Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Scooters of Asia

Just came back from a trip to the east not long ago and got a chance to check out some of the local rides.













Sunday, October 14, 2012

Battery Dies

I purposely drive home to pick up my scooter to run an errand only to find that the rear light was on! I had left the key in the ignition with all power running for the past 4 hours! Ugh, I attempt to turn the engine over halfway anticipating that it won't start. To my expectation, it didn't. 

Great, that means I gotta drive the car. Fuel ain't cheap at $4.95/gallon.

I had read awhile ago when I first got the Vino 125 that you can't jumpstart a scooter with a car safely. My friend has done it on occasion, but I keep hearing that jumping a tiny bike with a big automobile could cause serious damage to the bike. Safety also becomes a concern. 

After calling up my buddy with a battery tender hoping to borrow it only to find out he's out of the State, I research a bit online and find some good news. 

Others had shared the same concern about jumping a scooter with a car, but the way to do it safely is to do it without turning the car on. Hmmm, typically the donor car is running as it's hooked up to whatever vehicle is being jumped. Not the case with jumping a scooter apparently. 

After further researching, I found out the simplest solution. But would it work? The emergency kickstart. I didn't think this would work b/c my logic says if there's no juice, there's no juice. The kickstarter would only work if there was some sort of mechanical glitch. 

And last time I tried it for fun, it didn't turn the engine over even on a perfectly good battery. 

Problem? I hadn't engaged the brake which is required for the engine to turn over. Having read this reminder online, I ran downstairs with my laptop to give it a try. Pulled the bike on it's center stand, pulled the kickstarter peg out, engaged the brake and stepped down. 

Nothing. 

Stepped down a second time. 

Bingo! It worked! The engine started!!! Awesome! Too bad I did this the next day and wasn't able to ride the scoot to run my errands, but this new knowledge is still saving me from having to borrow the battery tender. The kickstarter officially works and now I know how to use it. If you're reading this, you do too. 

So next time either one of us leave the key in the ignition at position two with all the electronics running only to return later to find out there's no juice in the battery, use the kickstarter! Awesome!

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Selling Point

With gas prices reaching skyrocket prices, it's probably a great time to sell. The thought of parting with my scoot though is a bit depressing. It's done so well for me. Parking has been awesome. Negotiating through traffic has been a plus. The time it's saved me has bee priceless. Leaving all that to go back to a car is just plain sad. 

The scoot will most likely be on the market next month. That's only a few weeks away!

Friday, September 7, 2012

No Pee Pee

I almost learned the hard way. 

Never ride a scooter if you gotta go pee. I downed 3 glasses of water over dinner, used the restroom once and figured I'd wait until I got home to go again even though I had to go again before I left. Bad move. 

The road vibrations make it unbearable, not to mention unsafe. Having to think about not drenching the scoot on a hot dry day is way too much to think about when you have road hazards to avoid. I'm hitting up the restroom one last time before I ride home next time. That's for certain.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Found this on the Corolla forums. Apparently it worked for the owner, so I figured maybe it'll work for me too. I vaguely remember having that eyelet connector thingy somewhere downstairs. Found it! I even had one last quick splice left! 

Tried it and nada. Didn't work either. Man, I'm running out of ideas soon. I'm keeping track of everything I've tried obviously through the blog but I'm also crossing out the ones on my "Options List" post. I guess I'll just be waiting for my Error Code Eliminators. It'll be a couple weeks.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Big Mamma

I just came back from the garage after installing the Big Mamma. That's what I'm calling the fact 4700µF 35v capacitor. Although I'm happy to report that the rattling went away and so did the flickering, the sad part is that the light didn't turn on at all! 

One weird thing about the smaller 1000µF 35v capacitor is that I noticed the light would get really bright just before I turned it off, but only for a split second. At the last blink before shutoff, it's way brighter for that millisecond that it is when it's flickering when on the on mode. 

I have no clue what all this means. Perhaps I need a capacitor larger than 1000µF 35w but smaller than 4700µF 35v?

There's only a 2200µF 35v and a 3300µF. Is that my only hope? I've already spent about $12 or so on capacitors. I'm not thinking of buying any more. I've already ordered the error eliminators the other day. It won't be here 'til 8/17 probably. That gives me a stretch time to figure out any other options. We'll see. We'll see. Not giving up yet. 

Understanding the DRL Issue

I've been doing what everyone says to do online about the flickering lights, but it wasn't until just recently that I've gotten so much info on this that I'm actually starting to understand what's going on and why. 

Having the relay harness is recommended for systems that don't get enough voltage to power the HID's. The relay harness gets power straight from the battery and provides that needed power. That's not my issue though, so the relay harness wouldn't really help. 

My problem is more similar to the daytime running lights setup that flicker people have. Although the relay harness provides constant higher voltage directly from the battery, that doesn't change the fact that the signal coming into the system is still pulsating as like most DRL systems. 

I'm thinking outloud here, but I think my capacitor still wasn't big enough and wasn't covering the gap in the pulsating signal. The idea behind the capacitor is that it stores enough of the energy and discharges it during the gaps. I'm guessing the smaller capacitors I've been using aren't covering enough of the gaps. Or at least that's my understanding. 

I just came back from buying a whopping 4700µF 35w capacitor so maybe that mother will take care of the problem. Crossing my fingers. Gotta get dinner now.

Run over a Relay

I didn't really run over a relay. I wasn't angry enough for that. Although I did almost run over a pedestrian - a stupid one I might add. I was going up to Oreilly's Auto Parts on one of the main stretches when a woman decides she wants to walk right in front of me in the middle of the block - close enough that I could smell her bad breath. For her that was about 2 car lengths or less. 

Yes, the evil part of me decided to wait til then before giving her a honk she'll never forget. That air horn comes in handy. I've always wanted to use it on an unsuspecting pedestrian just to see their reaction. Since I first installed it years ago, no pedestrian has ever deserved to hear it until now. 

HOOOOONNNNKKK! 

She jump probably 3" off the ground and turned around to see me. "Sorry," she whispered. By then, I could really taste her breath. Yuck!

With all kidding aside, it's really probably best that pedestrians don't jaywalk. And if they do, jaywalker should have at least the courtesy if not the for the security of their own life to look both ways before crossing. Duh, we learned that in Kindergarten. Why can't people just stop being so damn selfish and entitled and just start following the rules of the road? 

Bigger is Better?

This thing is gimungous and it's not even the 4700µF 35v one. It's just a 1000µF capacitor. The 4700uf one was huuuuuge. It was almost the size of a C battery. Crazy.






Some guy put one on his Mazda 3 and boy is it big! 

Here's the comparison. The large one I picked up from Radioshack this morning cost me $1.99 plus tax, the most expensive one of them all.

And so did it work??? I turned the engine over and the buzzing of the relay continued. It buzzed much less though. Seemed like the steroids was wearing off. I installed it with the polarity going the opposite direction that the first one exploded. Figured the popping of the last capacitor was enough to convince me that the blue is actually positive making the white wire negative. Not the other way around. So what next? 

Friday, August 3, 2012

More Options

I don't have much choice out there, but I've only got two choices from what I've been reading:
  1. Hook up a switch. Something than can handle 0.3amps is what I vaguely remember reading. Oreilly's should be able to help.
  2. Maybe the guy in the Youtube video meant 4700uf 35v capacitor - not 470uf 35v capacitor. I was reading this forum and a guy used 4700uf 25v on his car for a pair of HID's and it worked! http://www.hyundai-forums.com/224-tucson-ix35-lm-models/138018-hid-harnesss-relay-buzzing-sound-2.html. If this is really the solution, this would be the third one I buy! I might actually buy two instead I pop another one. I'm still not sure was the polarity is on the wires. I'll call up DDM Tuning to let me know. In the meantime, I'm going to order a voltmeter which I can use on other projects.
  3. Swap the polarity. At first I thought if the polarity was wrong, it wouldn't turn on at all. But I'm reading reports that reversing the polarity on a flickering system sometimes does the trick. Hmmm. I'm trying that now.......wait, I'm reading more and my first hunch was right. Only change the polarity if the light doesn't fire up.
  4. Replace the relay with a 60amp one.
  5. DRL relay or other method. I keep ignoring the day time running lights threads in various forums, but it only just occurred to me now that technically the scooter does have daytime running lights since they cannot be turned off w/o turning off the scoot's engine. Hmmmm.
  6. I just read that maybe my capacitor is in the wrong place. Some say it can go directly on the relay and connect the negative to the positive like I have. Others say to do it in line of the relay meaning wires have to be tapped.  
  7. Add a ground wire to the negative wire of the HID kit going into the stock headlight connector like this guy: http://corolla9.com/index.php?/topic/86-diy-disable-the-annoying-drl-flicker-with-hids/
After about 4 hours of research I'm convinced that the scooter in fact does act like daytime running lights. Cars with this feature have the same problem with the flickering. This guy explains it very well with his diagrams:

http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=120616.0

Looks like I'll be back to Radioshack yet again. This time I'm getting 4700uf 35v ones (one for backup).

More Capacitors

Rushed to Radioshack today to pick up more capacitors. I got one of the same ones I got yesterday and also picked up a 470µF 35v one in case it didn't work.

Since I read that capacitors blow up b/c they're installed with the incorrect polarity, I tried putting this new one in the opposite direction. Not wanting to end in a violent fate like the last, I turned the engine off after realizing it didn't work. The bulb was still flickering and the relay was still buzzing. 

Being that this is I think the fourth time I've taken the scoot apart, this image looks familiar. Figured I'd document it for y'all. It actually only requires removing 4 screws: 2 at the battery cover and 2 that secure the headlight cover. 

Since it didn't work with the opposite polarity either, I brought out the big kahunas. This one's pretty monstrous relative to the other two.

After a deep breath, I inserted it and tried again. Didn't work either. Ugh, one more chance. Reverse the polarity. 

And so I did. And guess what? Nothing happened but more buzzing and more flickering. Same as before. My last hope? Perhaps some error code eliminators will work. For now, I got nothin'.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Solutions to HID?

The capacitor didn't work. It exploded. Pop! and all this fuzzy stuff came out of it. Ugh.

Maybe I'm supposed to hook up the negative wire to ground instead of the negative pole of the battery? or not.

Read some more stuff online:
Just a warning, if your lights only come on when the motor is running, they probably are running AC directly from the stator and the relay provided will only work with DC. You'll either have to add a rectifier (or two, if you want hi/low) or wire up a switch to fire the relay from the DC out of the bike's rectifier. 
---

Another possible solution, as Charger RT 2010 noted, is to hook up the ECE's between the relay harness and the factory harness. The ECE's are basically just capacitors anyway. The reason the buzzing occurs even with the ECE's connected directly to the ballasts is that the relay is still receiving the pulse. Putting the ECE's in the path of the pulse and having them receive the pulse before the relay may solve the issue. I haven't tried this solution myself but the logic is sound.

I am running the DDM tuning 35W kit with ECE's and Relay Harness and now the capacitor. I guess this may seem "overkill" but I'd rather have the harness to provide the initial ignition power as opposed to straining the stock wiring. The Error Code Eliminators take care of any flickering issues due to computer controlled headlights detecting a lower power draw on the circuit and thinking a bulb is out. Hope this clears things up for everybody. 

HID Testing

After that year of research and consideration before finally going forward with the HID's, I received the kit, installed it and got nothing but a flickering bulb. Perhaps it was wishful thinking that made me surprised that it didn't work out of the box. I had read up that a capacitor may be needed, but having failed in my last attempt to solder something, I had hoped it wouldn't be required.

 Here's the kit laid out on saddle. From far left is the relay harness, bulb, then ballast. The H4 bulb does come with a shield. Having done some research, I was surprised to learn that the shield is supposed to mount on the bottom - not the top. Yes, that makes the bulb bare on top when installed. Apparently this is the way it's designed and provides less glare after shining off the stock reflector.


 The 9v battery of course doesn't come with the kit and has nothing to do with anything other than to give an idea of exactly how small the ballast really is. I knew ballasts came thin these days, but boy is this thing puny! Pretty cool. I love how there aren't any stickers on it. This would've been perfect for the kits I've put on my cars in the past. Black = lot less visible and looks stock in the engine bay.



Not only did the bulb flicker, but the relay was vibrating like crazy! Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. It was way loud! After some Googling, I found this post from a fellow member at: http://www.ramforumz.com/showthread.php?t=79449 that explained what was going on and what needed to be done very well.

It's not the relay, it's the trucks electrical system. Our trucks have a pulse modulated electrical signal. What is happening is the computer is sending out a electrical signal that looks more like a AC sine wave compared to a DC sine wave.

Here is the difference between the 2 waves:


http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/acdc.htm


What this is doing is causing your relay to turn off and on at a very rapid rate causing a Buzz or chatter. The relay requires a constant 12v and with the pulses the coil in the relay opens and closes.


Only real way to solve this issue is to install the capacitors so they can store extra current and keep a constant 12v going to the relay to keep it closed!

Not wanting to solder anything, I was quite disappointed that a capacitor would indeed be required. My 2 hours of research got me some good info on how to install the capacitor w/o soldering.


Basically the 100 µF 35V capacitor goes straight into the relay and the plug thingy just plugs right into it. Knowing from experience that installing electronics with the incorrect polarity can break things, I searched a bit more and found out how to tell the difference btw the positive/negative sides of the capacitor.



  • It should be marked. Duh, + or - sign on either end. 
  • Sometimes there's an arrow, but different manufacturers will use the arrow pointing towards positive while others will do the complete opposite and point it towards the negative side. How dumb. 
  • The real way to tell is that one wire coming out of the capacitor will be longer than the other. The longer one is the positive end. 
So what next? Off to Radioshack I go after work and hopefully after $1.49 out of pocket, I can give this thing another go this evening and everything'll be good. Crossing my fingers hoping this will be the easy fix.

If it works?

I'll test it over a few rides to be sure the battery doesn't die out and ensure the headlight stays on with no mishaps. And if all successful? Projector headlight retrofit will be next!

Oooo, I haven't been this excited since my carbon fiber rear diffuser project on my car. Yummy. Can't wait.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Projector is Back

It's been a couple years since I explored the projector retrofit. I wanted to see what's new on the market and look what I found! 

Built-in projectors! Wow! I was cool until I found out the pricetag on this puppy. Guess! Hahaha, $1,900. Yup, that's right. Nuts huh? So I guess that's not an option. I still need to eventually sell this scoot with the cool conversion and I'll never get my money back with a mod priced like that. Crazy. Can't see how manufacturers would actually expect to sell any of those. 

I found it on a forum that mods the Atom Mugen - a $190,000 roadster. Even those owners don't buy headlights like this. Crazy. 

I hate to give away my cool plans before it comes into fruition, but it's nice to dream a little. It'll be interesting to see if any of this even works out. Wondering already if the end product will look anything like what I have in mind. If the HID's don't work, I probably won't go much further in the headlight mod and it'll just end there. Not sure. It might be worth trying out this halo with regular halogens. It might look a bit funny though. Never seen a halo w/o a projector. The light reflecting from a halogen would flood the halo, right?

What's making me shy away from this even though it looks pretty cool is the double halo effect. If I end up upgrading it to a projector, I'd want one with a halo. A projector alone just looks funny. But at the same time, a halo projector with a larger halo around it would be so redundant. Not really a fan of that. I guess I could always leave the large halo ring off. But in that case, I may as well save some money but getting a non-halo reflector housing to start with. Ugh. Definitely gotta think more about this.

It's tough b/c I'll have to have the projector in hand before even knowing whether or not it will fit in the halogen reflector. Chances are I'm getting it from ebay, so there's no returns. Don't really want to waste $55-65 if it ends up not work - expensive lesson. 

I'm afraid if this project works out, I may not want to ever sell the scoot! It'll be the first published Vino 125 with a halo projector headlight! Now one of you reading this is going to beat me to it, huh?

HID's Here I Come!

I took the plunge. After hours of research over the past year, I finally decided to go ahead and do it. I'm getting HID headlights. I've read about all the issues people have had with Ruckuses and Vino's and I think I've figured it out. As long as I have a relay to the battery, I think I'm good. 


WHERE TO BUY: 
The price of HID's have dropped a ridiculous amount in the past years. I had purchased a used hi/low kit for my Toyota Rav4 and that cost me $250. Nowadays they're way cheaper and some can be had for as low as $25 shipped on ebay if I remember my research correctly. Since there's a high chance that the kit won't work on the scoot due to the power consumption at startup in lighting up the ballast, I wanted to get something that's at least been tried and talked about on the forums. Price of course was also an issue. I finally decided on DDM Tuning.

WHICH KIT?
Of my choices btw the high/low kit and the just low beam kit, I took the latter. The question was whether I should: 
  1. Purchase the hi/low kit with the include harness
  2. Purchase the low beam only kit w/o no harness and buy a relay harness separately. 
I called DDM Tuning to clarify if the harness included with the hi/low kit is the same as the one sold separately. They're not. I still wasn't able to clarify if the one that came with the hi/low kit was a relay harness at all or just a regular harness for upgrading wiring. 

I ended up getting the low beam only kit. This provides two advantages:
  1. It's more likely to work since I know for sure the harness I bought separately is a relay one. 
  2. I can hook this up to my high beam, making my low beam switch act as an off switch for the headlight.
An issue people were having getting the HID's to work on a scoot is that it takes too much power to light up the ballast while starting the vehicle. Since I'm using the hi/low beam switch as a on/off switch, I can start the scoot w/o the headlight automatically turning on (just turn on the engine while the headlight is in the "off'"/low beam"position).

This is all theory until I can install it. DDM Tuning is based in San Diego, so it shouldn't take long for my package to arrive. I'm hoping to have this up and running sometime next week. Then we'll see if any of the three risks occur: 
  1. HID doesn't light up at all. 
  2. HID lights up but flickers and doesn't stay on. 
  3. HID stays on long enough for me to get going but uses up too much battery and my scoot dies. 
 Not sure which I'd prefer, but all three cases would require a different response. Hopefully I'll never have to get there. Wish me luck b/c if this works, I can start the projector headlight conversion! First published one of it's kind on a Vino 125!!!

Saturday, July 7, 2012

LED Signal Lights!

I don't know why I nor anyone has thought of this sooner. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I've never seen this idea done before. What's the idea? 

Hook up amber colored LED light strips to the underside of the scoot (or car) and hook them up to your turn signal wires. The idea is to have a glow of orange on the side of the ride when the turn signal is engaged. It makes the scoot more visible from the side and hopeful improves visibility from the rear as well. 

Materials and tools are both pretty simple. 
  • LED light strips from ebay (a pair for $9) 
  • Quick splice connectors ($2.49 + tax)
  • Philips screw driver 
  • Ratchet set (to remove rear trunk rack) 

Although you could splice the wires visible from underneath the scoot's side panels, it's easier to work with if you remove the side panels all together. To get access to the top philips screw, you have to remove the rear rack using the ratchet set. 

The LED strips have a gold wire (positive) and silver wire (negative). As long as they're spliced positive to positive (gold to grey/green), you're good to go. Do it the other way around and there's a chance the LED's will get busted and never work again. Make sure the polarity is correct. 

Step 0: Remove the rubber foot plate to get access to the battery and remove the positive terminal. We want to be safe here.
Step 1: Remove the trunk rack (to get access to the screw that holds the plastic panels).
Step 2: Remove the plastic panels (there are three philips screws holding it in place)

Step 3: Identify the positive and negative wires. 

This is a photo f the right side of the scoot. 
Green wire = Positive
Black wire = Negative. 

Left side of the scoot has different colored wires. Just know the colored one is the positive one. 
Grey wire = Positive
Black wire = Negative.

Step 4: Using the quick splice or whatever method you want, splice the positive LED wire to the positive signal wire. Do the same with the negative. 

Step 5: Reconnect the positive end of the battery terminal, put the key in and test the turn signal.

Step 6: Decide where you want to mount the LED strips. Clean the area well and tape it on using the included 3M tape that's on the back of the LED strips. I was testing different locations and figured under the seat might be a good place. I don't get the glow effect on the ground that I originally wanted, but it looks cool and is very visible from the rear. 

I'm still waiting for the sun to go down so I can get a better idea of how effective it would be in lighting up the ground. Updates to follow after sunset.

Step 7: Put the panels back on. 

Step 8: Show it off at night.

Step 9: Go online and tell me how it went. 

UPDATE: 12:37am
I decided not to mount it under the seat like in the pic above. The white color of the LED's when not turned on is an eyesore. I was hoping to find something in black. No luck. If I'm ever able to find an amber lit black strip, I'll put them back there.

For the time being, I placed the LED's at the bottom of the side fender. It lights up the engine components on both sides. It lights up the ground fairly well, but not as good as the more expensive LED strips. I probably should've gotten those instead of the cheapo $9 ones. Being that the scoot's going up for sale soon, I figure I didn't want to spend too much more money on this.

Another safety mod completed!
 

Good vs Evil

What keeps me going is that every time I get convinced that there's more evil in the world, so far someone nice shows up and reminds me that it ain't all bad. The actions of strangers speak louder than most. 

I'm riding down Lincoln and some fool coming off a cross street decides he wants to block one and a half lanes and just sit there. I obviously slow down enough to be cautious, but not enough so that if he sees me, he thinks I'm giving him way. It's a bit of a gamble, so I keep my fingers on both brake levers. 

I manage to continue in my lane with the right of way. Just before I pass, he throws his hands up as if I did something wrong. Was I really supposed to stop on a main road with him already impeding on his stop sign? Idiot. 

On the flip side yesterday afternoon after I got gas and was entering traffic, I'm waiting for traffic to go through so I can get on the main stretch. A fellow's already stopped at a red light half way down the block as the light turns green, he waves me to go on by.....with a smile I might add! 

In the past 5-7 years, I've noticed a dramatic decrease in drivers whom you let cut in front of you give a thank you wave. This thank-you wave shows you acknowledge that the other person didn't have to let you go, but chose to out of pure courtesy. Don't see that anymore. It's no longer 1:7 cars that do it. It's now 1:50! Huge stretch. Big changes for the worse in the past half decade. So sad. 

On another non scooter related incident: 

I'm sitting a cafe pretty much by myself and notice a guy come in with a pretty cool laptop. It's one of the new Asus brands. The model looks like an attempt to be a Macbook air. I say in a loud enough voice so he can hear me a few feet away, "How do you like your laptop?" 

He hesitates and doesn't look at me at first. I knew I spoke loud enough for him to hear me and the volume was such that it was obvious I wasn't talking to anyone closer to me. As if reluctant, he looks over at me and murmurs, "Fine" and looks away. No smiles. No nothing. Just a jerk attitude and that's it. 

Maybe my standards for people are just too high. Or their performance is just too low. Luckily I met a guy earlier in the cafe that was much more decent of a guy. 

I'll still continue to talk to random people on the offchance that they might be nice people. I refuse to let one guy ruin it for the rest.

Back to scooter talk.

I'm stopped at an intersection, waiting to turn left. It's a four lane road with two lanes coming towards me. Motorists coming my way have right of way and should continue. One guy stops and pretty much encourages me to go. I'm not dumb enough to fall for it knowing that cars coming up behind in the adjacent lane could (and probably would) easily speed by and not stop as the other guy did and totally run me over.

So to the fellow motorists out there, go when you're supposed to go. Don't go when you're not. If you stop when you're not supposed to, it confuses people and bad things can happen. I've seen it before where motorists try to be the good buy and stop for pedestrians who should be waiting for a gap. They encourage the pedestrian to walk and the drivers coming up behind in the lane alongside the stopped driver has no clue there's a pedestrian, doesn't hesitate to wonder why a car is stopped and just speeds pass through. I've seen a couple occasions where a pedestrian almost gets hit. 

Even nice people cause trouble.

I always insist that people go when they have right of way. If they go first, they can't run me over.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Ruckus in My Life

I think I'm missing a Ruckus in my life. If I had a bit more money to dish and was under different circumstances when I got a scoot, I would've considered a lot more strongly in getting this Civic of scoots. The modability is attractive and fits my interest no doubt. 

With something like that it'd take me quite awhile to get it to a point where I'd be completely satisfied with my work of art. Unfortunately now I'm in the selling phase of the scoot and need to let her go. Scoots and kids don't mix - not yet anyway. I probably won't be on two-wheeld gas powered motor vehicles on public roads until much much later. Booo. 

This is the one that made me fall in love. If the owner's looking at this, I'd be happy to give you credit for your work and photo. Just let me know and I'll put a blurp in here for ya.
Never thought I'd like yellow since it shouts, "Taxi!" But this one's looking nice! Loving the oversized wheels of these things. Man, I want a white one! I've been secretly thinking of trading my Vino for either a stock Ruckus with cash or a modded one and I'd pay cash. So tempting.

July 4th

What I miss most when I say good-bye to the scooter is being able to go places where you wouldn't normally go. First was the Giants Parade. Next? July 4th! Just thinking about not being able to attend these events w/o the headaches of owning a car gives me the shivers.

The three worst things about driving are all avoided by riding a scoot: 
  1. Traffic 
  2. Parking
  3. Gas prices

Who wants to volunteer going into traffic? If it wasn't for a scooter, I wouldn't have found this! After looking up on the net where the best places are to view the fireworks, I picked one and rode straight there. On my way though, I found a bunch of traffic heading in a different direction. Not being in too much of a hurry, I followed the crowd only to see them make a circle b/c they couldn't find parking. 

Saw lots of people though. Not sure where they were going. Figured I'd just park and figure it out later. There were enough people that even parking a scooter wasn't so easy! Easy, but just not as easy as usual. I was trying to avoid boxing in a car parked parallel that already had a scooter either in front of it or behind it. Spent about a minute avoiding the handicapped zone. 

Wondering where people were going, I followed. They had disappeared and I didn't see any crowds - until I approached the dropoff and looked down the hill. 

50 people. Wait, no! 100 people. I stood there overlooking the ocean at one of the piers - not even sur where I was. I could see fireworks, but it was small and fairly far away. It was still early and fireworks wasn't really supposed to have started yet. 

Bang. Bang. Bang. 

The first few fly into the air to my right. The crowd follows, just realizing that they too were looking in the wrong area. I guess I wasn't the only newbie. As I follow the fireworks, trying to get closer, i realized there were tons more people than I thought. There were easily 1,000 people there. 

We were so close that babies were crying and we could see the sky filled with smoke at times. The fireworks were right over our heads! These photos were taken after I left the front line and walked back up the hill, hoping to avoid the huge throng of people leaving once the event was over. I stood at the top furthest from everyone else and still got this shot! 

For the majority of the show, the fireworks were almost overhead! I could see fireworks coming out of the boat!!! The spot was so good that I actually could see 3 areas of firworks at one time and was able to hear a fourth one in the distance.

The last time I saw 3 locations simultaneously was when my grandmother was in the hospital and her corner patient room on the top level overlooked the Bay. Ever since then, I wanted to see it again. 15 or so years later, here I was - except much closer. 

Mission accomplished.


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Parking is awesome!

I just love this thing! 70mpg and free easy parking wherever I go. Who could ask for more? Today was the ALC 11 - the fundraiser bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. 2,500 riders + 500 volunteers + family and friends seeing off their fellow people. Needless to say, there's tons of people and not much parking. 

The scooter was my awesome solution. I love it. Rode right up to the front, parked btw cars and strolled on in. No delay. I got there probably 10 minutes before the event started. I would've been just on time or a few minutes late had I taken the car. Plus I'd be out at least a buck in gas making my commute there. But at least I'd have warm hands! 

I forgot to bring the gloves this morning and at 5:30am, it definitely gets chilly here in the Bay.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Sand Sucks

Sand is worse than I thought. With the high 40+mph winds the past week, there were some road closures due to sand getting all over the lanes. There was one part where the sand was covering parts of the intersection and I had no real choice but to go through it on the scoot. 

San was probably 2.5-3" deep. Going over it was NOT a good idea. I should've changed lanes or found a different route. The scoot did slip and slide like a bicycle would've. Luckily nothing major happened and I expected the poor traction. 

If I had hit that at night, it might've been a different story. So far so good. No mishaps as far as sand goes.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Sand Man

I wondered what it would be like scootering in the sand. There was a pile of it by the beach in the intersection as I was busting my u-turn. Just before going over it, I had anticipated a little slip and slide. And slip and slide it did! I was cautious enough that nothing horrible happened, but I could definitely feel the instability beneath me. 

Lesson learned? Sand is more slippery than water!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

OMG, It's Windy!

Boy, wind almost feels like rain! A bit unstable, but I'm sure more stable than my friend's scoots. This Vino 125 rocks! Definitely gotta ride safer in both rain and wind though. Not quite like drifting from lane to lane, but more like the wheels just feel a bit more slippery and riding in a straight line is that much more difficult.

To get more aerodynmic, I scooted my butt back and hunched forward. Not sure if it actually did any good, but it felt better!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

OMG, It's Raining!

It was sprinkling when I left the house, but I figured it wasn't bad enough to have to avoid taking the scoot. I took it out only to here these words as I got out of class,

"Did you bring an umbrella?"
"It's raining???"

Uh oh. I guess the guy didn't notice my motorcycle jacket. It's not like I'd be using an umbrella for much more than the brief walk to the bike. I got out there and it was sprinkling a bit heavier. It was far from completely pouring, but wet enough that my visor didn't last more than 2 seconds w/o getting drips all over it.

I packed my laptop in the seat and off I went. The tires worked surprisingly well!

...and so I thought! Though I had been warned by my buddy David that scoot tires and Muni tracks don't mix, I didn't think much of it when I road over them. To my shock and awe, the tire slipped. Yup. I quickly changed back to the non-track lanes and continued on my way.

Luckily there weren't that many cars out. The whole time I was thinking how stupid I was to take the scooter that evening. Rain. Rain and more rain. The front of my pants was drenched before I got home.

Before that, I braked hard to a stop sign just to test the brakes in the rain. Not too bad except that I didn't stop in a straight line. The bike swerved to the side and freaked me out a bit. It's a bit ironic that the worst experience I had on the scooter going less than 5 mph and didn't involve any other vehicles around me.

I learned my lesson quickly and continued riding super safe - avoiding the brakes as much as I could.

Then came the chore of wiping the thing down. Didn't want any rust, but I had to visit my grandfather to pick up some mail. As soon as I got back, I wiped that thing down and felt greatfull that I made it home safe.

No more riding in risky weather. It's either sun or it's none.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Comfort At Last

Awkward moment last night. I put on my jacket and it felt a bit more comfortable. I turned my head to check for cars and it felt that much more natural. I steered into the next lane and doing so felt easier. The scooter's finally an extension of myself!

Riding felt super natural. Although I was obviously paying close attention to the roads and my surroundings, riding felt like second nature. The difference in feeling from the previous times I rode was ridiculously noticeable. It almost felt as if last night was the day my real journey of scootering would begin.

Just so sad that I have to see it go. Scootering's coming to an end as the Vino 125 hits the open market for a sale. Actually, a friend of mine may pick it up. I know whomever it ends up going to will have a blast. Missing it already.

Monday, February 13, 2012

First Group Ride

It's technically not a group if there's only two people, right? We had three on this one. After meeting up at my house we headed off to the Lake. The first stop to see my dream house! Love it. Next was at the shooting range - just to watch. Every 10 seconds or so we saw skeets fly through the sky followed by a series of "bang!"

I'll have to look up the standard hand signals b/c all I knew how to do was signal way ahead of time and gesture to slow down before pulling over.

Winging it isn't always the safest path. I pulled over fairly quickly shortly after getting onto a higher speed limit road (still within the capability of the 80cc Honda Elite scooter one of us was riding). My worry about my friend on the Kawasaki 250 R was the opposite. With twice the engine size as my Yamaha Vino 125, I was worried he'd speed by too quickly to notice the two of us had stopped. That sorta happened. He had to loop back a bit to get to the next stop which was a place for a photo op. Boy, cell phones these days take some awesome pics! We used theirs b/c mine can hang with the rest of them. The LG Versa might've been cool when it was in the Transformers movie, but it's museum material now.

http://www.bestbeginnermotorcycles.com/motorcycle-hand-signals

We finished off the day with some $1.08 soy milk. Nice and hot for that chilly afternoon. It started to sprinkle by the time we got back on to head home. Wishing for better weather next time.