FFuture

We finally heard from the owner of this fine machine. Here's his story.

Hi! My name is Steve Parady. I recently received a letter from Paul Blezard about my Honda streamliner. You have a picture of it on your site as the Miami Helix. Actually I live in the Orlando area, not Miami. I built this bike fairing in 1989, with the thought of creating an all weather vehicle with good fuel economy. Unfortunately the bike is no longer running. I fell over making a u-turn and cracked the acrylic bubble top. This was a canopy to a kit airplane.

Other modifications to the Helix included removing the seat and part of the seat support. The battery and electical regulator were repositioned to make room for a car seat. The steering was lowered by attaching a bicycle frame's steering head below the original scooter steering head. The original handle bar was removed and a narrower bicycle handlebar was attached to the bicycle steering head, connected to the scooter's head with a couple of bicycle gears and chain.

This arrangement was quite effective and I preferred the handling of the bike to the original Helix. The car style seat was also much more comfortable on a long trip. The longest trip I made on it was about 250 miles.

A hand lever on the left side of the seat controlled the "landing gear", actually two snowmobile bogie wheels attached to an axle bolted to the cut down wheel stand. This arrangement needed more work to be practical, so openings were left in the body to get my feet out quickly!

The body was constructed of sheets of polycarbonate plastic attached to an aluminum frame. The rear of the body and the canopy slid back on rollers for entry and exiting the vehicle. Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.

Thanks!
Steve Parady
Saint Cloud, Florida USA