Man in Cork court accepts that bicycle with leaf-blower attached is no longer a bike

The defendant faced charges of having no insurance, no tax and no driving licence.

Willian Dos Santos said he bought it from a guy who delivered food and this previous owner put the engine on it. File photo: Wikipedia

A cyclist who thought that the engine of a leaf-blower being attached to his bicycle did not make it a mechanically propelled vehicle accepted now that it does make it a vehicle liable for tax and insurance.

At the time the young man thought that "once a bicycle always a bicycle", irrespective of the mechanical augmentation. A garda who saw him whizzing through Cork City on the bike took a different view.