If Mad Max rode a bike, it would look like the solar-electric trike Australian tinkerer Joe Blake's spent 15 years building. It's just the thing for roaming the post-apocalyptic wastelands, even if Blake uses it for the more mundane task of running to town for tinnies and Vegemite.

Blake is a solar power junkie, avid cyclist and dedicated DIY'er who lives at the top of a nasty hill about 16 miles outside of "The Big Smoke" (Perth). The altitude isn't a problem when he's headed into town but it makes getting home a quad-busting exercise in masochism. He figured putting an electric motor on his Greenspeed tricycle might make things easier and set to work figuring out how to do it.

Then someone stole his trike.

Blake, 58, has spent more time on two or three wheels than four since getting hip to the threat of global warming 46 years ago when he read "No More Ice Ages," Isaac

Asimov's prescient essay about climate change. "From that time on I've tried to make as small an impact as possible on the environment," Blake tells us.

He bought the trike in 1993 and started playing with the idea of fitting it with an electric motor, but it was stolen before he got very far. Blake didn't see the bike again until a friend spotted it in a bike shop five years later. Trike back in hand, Blake resumed tinkering but didn't get far because the technology wasn't up to snuff. "I was waiting for both electric motors and batteries to reach a satisfactory level of performance before committing myself," he says.

Blake eventually decided to do the best he could with what he had. He fitted the Greenspeed with a 200-watt Heinzmann 24-volt motor wired to a pair of 12-volt, 12 ampere-hour lead-acid batteries fed by photovoltaic panels that put out 10 watts. That isn't much, but it keeps the batteries alive during the 31-mile ride to Perth and back. The motor doesn't drive the wheels full time; rather, it provides an "electric assist" to help Blake over hills or through a head wind.

"On the flat with no wind, the motor will drive the outfit to 24 km/h," Blake says. That's 15 mph for the metrically challenged. "The motor has sufficient capacity to enable me to ride up the hill one or even two gears higher than I normally do it, and takes about 30 minutes off my ascent time."

Blake isn't sure how much weight he's added to the trike but figures it weighs twice as much with all the technology. "It's certainly noticeable when I'm pedaling," he says, yet he can still hit 25 mph on a flat stretch of road without any help from the motor. Once home, he hooks the bike up to a 40-watt solar array that recharges the batteries in about 24 hours.

Blake hasn't kept tabs on what the project's cost since he's been plugging away at it for so long, but he figures he could build another one for about $8,000 Australian (US$6,800), including the price of the trike. "If I were to cut corners, we're probably looking at $4,000."

That's a lot cheaper than building a Mad Max Interceptor.

Photos by Joe Blake.

Joe with the trike and the BoB Yak mono-track trailer, which can carry 60 pounds of groceries.

The whole rig, ready to ride.

A friend takes Blake's rig for a ride.