my cousin's getting married this weekend in southeastern washington. i was planning on flying but i was starting to feel a bit restless (plus i didn't find a good deal on airfare). so i'll be taking my scooter.

it's just over 1500 miles round trip and i'll be back on monday.

this should be fun. unless my scooter explodes again.

i love the alpine loop. i took a nice two hour scooter ride with sam and thomas, and with a cute gal on the back. it's been a great fourth of july.

i think the alpine loop is my favorite ride in the Provo Utah area. at just over an hour, it's long enough to be a good ride, but not so long that it gets monotonous.

it's quite a bit of fun. it's wooded so most of the ride is in the shade. it's beautiful, especially in the afternoon when the sun is shining through the trees. the roads are all twisty and fun, and there isn't much traffic to deal with. at times it's a bit steep, but riding two-up on a 150cc, i was able to handle it okay.

one of these days i'm going to organize a scooter camping trip, and there's a good chance we'll end up there.

but for now, off to a barbecue and the watching of the fireworks.

the stock mirrors on a stella (or just about any other p series, for that matter) are worthless. they give me a nice clear view of my shoulders. definitely less effective.

so i got a legshield mirror. you know, those little mirrors that clamp on down by the floorboard?

yeah. one of those.

after a couple of months of riding with it, i feel like i can give it a solid review.

last week I wrote a bit about the Tank scooter that a friend bought for cheap... you've gotta check out the owners manual excerpts he posted on his blog. they're fantastic.

I recently purchased a new scooter. It’s a Tank, which anyone who knows about scooters will tell you is the best top-off-the-line scooter you can buy. They’re also the most expensive. Think of Tank as the Cadillac of scooters.

I got mine for $250.

my favorite?

a couple of years ago i bought a printer for about $25. the print quality was great for such a cheap printer. it did a decent job on photos, and it was perfect for term papers. but when it finally ran out of ink, i realized what the catch was. it would cost me about twice the original price of the printer to replace the ink. i had purchased a disposable printer. it was more economically viable for me to get rid of the "used" printer and to buy a new one than it was for me to buy new ink cartridges.

i bring this up on a scooter blog because a friend of mine is buying a used scooter for a couple hundred bucks. he knows it's a terrible scooter, but he's excited anyway. you see, at that price it's a disposable scooter.

he was telling me about it. he couldn't remember the brand, but he said, "the only good thing it has is the remote start".

oh. so you're getting a Tank. i know a thing or two about Tank...

in my opinion, any company that offers a three year, 36,000 mile warranty which covers nothing is more than a little shady.

i love my scooter. i love the quirks, i love almost everything about it. but stellas do have a few problems, and mine is no exception. today (just as i was about to run out of gas) i realized that my gas gauge started working. it hasn't worked consistently in about a year, so this was a surprise. in honor of my suddenly cooperative fuel gauge, i decided to mention some of the problems i've run into on my stella.

Jon from AREALLYGOODNAME posted a couple of thoughts on the secret motorcycle wave. spoiler alert: he doesn't believe in it.

The more you can relate to another rider as you are passing, the friendlier they seem to be, which really equates to the more likely they are to return the “secret wave.” I was curious as to how well known the wave is among riders in Utah and S.L.C. counties, and really to find out how friendly everyone is.

i think i have to disagree with him...

a couple of my observations on this subject:

i have noticed that the fair weather riders tend to return the wave less. the sweet bros out for a cruise on their new hayabusa with flip-flops and no helmet almost never return the wave. especially to someone on a scooter. maybe they don't know about the club. maybe they think they're too cool for everyone else now that they have a bike. i dunno. but i have noticed the tendency.

harley riders have their own wave. they usually reserve it for other harley riders. it's like a club that the rest of us aren't invited to. real harley riders (the ones who aren't accountants or lawyers) do seem to treat scooters with more respect than most sport bike riders. they usually give a smile and a wave. a handful the ones i've talked with had a cushman when they were younger, and they still miss it.

the chinese crap scooters (tank, tupperware, etc) almost never wave. i'm kinda glad they don't, since i'd rather most of 'em kept both hands firmly in the handlebars. they (like the sweet bros on crotch rockets) are prob'ly too new to the two-wheeled world to know that we're all in a club.

but in the middle of the winter, everyone waves to everyone. it's like we're saying, "hey, there's a blizzard going on. you're insane too!" it's a special sort of club. not too many of the no-helmet sport bike kids in this club. they just show up when the weather's good. nice bike, kid... missed you guys all winter.

i like riding at this time of night. the night owls have all turned in, the "early to bed, early to rise" crowd aren't quite ready to start their day. the birds aren't even up yet... it's like a secret shared by just a few.

the roads are nearly empty. traffic lights change before i get there. it's dark, but not too dark. the night air is cool, brisk, refreshing.

i think it's time to go to bed.

i stopped by the scooter lounge the other day to change the fuel tap on my scooter.

some background: a fuel tap is a little lever with three settings (on, off, and reserve). "on" stops working a bit before the tank is actually empty, so that you can switch to "reserve" and still make it to a gas station. on older bikes and scooters this is the only way to know when your fuel is low. newer bikes (like my stella) have a fuel gauge as well. but the fuel tap is still there for backup.

except that my fuel tap stopped working last summer, about the time my gas gauge died. so i had no indication when i was almost out of fuel. pushing my scooter to gas stations every time i ran out of gas was getting annoying, so i broke down and ordered a new fuel tap.

and i stopped by the scooter lounge the other day to change the fuel tap on my scooter.

well, "stopped by" seems pretty nonchalant. "pushed my scooter ten blocks to the scooter lounge after i ran out of gas" would be a bit more accurate.

i spent a couple of hours replacing it (a complicated process that involved taking my scooter most of the way apart so that i could remove the gas tank). while i was at it, i adjusted my shift cables, did a bit of odd maintenance.

got it all bolted back together and realized that i couldn't find my gas cap. poop.

it's inside my scooter.

i think i'll just order a new one.

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edit: dave at the scooter lounge says he found my gas cap!

i'm mostly excited because it means i won't have to take my scooter apart again.

went riding with thomas yesterday. it was pretty effing rad. beautiful weather, sun was shining. great day for a ride.

and stella was great. she's running rather well. maybe better than she did before she 'sploded.

things are pretty happy right now. happy springtime!