The Gabe Hayes Ride 2025
September 29, 2025
Every year about this time a local group has an event dedicated to a Veteran who passed away. The ride is always a welcome part of my riding season with an excellent route, great food and music at the end along with a free T-shirt for early registration. Over the years I have used each of two wheelers at least once at this event. This year I decided to use the big scooter. The CF Moto is quick enough to keep up under most circumstances, but it has one flaw I forgot about. It doesn't climb steep hills well. More about that later.
It was a really good day for an event. The temps ran in the low seventies, the sky was clear with a light breeze. The trip to the event had me in a good mood with the scooter humming along beneath me. When I got to the start I was one of the first attendees and went very quickly through registration. As one of the pre entries I only had to give my name and sign a waiver. I took my T-shirt and carried it back to the scooter which has a fair amount of built in storage on board. It was stowed away quickly. After a brief riders meeting it wasn't long after that that we formed up to depart.
This ride has many stretches of straight, flat road with the occasional small climbs. The scooter was doing well among the big V-Twins and I was enjoying the pace. There was only one hiccup to the day. When we got near the last portion of the ride we hit a steep climb with hairpin turns that was more than the scooter could handle well. The reason why is technical and too wordy to go into here. What makes the scooter so nice to ride on regular roads works against it on steep climbs. It was then I was wishing for my Kawasaki but we got through it.
After the hill climbing episode everything was pretty good and we were back at the finish quickly. I had another obligation to take care of after we got back so I grabbed some food, packed it into some containers in the scooter and headed home. This event is on my schedule to do each year so I will be back for sure. While it's not a big deal it let's me do a hundred miles from door to door and blow some carbon off the spark plugs. In short, it was a fabulous day.
It was a really good day for an event. The temps ran in the low seventies, the sky was clear with a light breeze. The trip to the event had me in a good mood with the scooter humming along beneath me. When I got to the start I was one of the first attendees and went very quickly through registration. As one of the pre entries I only had to give my name and sign a waiver. I took my T-shirt and carried it back to the scooter which has a fair amount of built in storage on board. It was stowed away quickly. After a brief riders meeting it wasn't long after that that we formed up to depart.
This ride has many stretches of straight, flat road with the occasional small climbs. The scooter was doing well among the big V-Twins and I was enjoying the pace. There was only one hiccup to the day. When we got near the last portion of the ride we hit a steep climb with hairpin turns that was more than the scooter could handle well. The reason why is technical and too wordy to go into here. What makes the scooter so nice to ride on regular roads works against it on steep climbs. It was then I was wishing for my Kawasaki but we got through it.
After the hill climbing episode everything was pretty good and we were back at the finish quickly. I had another obligation to take care of after we got back so I grabbed some food, packed it into some containers in the scooter and headed home. This event is on my schedule to do each year so I will be back for sure. While it's not a big deal it let's me do a hundred miles from door to door and blow some carbon off the spark plugs. In short, it was a fabulous day.
Posted by Jim Zeiser.
If you wish to comment my e-mail address is h1500e@hotmail.com. I'd like to hear anything-good or bad-that anyone would like to say. As they said in college, we're all lifelong learners.
