I'm aware I spend a great deal of time praising my collection of Chinese scooters. It's just that they continue to amaze me in defying all the bad press written about them.  I had the occasion to ride into Binghamton on the big scooter four days in a row last week accumulating over 300 miles in the process. Even in the windy conditions prevailing at that time it handled it well and returned 70 mpg in the process. That's not the big news though. I was looking at the odometers one day and suddenly realized that the fleet mileage was up there. Both of the scooters have over 8,000 miles each and the 50cc bike was hovering at 3500 miles. A quick visit to the calculator revealed that my total mileage on my flotilla was 20,230 miles.
I've had the 150cc scooter, Lazarus, for almost six years so it's accumulated roughly 1,400 miles a year. The 50cc bike, Rocket, has been with me for almost five years so its average is around 700 miles annually. The big winner is the 250cc scooter, Galileo. I'm coming up on two years of ownership at the end of July. Galileo has close to 8,500 miles showing. I bought it with approximately 1,900 miles which means I've put 6,600 miles on it myself. That averages out to 3,300 miles a year. While not epic in comparison to the 10,000+ miles I put on motorcycles annually in my younger years, it's much more yearly miles than I put on my last motorcycle, which was closer to 2,000.
So despite the ongoing rub that all things from China are cheap, disposable and not meant for long lives my bunch is chugging right along, averaging 5,000 miles a year, making me smile and saving me many dollars in gas. I couldn't ask for more.
Last week my poor wife had to go into the hospital in Binghamton to have surgery that brought to a close her months of suffering. Now she has to heal from the torment but everything looks much brighter than it did six months ago with absolutely no cancer present. I would really like to thank all of you for your prayers, well wishes and good thoughts. The universe heard you and I'm sure Sara will be around for a good, long time keeping me on the straight and narrow. We celebrate fourteen years married this coming week and look forward to many more.