, Aprilia SR 50 & Yamaha Jog RR.