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walbournThis morning I took ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cuddlyeconomist's scooter to pick up her license plates and buy some oil for it at the dealer in Captial Hill. I went to Alki Cafe for brunch afterwards. It was the most time I've spent on the thing, and really I haven't been on any kind of motorcycle since I was ten. I was exciting, but also a bit scary.
The scooter can't really go any faster than about 35 mph with full throttle, less going uphill. Nonetheless, 30-35 mph is damn fast when you are sitting outside of a cab. When I lived in Texas, I always thought it looked terribly uncomfortable to have to be wearing jeans, boots, gloves, helmet, and jacket in the summer to be safer on a motorbike. As it turns out here in Seattle, when you are going 30-35 mph even on the warmest days it's nice to have some protection from the wind. Driving it in the rain and cold would probably be pretty unpleasant, but in the summer it was fabulous.
The scooter gets about 100 miles to the gallon. In fact, a full tank is just a bit over a gallon. I stopped for gas since it was on about a 1/4 tank. The recommendation is to always use premium gas, but it still came out to $3.70. Nice. The engine is a two-stroke, so it requires oil but it has its own mixing reservoir. According to the dealer, it uses about 4 tablespoons of oil for every gallon of gas. The two bottles I bought will probably be more than enough for the entire summer and into next year.
The helmet hair and wandering around with a jacket in the summer is a bit bizarre, but there seems to be an unspoken exclusive club. When driving even a scooter, most of the passing people on motorcycles wave to other motorcycles or scooters. You also end up getting chatted up at lights by pedestrians and people in their cars with the windows down. Perhaps America would be a more well-mannered society if most people were sitting on top of a motor instead of feeling all safe inside their cars.
Of course, you can feel smug now that we have record gas prices and its really easy to find parking even on a crowded day at Alki when you only need 2 linear feet of clear curb. Alas I can't commute to Redmond on it. There's really no way across the lakes without taking highways, and it's not rated for them.
cuddlyeconomist's scooter to pick up her license plates and buy some oil for it at the dealer in Captial Hill. I went to Alki Cafe for brunch afterwards. It was the most time I've spent on the thing, and really I haven't been on any kind of motorcycle since I was ten. I was exciting, but also a bit scary.The scooter can't really go any faster than about 35 mph with full throttle, less going uphill. Nonetheless, 30-35 mph is damn fast when you are sitting outside of a cab. When I lived in Texas, I always thought it looked terribly uncomfortable to have to be wearing jeans, boots, gloves, helmet, and jacket in the summer to be safer on a motorbike. As it turns out here in Seattle, when you are going 30-35 mph even on the warmest days it's nice to have some protection from the wind. Driving it in the rain and cold would probably be pretty unpleasant, but in the summer it was fabulous.
The scooter gets about 100 miles to the gallon. In fact, a full tank is just a bit over a gallon. I stopped for gas since it was on about a 1/4 tank. The recommendation is to always use premium gas, but it still came out to $3.70. Nice. The engine is a two-stroke, so it requires oil but it has its own mixing reservoir. According to the dealer, it uses about 4 tablespoons of oil for every gallon of gas. The two bottles I bought will probably be more than enough for the entire summer and into next year.
The helmet hair and wandering around with a jacket in the summer is a bit bizarre, but there seems to be an unspoken exclusive club. When driving even a scooter, most of the passing people on motorcycles wave to other motorcycles or scooters. You also end up getting chatted up at lights by pedestrians and people in their cars with the windows down. Perhaps America would be a more well-mannered society if most people were sitting on top of a motor instead of feeling all safe inside their cars.
Of course, you can feel smug now that we have record gas prices and its really easy to find parking even on a crowded day at Alki when you only need 2 linear feet of clear curb. Alas I can't commute to Redmond on it. There's really no way across the lakes without taking highways, and it's not rated for them.
