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 to have to do a lot of adjustments to return the parts to proper specifications. Now without getting too technical the parts have a tendency normally to get tighter in the first thousand miles. When I finally dug into the scooter to get to them I was pleasantly surprised to discover that only one of the two had gotten marginally tighter while the other side had stayed where I set it a year ago. Not too shabby for a bargain priced cylinder head.
I used all three of the Chinese bikes this past week for commuting, errands and grocery procurement. The high mileage winner was Galileo, the big scooter, with 188 miles over the week. The other two members of the fleet made shorter trips but added another 40 miles or thereabouts to the mileage total.
A two hundred mile week is pretty good and, as always, the savings in fuel is quite remarkable. I am also happy to have Cheap Chinese Scooters (CCS) that are always available for duty. It feels like I'm riding for free sometimes with such splendid fuel mileage from such inexpensive vehicles. By the way. I know it's a little long but I wanted to video my vehicles for anyone out there who wondered what they look like. I think it's always better to see the characters in a story so one has an image of the bikes in mind when I ramble on about something the bikes did.
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.
June 18, 2014
I rarely check the mileage on the 150cc scooter, Lazarus, since it fluctuates with the amount of throttle I use. Today I had the opportunity to check when I filled up at a gas station in Masonville. After riding 57 miles the scooter got 73.5 mpg from the tank. I was pretty happy with that figure since it included my commute to Sidney and back. When I use my minivan exclusively for commuting to work I'm fortunate to get around 18 mpg. On the open road, without the climbs I make commuting to wo...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
June 12, 2014
If there is one thing I have avoided for years it's riding in the rain. Heavy rain drops can be like tiny stones under the right conditions. While it's also not as bad as some places I've ridden the water splashing up from the road leaves a layer of slime and hides in all the nooks and crannies in a scooter. Even with a good wipe down the scooter never looks as nice without hours of cleaning work, something I'm not the best at. Yesterday, despite careful scrutiny of the various weather sites ...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
June 3, 2014
One of the joys of owning two wheeled conveyances is the need to perform periodic maintenance. Unlike a car where an occasional oil change or brake job is a regular thing, motorcycles, scooters and mopeds require more labor intensive maneuvers. Right now everything out there could use an oil change, the two scooters need new drive belts installed and there's at least one, OK two...alright three, machines that could use a check of engine valve clearances. Today I got off my chair and began the...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
May 26, 2014
The weather has finally begun to cooperate and my fleet is shaking off the dust of a long Winter. I have had the opportunity to ride the big scooter to work twice in the last couple of weeks, happily. Both the 150cc scooter and the 50cc bike have made numerous runs into Town for groceries, Pharmacy visits and Take Out pickups. While these trips sound boring the opportunity to ride is always an event and the savings in fuel has long been documented in these entries.
This past Sunday was one of ...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
May 19, 2014
In the grand order of things you would expect that the biggest scooter in my fleet would also have the most mileage. Last year I had the opportunity to ride the big scooter a lot, commuting back and forth to work. Not so this year. With the bad weather, hours cut at work and weekly visits to the doctor my commuting miles have been cut back drastically up to this point. This has caused a shift in the vehicles that get used most.
My 150cc scooter, named Lazarus, has been the long distance travel...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
May 11, 2014
This past Thursday I observed one of those situations that makes you shake your head. I had looked at two weather forecast sites on the web and they were very discouraging in my plans to take a scooter to work. Two of the three I use stated that there was a good possibility that it would rain so I was beginning to sink into a "Need to Drive" mindset. I was totally planning to take the car when I got a message from Sara that she had heard from colleagues that the day would be totally clear and...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
May 3, 2014
Every year motorcyclists have to go through the annual task of registration renewal and safety inspection. I have two options for getting the scooters and Rebel inspected. One is a fifty mile round trip to Walton, the other a scant thirty-two mile jaunt to Hancock. As much as I like the guys at Klinger Kawasaki in Walton I prefer the one on one relationship I have with Paul at Vetrone's in Hancock. Paul is an old time Harley guy who started out on a Honda. He treats my Chinese scooters like a...
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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.
