Tag Archives: Scooters

4/17/2009 — Today I succeeded where I mostly failed yesterday: I got pleasantly and completely lost. A few TWAAM episodes ago, one of their intrepid panelists recommended County Road 40 in the southwest metro. After some rather boring and un-fun highway miles on what turned out to be the wrong road, I finally intersected CR-40 and was not disappointed. It’s a fantastic 2-lane, winding, lazy road with a 55 mph limit and simply immaculate road …

4/16/2009 — The weather today was simply gorgeous, so I geared up, put in my ear plugs, and decided to get lost in the west metro. Unfortunately, not far up the road my infamous wobble returned and remained for the duration of the ride. It came and went here and there, but was pretty consistent. On the upside, I felt a lot better on the bike in terms of leaning and cornering. I think I finally got my feel back. I …

4/14/2009 — For the most part, I’ve been able to treat my lack of employment as a much needed vacation. Most days I scour the net for opportunities, email out resumes and portfolio links, do some odds and ends around the house, and then my day is my own. It’s not a bad way to live, actually, but the pay is awful. Now that spring seems to have actually arrived (knock wood) in Minnesota, I’ve been lucky enough to spend most …

4/13/2009 — When my role as a statistic of the recession is over, I have a number of purchases I want to make. The MINI needs tires, the Vespa needs cowl guards, and I badly need a new helmet. My current lid is a $100 Fulmer Modus — good enough to keep my melon intact, but it’s heavy, LOUD, and starting to get frayed around the edges. I also want to make the switch from a modular (flip-up) …

4/11/2009 — This morning I got a fantastic invitation from two scooter buddies for a trip to Como Zoo in St. Paul and some grilln’ goodness. We set off from their place in the Linden Hills area down Minnehaha Parkway, then across the Mississippi River on the Ford Parkway bridge. The weather was positively gorgeous. Blue, sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 50s. We made our way, the three of us, up Snelling and Lexington amid relatively light traffic. I …

4/10/2009 — Sometimes a ride doesn’t go the way you plan. Sometimes a ride doesn’t go at all. The day before, I’d replaced the tire valve cores on both my front and rear tire. It seemed prudent advice from the community at Modern Vespa. My main concern was the rear tire, as that had been my issue the previous week. After pulling the cores and refilling the tire, everything seemed fine and I rode home. …

4/9/2009 — Thursday’s ride began with disappointment. Even with my buzzer switch installed, my starting issue persists. No time to fix it though, I had places to go and people to meet. I rode familiar roads to western Bloomington to meet with a professional staffing agency about some job possibilities. Having mapped the route beforehand, I found an easy, low traffic street that looked like it ought to get me where I needed to go. The street I needed was right off …

4/7/2009 — Today’s ride began with a revelation. This whole season I’ve been fussing with a starting issue. My theory was that there weren’t enough cranking amps to properly engage the starter solenoid — so upon hitting the starter button, the starter motor would just spin freely and not engage the flywheel. Since my battery was properly tended all winter, that left the turn indicator buzzer I’d added in the off season. So as an experiment, I disconnected the buzzer fuse to …