If you need advice that particular kind of DIY, feel free to post here and tag me or DM me directly. Hopefully I can be very helpful to some of you folks who either can't afford to pay expensive mechanics or want to learn on your own.
I work as an independent mobile mechanic in middle Tennessee (for now). My primary work is motorcycles and small engines, but I've done plenty of work on cars too. I used to post quite often on r/fixxit back before I left Reddit.
Pic is an example of my work. That's one of my motorcycles, which I resurrected from the dead. I took that picture while was riding to the small town of Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, to rebuild 4 carburetors for a customer, and in line waiting on a ferry to cross the Ohio river.
Unfortunately as I am on mobile I cannot dm... but this may be an interesting discussion:
Is it any kind of possible to buy a kind of kit to essentially hybridize an existing bike into, if not a fully hybrid vehicle, at least something that would charge a battery system as you drive?
I realize the most likely answer to this is basically you would have to re-engineer the bike considerably, even if youre not trying to work an electric motor and hybrid drive system into the thing, there are likely a slew of problems.
That being said... maybe someone has attempted this?
Seems like hybrid motorcycles are just barely a thing that exists for purchase... but I have not been able to find any where on the internet detailing trying to hybridize an existing bike.
As someone who rides an already heavy bike (it's just old), and drives a hybrid, I just don't personally see motorcycles ever really being a meaningful use-case for hybrid tech. Batteries are heavy and current electric bikes already don't get fantastic range, so it just doesn't make sense to add more weight to get less range. Stop-start application may have some use in a dual clutch transmission, or maybe on pulling the clutch in, but that's only useful in traffic, where you really want consistency and reliability when you don't have any buffer space, and most bikes get better fuel economy anyways..
Didn't mean to rant a bit, I was a hybrid and EV diag tech for Chevy for a bit and I gave it some thought.
1984 Honda VF700S and a 1st, then 2nd gen Toyota Highlander hybrid.
Oh no need to apologize for ranting, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for, thank you!