Finally, a picture

This is for Dave.

Over the weekend I got the scoot out onto Route 2; it climbed the infamous hill westbound out of Alewife at 65, turning about 7000 RPM. It wasn't especially stable at that speed; modest wind gusts have more of an impact than I liked.

Rode to work today and bought gas; so far, I'm getting 59MPG.

First day out

This morning I took the scoot over to Riverside Motorsports in Union Square for its inspection. All the initial paperwork is now behind me. Yea!

From there I rode back home, packed a water bottle in the boot, and headed off for a ride.  I went out thru Belmont and Lexington to Lincoln, spent some time practicing low speed turns in a school parking lot, and then headed over to Greater Boston Motor Sports to look at jackets.



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I got an Olympia Motor Sports GT Air three-piece jacket; bye-bye, cheap leather.

It started to rain moments after I got home. Good Karma (bikema?)

While on the ride, I noticed a few things to check into:

• The idle speed seems a bit high. It's supposed to be 1500 RPM; it seems to be closer to 1800 or even higher.
• It occurred to me that the original owner is from Colorado; I wonder if the engine is set to run lean?
• I did some hard braking in the parking lot (30-MPH to a dead stop as quickly as I could); afterwards, it seems like the front brake was rubbing every rotation for a brief period after the hard braking. Problem?

The New Toy

Tonight I got a ride up to Bradford to pick up my new toy - a 2006 Honda Reflex motor scooter. This isn't mine, but this is what it looks like:

Perhaps I shouldn't say "toy" - it has a 250cc engine and should be capable of highway speed without a problem. I took all back roads between Bradford and Cambridge; I'm not yet ready to try it out on, say, the madness of I-93. Total distance - a bit over 36 miles. I got home at dusk after a very enjoyable ride.

I have a lot of to-do's:

• Get the scoot inspected. I have until next Monday.
• Get a decent protective jacket (something like this). I have a lightweight leather jacket I used for the ride home, but a modern jacket with elbow and sleeve protection, a back stiffener, etc. would be safer and more cooler (leather gets hot!).
• Replace the lights (tail, turn and running) with high-intensity LEDs. Visibility matters!
• Get some reflective tape to stick on my helmet and various parts of the scoot.
• Spend a couple of hours removing access panels and just looking at things.