September 1, 2014
It's a sad day today. Labor Day marks the end of Summer for most of the population. People go home from short or extended vacations on this day and the highway in front of my house is alive all day with vehicles heading south. Cars with roof boxes, travel trailers and motor homes have been passing by. For me it's a time to start thinking about how to extend the riding season. There will only be a few short weeks before cooler weather sets in. It wasn't too bad when I left for work around lunchtime, but these days I leave before sun up. Thirty-five degrees is fairly tolerable when the sun is out. In the dark it's down right frosty.
I can't complain too badly as my fleet has compiled nearly 4,000 miles this season plus another hundred or so I put on the Honda. I accomplished most of the maintenance tasks I was aware of at the start, with the exception of two. I have to do an oil change on the Honda and check/replace the drive belt on the 150cc scooter. All of the fleet have done one ride of note this season of varying lengths. The big scooter has several eighty mile runs to Binghamton and back, the 150cc scooter did The Burrito Run to Vestal for a seventy-nine mile jaunt and the 50cc bike did a commute to work in April. The trip is a hilly thirty-five mile run and it handled it easily.
Each of the bikes did errand running into Town, including the Honda, saving vast amounts of fuel and wear and tear on the cars. The 50cc bike has rolled over 600 miles this season as an errand machine and its time in that capacity is far from over. I'm hoping that it will continue in that vain until nearly Thanksgiving. I'd like to believe that this sorrowful end of the Summer season isn't an end to the riding season. I'm having way too much fun.
Posted by Jim Zeiser.
August 25, 2014
Every so often you have to throw a wrench on, not at, the rolling stock to keep them moving. The one task I have avoided is replacing the drive belt on the big scooter. It looked OK two years ago but a lot of time and miles have occurred since the last visual check. It's not a huge job to replace it but it is one of those tasks that can either be a breeze or a hurricane, depending on other factors. Well into the job I ran into a roadblock. To remove the belt you have to take the pulley it rid...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
August 15, 2014
It's been a long time since I did anything different on my Chinese fleet besides commuting or grocery runs. Yesterday was the day for another adventure. I felt that we needed something else for dinner besides meat and potatoes, but what to do. BURRITOS! I had seen a Moe's Southwest Grill in Vestal this past Saturday, we haven't had them in months and so the destination was set, but what to use? Ah, I know.
Lazarus. The 150cc scooter hadn't taken a long ride in years. Ever since I fixed it last...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
August 11, 2014
It's always painful to think about, but August, as they say, is the Sunday of Summer. I've just been riding all over the place, and loving it, but the signs of Winter coming are there. The first that hit me was the other morning when I rode into work before dawn. In June and July at near five o'clock the sky would start to brighten and the stars would disappear. Not in August. Now I get a brilliant display of stars and the sky stays dark. When I went into work on Friday the temperature hovere...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
August 4, 2014
As I told you last week my daughter Cheryl came for a visit and an early celebration of her birthday. She had just ended her employment with one company and had a few days before her next job started. After settling in she was eager to go for a ride on the 150cc scooter and so we did. It was a short trip to the grocery store but Cheryl was happy just to be up on two wheels again. The scooter is easy to ride and has a Metropolitan feel about it. I'm sure Cheryl would love to have it in New Yor...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
July 27, 2014
First and foremost my daughter, Cheryl, is coming to visit.Those of you who are long suffering readers will remember that last year at about this time she came here and learned to ride not only my 50cc bike but also the 150cc scooter. She graced me with a line that has stuck with me. We rode into town and a pair of riders on Harleys waved back to us when we waved to them. "Did you see the two Harleys waving to us?" she said. "I'm feeling pretty cool about now." The mere act of two riders wavi...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
July 21, 2014
Just for variety I've been using the Honda Rebel in the garage to run some errands. I've been riding bikes for fifty-two years but since I sold the Kawasaki three years ago most of my miles have been on a scooter. While most people may think that motorcycles and scooters are the same to ride, it's not even close. Without getting technical a motorcycle and a scooter are built, work and ride completely differently. It isn't just the fact that a motorcycle has a manual gearbox either. This, of c...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
July 13, 2014
As this season wears on certain tasks must be performed as part of routine maintenance of the machines. I finally got up the nerve to take care of one this week and the results were quite gratifying. A year ago or so I returned Lazarus, the 150cc scooter, to life by replacing the cylinder head with an inexpensive replacement. That made the engine brand new in that area which requires a periodic check of the arms that open the valves in the engine. Since this was a bargain part I was expecting...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
July 6, 2014
I hope you all had a nice holiday weekend. The weather has certainly cooperated for outdoor activities. As the title implies I just had a great ride. I have ridden State Route 10 along the Cannonsville Reservoir many times before but the ride I took today embodied everything that is great about motorcycling. OK, I did it on Galileo, the big scooter, but it's the same feeling. The reason I went on the ride was to deliver an item so it wasn't just a Joy Ride. I could have taken either the 50cc ...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
June 28, 2014
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 sudde...
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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.
