In the early days of motorcycling, when the bicycle origins of these machines were much more obvious, most riders would expect to use ‘LPA’ – or light pedal assistance – at least once or twice in a ride. Once clever technical people had advanced motorcycles to the point where their reliability and power meant ‘LPA’ was consigned to the history books, pedals were redundant on all but the smallest of utility machines.
The question of what to do with a rider’s feet was answered at first by using the pedals, but moving one around the pedal-crank by 180 degrees so they were both in line, which was a quick solution.
Many of my contemporaries in the 1970s embraced the sports moped scene on a