A bike rack in downtown St. Jo­seph is not a com­mon sight. Even more unusual, though, is what’s in the rack outside the Pony Espresso cof­fee shop on a recent Thursday morning. It looks like your everyday bicycle, painted green and white with a standard V frame. It probably would go unnoticed if not for the shiny, gray engine strapped to it.

The owner, David Mason, is having coffee inside. He says wherever he goes, people want to know more about it.

“Even when I stop at a stop­light,” he says, “the people that stop next to me almost always roll down their window and talk to me about it.”

The bike is Mr. Mason’s answer to high gas prices. It gets 100 miles per gallon on a 32:1 gas/oil fuel (such as the mixture used on weed eaters and chain saws) and can reach speeds of around 15 mph.

“I had been trying to buy a scooter for a long time,” he ex­plains, “but within my budget.”

Then one day he discovered something he could afford: a mo­ped kit to install on a bicycle for around $100. It took him about a day to put the motor on. And now, in some ways, his bike is better than a scooter.

“I can do things that people on scooters can’t do,” he says. “Since it’s a bicycle, as long as I’m not engaging the engine, I can ride it where bicycles are allowed. And technically, I can ride my bicycle on a state highway.” (But not on the interstate).

So these days, instead of driv­ing his Ford Explorer four miles each way to work (getting around 15 miles per gallon), he rides his bike. He figures he saves $2 a day on that.

“I think more people are going to have to go that way,” says Ger­ald Holcomb, one of Mr. Mason’s bike-riding friends.

Bicycling in general is better for your health, better for the environment and it saves a lot of money, the men say. But as they finish their last sip of coffee before heading out the door, they agree there are some disadvan­tages. Weather can be a problem, and in St. Joseph, bike lanes are nonexistent. It also can be danger­ous. Some car drivers are openly hostile to sharing the pavement with a bike.

“If you use hand signals, nobody has a clue what you’re do­ing,” Mr. Holcomb says.

The motorized bike doesn’t have a gas gauge, either. So you don’t know how much fuel is left.

But unlike with a car, that’s no problem. “If you run out,” Mr.

Mason says, “just start pedaling.”

Lifestyles reporter Sylvia Anderson may be reached at sylviaanderson@npgco.com