Honda Ruckus is nuts

I recently came across a huge following of a 50cc scooter. The owners of these things are ridiculously involved. There's lots of loyalty to this thing. All these photos come from the Totalruckus, a forum dedicated to modding these things. Looks like a cheap alternative to modding out a car. Tons of fun in a small package and lots of room for creativity. There are a billion aftermarket parts for this (even moreso than the Yamaha Zuma) and some even fabricate their own!

It's intense. The modders are all over this! They absolutely love it. Owners mod these things more than the Scion drivers. It's hard to find two identical ones.

Stretched out and lowered! There's no stopping these guys. This thing looks like the size of a regular scooter, but think again.







I'm definitely not the only one who loves carbon fiber. Check out the pieces on this!








And these aren't just for the boys.








The Ruckus looks like a toddler next to a Yamaha Zuma. These things are seriously very small. Even when stretched out. If you look at the helmet in one of the photos above, it's huge relative to the bike itself.

Race me

Somebody posted this on the Totalruckus forums and I thought it was just too hilarious to not post up here on my blog. That's crazy funny!

Primary neighbors

Primary colors! How often does that happen? How often does anyone even care? Haha, I just found it a bit odd and decided to snap a pic with my camera phone and here it is! The driver of the convertible Corvette soon came to get his car after I snapped this pic. He was an old guy who later revved his engine. Show off!

White Vino?

The new 2010 Vino 125 comes in white! I had wanted this originally when I first discovered the scooter, but figured blue would stand out more in traffic and therefore would be safer and it was cheaper. There aren't any used 2010 white Vino's out there. This color isn't even available in the US.

I can change the color by simply replacing a few panels. The total is $253.19 for parts before tax and shipping. I'm probably never going to switch colors - at least not anytime soon. I'm just curious what it would cost.

Matches

Looks like I'm not the only one going for the matching ensemble. Look at her gloves! I found this photo in my search for the differences between all the Vino 125 models,

XC125V (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010)
YJ125S (2004)
YJ125T (2005)
YJ125Y (2009)

Apparently there's no mechanical differences between the models. I guess Yamaha just differentiates it by year. Not sure why.

Vespa Rant

Though you can tell the build quality of the Vespa's are up to par and it's hard to argue their 64 year history, I just don't get it. I even chose my favorite color in the photo here and the Vespa is still ugly. The gas mileage ain't that great at 50-60mpg compared to the Vino's claimed 96 from the factory. On top of that, the Vespa's are way pricey. It's not just the initial purchase that's costly but also repairs. Metal fender scooter? I can't imagine the cost for parts plus shipping the heavy parts and installation in the event of an incident where a repair needs to be made.

The 2008 Vespa S 150 looks way old school. I don't know who thought of the square headlight, but it looks like it's from a 60's Chevy. The top speed on this puppy is 56mph which is under that of a Vino which is only a 125cc block. The design flaw as pointed out by our guys at Motorcycle USA is a huge problem - chrome on the dash blinding the rider. Assuming the Vespa's look would maintain its expected aesthetic, I was still hoping for something more sporty from something labeled S in it's name.


I guess the idea is don't fix it if it ain't broke and I know Piaggio's not looking to compete w/their Asian counterparts, but still. I'm not sure who'd pay $4,400 (that's probably the value of your mom's car now!) for this thing when you can get a Vino for $2,300 new. That's a $2k or 87% difference!

This makes me remember the time when I was filling up my 1.2 gallons at Chevron when a guy compliments my scooter asking if it was a Vespa. I replied, "Looks like one, but it's a Yamaha and tons cheaper." I still remember when I told him it was only $,1,500 used. I didn't learn until now that the gas mileage on the Vino's also tons better. It also leaves the Vespa behind in performance. Why get a Vespa? No clue.

125cc Scooter Review

I recently came across a few people looking for recommendations on 125cc scooters on Yahoo Answers so I thought I'd do a bit more extensive of a review on how to decide amongst the contenders.

Although the price point of Chinese scooters is attractive at $700 or so, this list will exclude scooters by my fellow brethren. Even though I'm Chinese and I still don't have much confidence in the reliability of made-in-China products. They simply haven't been proven. We're known for being cheap and copying other people at a cost. Furthermore, when it comes to riding something, you want it to be safe and reliable. The Japanese have been known for that for decades. I looked no further.

My list of recommended 125cc scooters includes the following:

Vino 125
Genuine Buddy 125
Zuma 125
Honda PCX

People have had great experiences with the first three of these as shown by users in various forums. I can't speak for the Honda PCX since it's less than 2 months old in the US.and there aren't many owner reviews available. Now for a bit on each.

Vino 125 - All around retro at the best price
It's got the retro look of a Vespa w/o the high cost. It's also a lot less powerful than the Vespa which is okay for low speed urban riding, but rides a scooter on the freeway anyway? The Vino's been out for awhile which has given the manufacturers a chance to fix things that might need improvement over the years. The fact that it's been out for awhile also means that used ones are available on the market. Competition can get steep especially in the winter which makes the Vino 125 my number one pick in terms of price (and of course other reasons and that's why I got one).

The Vino is the only one of the four I've actually driven myself before buying. The price point hooked me in. There was no reason to look for anything else since they either weren't available or had cost 80-100% more.

Genuine Buddy 125 - Speed for a price and made in Asia
Even their owners may not know that they're riding on something sold in the US but made in Taiwan and India. Both these countries have been known for making wannabe Smartcars that would fail any US safety test by a huge margin. Although this is the case, the Buddy 125 as new as it is, has proven it's reliability and performance to the US market. They're everywhere and people seem to like them a lot. The Buddy 125 has a retro look with a modern twist. The handlebar is not exposed. It's covered with a plastic shield which offers a clean look, but far from retro. The rest of the body reminds me of the retro look though. The Buddy though smaller than the Vino in width, is much faster. Same size engine, but the Buddy's quicker off the line. The Buddy is somewhat new to the market so finding a used one is a needle in a haystack which means you can't find one for cheap.

The dealer wouldn't let me test drive one, but he took me as his passenger and this thy flew! I swear we hit 40mph in a few seconds by the time we hit the street light where he showed off the incredible brakes of the Buddy. We stopped on a dime. It may have been the dealer's scooter driving experience, but I'm sure the Buddy's performance had something to do with it.

Zuma 125 - Masculine scooter for the tuners
I got excited about this after getting bored reading the Vino 125 forum threads and discovered that there's a huge following for this scooter by the younger crowd. There are tons of parts for those that like to modify things. If carbon fiber makes you smile and you like the more aggressive sporty look of the Zuma, that's probably a good scooter for you. The Zuma is liquid cooled if that matters to anybody. The wheels are bigger than both other scooters and wider also which makes me think it handles rough roads better. If the Honda PCX is the sportiest of them all, the Zuma finds its way in the middle. The Zuma seems to be the manliest of scooters if there's such a thing. Oh and one more thing. Zuma's can do wheelies! (I've seen Vino's do them too, but I wouldn't recommend it.)

I've never ridden this scooter, but the info's gather from what I've read up on the forums. I believe the Zuma's also lighter than the Vino which is probably a reason why it's faster.

Honda PCX - New sport look scooter
This just came out a few months ago (October I believe), so there will be no used ones available and if there are, I'd be worried that someone was trying to get rid of it so quickly. The PCX however has been available oversees for years. It's only new to the US. Our friends in Thailand have modded these things up like crazy. They already have an established PCX scooter club! What makes the PCX stand out above the rest is looks! It's super sporty. Unlike the other scooters, this ride has to be straddled. It's like the Honda's scooter version of a Yamaha YZF. This ride is physically long, but light enough to move around like a scooter. When I saw it first hand at the San Mateo Motorcycle show, it was easy to take on and off the center stand. It wasn't even an issue. The PCX has cool dash compartments too. The top speed on this thing is almost 2x that of the other scooters. The speedometer has 100mph on it. The PCX may be good as a commuter vehicle, but I'd fear using it for errands since it's so big. Tough to park? I'm not sure how much longer it would be. Does it stick out into traffic when parked perpendicularly at the curb between parallel parked cars? I might be completely wrong and this might be a nonissue, but it's stuck in my head.

The motorcycle show is the only place I saw this live. Though I plan to test ride one within the next week, I haven't ridden one yet and can't speak for its performance from personal experience.

Video

My first video! It took forever, but I finally got it. This was inspired by a fellow Youtuber. Great way to document the scooter. This one 1:41 video took me about 1 hour to film and another 1 plus hours to edit, but it came out pretty well.



This is the video that inspired me to do mine. His was really good.

UPDATED: 11/26/10
I added a fade effect in the transitions between the different scenes. I also edited out some of the music so you can hear the engine sound more clearly.

Mileage Calculation #9 - 76 gasoline (Premium)

(3199 - 3143 )/0.733 gallons = 70mpg


Same mpg as last time. Looks like we have some consistency going this time w/the Premium gas. I'll continue the calculations with Premium for the next couple fillups before switching back to regular for another 5 fillups to see if there's any difference in mpg's.

I still think that there's better performance out of the Vino with Premium fuel.


The best thing is that the gas prices are staying pretty much the same. No fluctuations in Premium. It's been $3.30/gallon for about 2 weeks now.

License plate storage box

It's called the Grifter. Not many stores sell it so I had a hard time finding a good deal on this puppy. Shipped price? $26.90. This is my first convenience accessory. Well deserved from my earnings from ONP.

The Chinese paper company loves me and bought me this! It's basically a plastic locked box that hides behind the license plate. This gives me more space in my underseat compartment for my gear.

Here it is opened. It comes with a lock, two keys, a foam thingy to keep the contents from shaking around, all the installation hardware and a waterproof bag for your registration.

Stealth! You can't even tell is there! It sticks out about an inch from the normal installed location of the license plate, but that's a small price to pay for keeping stuff out of the way. Now I don't have to worry about damaging things in the underseat storage area with my helmet and lock.

So far, I have the following items stored in there: DMV registration, extra sparkplug, extra fuse, flashlight, and a tire gauge - all the stuff I don't use regularly. If this scooter doesn't get sold to someone I know, I'll pull this off and give it to Uncle Victor so he can use it for his Honda Elite 80.

DIY Tutorial - Changing front brakes

I have posted a question in the Scootertime forums on how to change the brakes. According to my poll, people are starting to do this around 5,000 miles. Though I'm not up there yet, I should still be prepared on how to do this so I don't have any downtime on riding my little Vino. The Youtube videos make it seem fairly easy. I'll have to get some more feedback on the work to see if it's something I can myself. So far it doesn't look too difficult.

Motorcycle Show in San Mateo!

My Progressive scooter insurance company sent me a flier with a discount ticket to the show! VIP membership lets me cut the lines (although there was zero line when I got there) and a free calendar!

Look what I saw at the show! My beloved Honda PCX! It's a lot lighter than I imagined. It's so easy to put on and off the center stand! Maybe it's the center of gravity, but it was surprisingly a breeze to do. The bike looks even more amazing in person than on the net. I'm loving it! The white looks amazing too. That'd definitely be the one I would've gotten. The price point, though very reasonable for what it is, is still more than I've budgeted for. No regrets about the Vino 125, but this ride will always be on my mind - as will this next one.



BRP Can-Am! It's a trike! I talked to the dealership owner about this for probably a good 15-20 minutes on the other touring model and finally straddled this cheaper sports model. It goes for $16k! Not bad for a dream ride, eh? 0-60 in 3.6 seconds! The weird thing about these things is that the CHP and DMV doesn't consider it a motorcycle, meaning you don't need an M1 license to drive this thing! Another good thing is that insurance can be had for what the dealer claims to be a rate of less than $700 a year for full coverage!

Looks amazing. Super aggressive and those rims look nice, eh? Though I don't have a picture of it, the touring version has hand warmers for the driver and passenger too! A single brake pedal engages both the front and rear brakes. And now for the face of the beast!

I ran out the door as soon as the dealer told me they had demo rides available outside. But the guy at the registration desk tells me they're out of space! I pushed and pushed, whipping out the dealership owners card as a bargaining tool mentioning that I talked to him about the Can-Am for a good 20 minutes. He wouldn't budge. I could have gone back to the showroom to get clearance, but your mom was waiting for me ready to pick me up and I was pretty hungry and couldn't wait to eat lunch at 2pm.

Kawasaki 250r! This new generation body style looks like it' big brother versions! Everything is super sporty. I remember straddling this thing in 2001 every week during my lunch breaks at Golden Gate Cycles while I worked at my summer internship at the architecture firm down the street. The price has gotten a lot higher though. This thing used to be under 3k from what I remember, but now Kawasaki wants $4,300 for one of these.

Scooter wash

I figured it was time to wash the Vino and gave it a shower today. Hosed it down like a regular car and everything's still working. No paint polish, but I did polish all the chrome parts. Parts of the handlebar were getting rusty, so good thing I did this when I did. The whole underside of the scooter looks clean now too. No more dirt and gunk all around the engine area. Transmission box is clean as ever.

Accident

I'm sitting at Kaju Cafe when I heard a screech and a crash. Two cards collided. I didn't witness the actual collision, but saw one of the cars still moving when I turned my head to look. Pretty scary. I can't help but to think what would have happened if one of those cars was a motorcycle or scooter. It's just freaky and a reminder of being super careful.

This was at a 2-way stop. Although I don't really know, I'm guessing that one person hadn't realized it was a 2-way stop and didn't pay as much attention and BAM! This is the reason why I avoid these types of intersections. I go out of my way to avoid left turns at busy streets and 2-way stops whenever I can.

A prayer goes out to all those motorcyclists/scooterists that weren't so lucky.

A bit about octane

I'm not the only one who's always wondered about the benefits of using a higher octane fuel in an engine that doesn't specifically require it. Are there benefits? Will it hurt the engine to use a higher octane than specified?

This is taken straight from the Yamaha Vino Manual. After my research, I still don't know the answers to the above questions. However, I learned a few technical terms that helps interpret what this stuff means.

R+M/2? What is that?

R = RON (Research Octane Number)
M = MON (Motor Research Number)

There are two types of numbers that "people" use to find the octane number. The formula is just an average of the two numbers. In the US, the number we see on the pump itself is the average whereas in places like Europe, the number on the pump is the MON. Knowing this helps us fairly compare or intelligently discuss octane. So US's 87 octane is the same grade as 92 octane in Europe. The difference is simply b/c the US chooses to use an average of the two numbers rather than the MON number.

US's 87 (R+M/2) octane = 92 ROM octane

So what does that mumbo jumbo mean and why does it matter? Well, it helps to understand what the scooter manual is trying to say. Yamaha is recommending that the Vino is fueled with anything higher than 86 R+M/2 octane (92 ROM) which is basically what we have available here. The US does not offer fuel less than the recommended 86 R+M/2 octane which means we can use anything we see for sale at the pump - 87, 89 and 91 mostly.

So I don't think using premium 91 R+M/2 octane (what we see at the pump) will hurt the engine since Yamaha is saying we can use it if we experience pinging or knocking of the engine. From what my butt can tell though, premium gas does offer a bit more spark off the line.

Mileage Calculation #8 - Shell gasoline (Premium)

(3143 - 3092 )/0.733 gallons = 70mpg

Hmmm, is Premium giving me less gas mileage? Not sure. the 3mpg difference from last time falls within my margin of error so I have no clue if there's really a difference. Hard to tell with less than a gallon of fuel.







I swear the Premium gasoline really is giving me a bit better pull of the line, but I can't say for sure. It could be in my head but I'm almost 70% sure that there's a difference. The cost difference is about $0.07-0.15 so it's pretty much negligible. I'm just concerned with performance and how good or bad it may be for the scooter that specifies Regular Unleaded, meaning 87 octane fuel is just fine.

Mod gone bad

I hadn't really done much, but wanted to see how the rims would look like with the left over reflective red stripes I had laying around from the trike. Red and blue doesn't look good and it looks horrible with the grey. If I were to do anything like this, I'd paint the rims completely black and accent the rims with a white stripe.

Material cost?

1. Sandpaper: I might be able to find laying around for free.
2. Heat resistant spray paint shouldn't cost more than $5.
3. The stripes I can get for $8 shipped from ebay.

Unless I am willing to repaint the rims back to the grey, this mod isn't really reversible and it might not look nearly as good as I'm thinking it could. Very hesitant to do this and plus, there's no money right now for cosmetic upgrades like this. It's worth thinking about for the future though. Another reason I'm hesitant to do this is b/c I'm only holding onto the scooter for another 1-1.5 years. The color scheme might turn off a new buyer and I might not be able to get as much out of it as I'm hoping. We'll see.

Taco Bell anyone?

This is my second time to Taco Bell this week! Too days in a row. I gotta stop this habit. Those coupons are really getting to me! This place closes at 10pm! Not many places open late that offer food for $2! The Double Decker Supreme here comes with a medium drink and a bag of chips - all for $2.16 after tax. Tough to reject on a hungry evening.

Another pic

A buddy of mine

Not really. I just found this random person's scooter while parking to visit the library with Uncle Simon.

I've been keeping up with some craigslist listings and found a Vino 125 asking for only $1,000. That's more than 30% off what I paid! Still glad I got the one I got though. It worked out well and already had the Japanese lights on it.

New Pics

Lucky break

Your mom's car almost got totaled today. I was getting ready to back up into a parallel spot on Geary Blvd when I look into the side mirror and see a white car speeding towards me at full speed (probably 35+ mph). The driver didn't slow down at all and there was no room for him and me in the same lane. Just when I thought he was about to sideswipe me, he swerves around with tires squeaking. I got super lucky and was thankful I wasn't in a scooter.

But then again, the scooter would have had a lot more room for a car alongside it. Just makes me realize how sometimes there's just nothing you can do. Wrong place at the wrong time. Stupid drivers everywhere who aren't paying attention and just don't care enough to while they're driving. So what now?

This experience makes me want to filter through lanes of traffic whenever I can. This will at least protect me from rear enders. This already almost happened to me twice. One lady, again not paying attention, speeds towards me and I can see her in my side mirror. Freaky feeling b/c there wasn't much I could do since I was turning left. In that case, I was ready to just go straight since it wasn't a left turn only lane.

Torque specs

A member from the Vino 125 Yahoo Groups reported that his caliper loosened while riding and jammed up! Luckily he was riding slow and there was no damage to him nor the scooter. I quickly checked mine to confirm it was at the 11 ft/lb spec and it was.

Photoshoot update!

Breaking my own rules

Rule #1: Don't mess with vans.

I knew vans were dangerous b/c they're either driven by a soccer mom with too many things on her mind other than driving or a delivery person too busy with paperwork or goods to realize he just ran a red light.

But I forgot that there's another league of van drivers. Male van drivers who think they're a hot shot. They try to do whatever they can to make up for the fact that they drive a family van. They modify their them with chrome rims no bigger than stock with too big of an offset to look clean and they upgrade every light they have with HID's. The vans already have big blind spots and for an immature person to drive one is dangerous to everyone on the road, let alone a scooter.

One such driver tried to race me through an intersection when the light turned green. He eventually let me cut in, but not by a lot.


LESSONS LEARNED?

1. Don't mess with vans - ever.

2. There's at least a billion reasons why they're dangerous.

3. My scooter can keep up with a car but it isn't faster.

4. I should have stayed behind traffic instead of trying to filter through, especially when I saw the light about to turn green in our favor.

5. Don't rush when I'm on a scooter even though I wanted to get home quickly before my tacos got cold and to make it in time for the episode of Nikita. Nothing's more important than safety. Take it slow.

Riding with Twins

What a great use a tiny too-small-for-a-car spot between driveways. Not too long ago was my first "group" two-some ride. Another friend joined us and he has the same scooter as Uncle Victor! His is in the middle with the American flag on the back.

I'm continuing to forget to turn off the headlight flasher when I park. I very close to writing myself a note and sticking it up near the key ignition to remind myself. I'll give it another couple days.

Mileage Calculation #7 - 76 gasoline

(3092-3024)/0.927 = 73 mpg

Forget me not

I keep forgetting to turn off the LED flashing headlight! It's been at least three times that I'd park the scooter and go about my business only to realize after coming back later that I left the light on. It's still blinking bright when I need it to, so the battery life is pretty good so far. I need to start remembering to turn it off!!!

Mileage Calculation #6 - 76 Shell

Time for yet another calculation.

(3024-2948)/1.123 = 67 mpg

Cheapo Headlight Modulator

So the headlight thingy finally arrived in the mail last night. It's an LED light designed to be strapped to your head to help you work in the dark. I managed to get it on the scooter! So technically this isn't a headlight modulator mod. It's just a blinking LED light mounted underneath the existing headlight in a place that looks clean.

This is how it's supposed to look like when it's done. It would've fit perfectly in the oval shaped opening but I have to mount it higher to get access to the switch. I took the LED light apart to see if I could reroute the switch, but wasn't able. This will have to do.

I used one of the silver horn brackets I had laying around to mount the light to the base of the OEM scooter headlight. The silver bracket is just under 1" wide and about 3" long with a hole on either end. To get this mounted like this, I had to remove a couple pieces to get access to the bronze screw you see here.








I took out the screw that's used to adjust the leveling of the OEM headlight. Here it is being removed.












Here's all the pieces once taken out. There's a screw, nut bracket and spring.

I'm so glad this all worked out. The light was $2.08 from ebay but I already had some credit. Ebay likes to give away money to it's customers so I used the credit and got this light! It took awhile to come in the mail, but it was all worth the wait. This is the best safety mod next to the rear brake light modulator.

My intention as with all mods is to make it look stock. I want it to have as clean of a look as possible so it's as if it came like that straight from the factory. It doesn't stand out at all!







Same thing but at an angle. I like how the contour of the gap aligns with the curve of the light. It's like it was built for it! As an LED light, I'm hoping the three AAA batteries will last awhile. The only way to replace the batteries is to remove the chrome headlight housing. It's only 3 screws, so it's not a big deal anyway.




Here it's quite flush with the opening in the chrome housing. I really would have loved to mount it lower so that there's zero gap, but accessing the light switch would have been a problem. I even considered that using my scooter key to slip into a narrower gap could turn the switch on/off, but I was worried that would be more of a pain than the aesthetic is worth. I might change my mind, but for now, it looks fine.

Getting Horny

I finally installed the new horn. Well, it's a used horn. It's an air horn that I had used on the Rav4, but since I had it laying around, thought I'd give another shot at installing it. I mounted it differently from the original for a couple of reasons:

1. It wouldn't fit with my next mod in the way (headlight modulator)
2. I stripped the screw and wasn't able to get it out. A screw extractor costs $5 at the hardware store nearby. No way! I worked around it and made it all work.

The horn's pretty loud eh? Louder than a stock car horn! This is yet another safety mod I'm glad I did. Again, it was free b/c it was made from parts I already had!

New Replacement Jacket

The Joe Rocket Atomic 3.0 replacement jacket came in the mail today! Size small exactly the same as the one I had previously except this one has all the buttons intact. I hope this one is more durable than the first. I'll be sending out my old damaged one Wednesday to New Enough. I still can't believe they were nice enough to not only replace the jacket, but send me a new one while I hold onto the old one!

Most places would either tell me:

1. It's not our fault. Contact the manufacturer directly.
2. Insist that I send back the messed up one, wait for them to process and inspect it before deciding whether or not to send me a new replacement.

Two thumbs up for New Enough. Customer service is excellent.

Removed stickers

I'm sure these stickers are important, but they don't look good. I've read them all and perfectly understand the warnings. They gotta go.

The stickers unfortunately are super brittle. It doesn't come off in one piece. Took me at least 20 minutes just to get these things off! The other larger stickers took even longer and I scratched it up big time while doing it. Figuring there's gotta be a better way, I reached for a hair drier to hopefully wear down the glue and soften things up.



It worked! After heating the larger stickers up, they came off so much more easily. Your mom even helped take it off for me!!!

Giants Win World Series!

First time since 1954!

One thing I would never ever do? Purposely go down to AT&T Park to go through traffic and see all the crazies. But things are way different with the scooter. Headed straight there after dinner to check out the chaos. Saw tons of it.

I filtered through the traffic but the dangerous part was that people would drive with their car doors open!!!! Yes, even the drivers! It was all stop and go traffic though with cars going 5 MPG at the fastest along Embarcadero. Low rider cars with pumped up stereos sitting on 22"'s stopped at an angle in the middle of a two lane street, hopped up on their car's roofs and started dancing! It was nuts. I couldn't get my camera out in time, but pulled over later and took some videos.

I wasn't able to get the best of the footage, but manged to get a glimpse of some fanatics. Looks like these folks kept their Halloween costumes with them. There were so many people out tonight in SF even though the Giants won in Texas. Streets were closed, cops were everywhere and even Muni took detours to avoid all the traffic.

It was like this within a 3 block radius of the Park. Constant honking, yelling, screaming and kids running through the streets high-fiving random strangers - me included. Traffic was insane but no one was upset at anyone. It was a bit touching seeing the community get together like this. All races and ages of people were really into celebrating the Giant's win. You'd literally see strangers get out of their cars approaching other vehicles smiling and high-fiving all night long. Smelled a bit of pot and saw quite a few drinkers in their cars though. All in all a good night.

This was the parade a few days later! Some definite hardcore fans showed up. Lots of people skipped work to attend. Estimated 1 million people showed up! That's ridiculous! The first place we showed up to watch was packed full of people. Even MUNI buses and delivery trucks got stuck! It's pretty cool that the scooter allowed me to attend this. There's no other way I would have come. It would take too long on a bus. No one would come with me and driving a car looking for parking would be insane if not impossible.

Even with a scooter it took us 1 hour to find a place to watch the parade from a good spot. Most of the streets were so packed full of people there was no way to see anything. Here's a handful of a few of the million people that showed up. Notice the guy with face paint who climbed up on the pole waving a flag. We're all looking at the cable car crossing onto Market Street. The best view was from there. Saw a couple players! Two per cable car. Some of the floats were being pulled by UPS trucks! As Uncle Victor and I walked back to our scooters to leave after the event, I saw at least two people pee on the street. One guy peed on a tree and the other on a car! Yuck. Yes, that means he was facing the street!

Photoshoot - more pics