October 21, 2012
The weather has started to cool down here and the end of the season is in sight. Last week I took the car to work one morning since it was under thirty degrees and in the dark it feels even colder. Of course it warmed up later and I wished I had the scooter. You have to choose and sometimes a cold ride isn't worth a warm one later. The 50cc bike is still getting a lot of use as a grocery getter and errand machine, something it will continue to do unless the weather is bad when we need milk, eggs or to deliver a deposit to the bank. I've been bragging on it pretty regularly to anyone who'll listen. Of all my Chinese vehicles it's the only one that hasn't needed major surgery after 1,000 miles. They did a darn good job copying the Honda 50cc engine and it's about as reliable as you'd expect a Japanese model to be.
I noticed the other day that my big scooter is approaching 3,600 miles an increase of 1,700 miles over what it had when I picked it up. While not an epic amount it's not bad for a machine used primarily as a commuter. I'm always tickled at using it for a week of riding and only having to put two gallons of gas in the tank. As I said to Marc (friend on Long Island) it's even more amusing to me that I'm doing the miles on vehicles from a country not known for transportation. Toys, electronics and clothes maybe, but not scooters and motorcycles. While not exactly free mileage I still feel like I'm getting away with something.
So I'm still riding and saving money on fuel and loving it. While I'm not doing big miles I'm still getting out on something two wheeled about four times a week. I have to change the oil in the 50cc bike before I put it away for the winter and maybe the big scooter too. This has been a very good riding year-so far.
Posted by Jim Zeiser.
October 9, 2012
The winter season is getting closer and riding will be curtailed very shortly. I'm thinking of putting the big Chinese scooter on the Die Hard battery maintainer I have just to preserve it though the non-riding season. Of course that will have to wait until after I stop using it. As previously noted it is a very useful device for foul weather transportation and it is a much warmer two wheeler than any I've owned before. Honda was really on to something when they created this design back in 19...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
October 2, 2012
It's very satisfying to commute to work or make grocery runs on my two wheeled steeds. The hills here are very colorful as the leaves turn bright shades of colors before falling off in advance of the cold weather. The rides too are beginning to become cooler as the hours of sunlight shorten. It feels like only a few weeks ago that the temperatures outside were sizzling but now are beginning to move into the cold department. I don't know if I've lost a few nerve endings or are finally getting ...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
September 25, 2012
The part came last week to fix my 250cc scooter and with just a few fumbles and choice words I had it back together. While I'm kicking myself for not getting to the bottom of the shaking at starts from a standstill I take solace in knowing that a dealer told me this is the third broken transmission shaft he's heard of. The first happened to his own and has gone 17,000 miles since the replacement. It wasn't pretty to see the broken shaft, but it was interesting.
In case you're not technically i...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
September 18, 2012
This past Sunday I had a mechanical failure from a totally unexpected source. Galileo, my new 250 scooter, gave a strange shriek, shook a little and then stopped moving. I thought, "Darn. The drive belt broke." Fortunately I had my cell phone and Sara raced out to help me load it into our pickup truck and get it home. No simple matter, actually, as it took help from five strong men to load it in and three other helpers and gravity to get it off the truck. Then I opened up the side cover to di...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
September 12, 2012
Most people mark the end of summer on Labor Day but I like to get a little extra out of it. Since the twenty-first of September is nine days away I'm rolling along wrapped in the confidence that it will be riding season for quite a while longer. My 250 scooter (Galileo) is beginning to close in on the number of commutes that the 150 Chinese scooter accomplished. Today marked its twenty-third trip to work against twenty-seven for the 150. Considering that I've only had Galileo for six weeks th...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
September 4, 2012
I noticed today that the 250 Chinese scooter (Galileo) was fast approaching 2,850 on its odometer. As I told Marc, that means that my Helix replica has acquired 1,000 miles since I purchased it. As a commuter vehicle it has made eighteen trips to the job in the month or so since I picked it up. It has made the trip much shorter in terms of time over the smaller Chinese bikes I formerly used, taking about twenty minutes to do the 17.5 mile one way commute instead of the half hour or 35 minutes...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
August 28, 2012
I think my days off are busier than when I'm working. Since I have more free time than Sara, I do the shopping and other needed transactions. This morning I needed to refill a prescription, shop and make a deposit. First up was Galileo (CF 250) for the thirty-five mile trip to Sidney to take care of the prescription, banking and shop for "Big Store" items. On the way there the scooter felt a little sluggish and was very slow to respond to the throttle. On the way home I discovered why. I was ...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
August 23, 2012
The CF Moto has a name now, Galileo, and is moving right along. It had about 1875 miles when I picked it up but is now reading 2550 on the odometer. It's quite a neat weapon against the price of gas. At almost 72 mpg it's saving me more money than the little scooter did and gets me to work as fast as the car. It's also been used for trips to Binghamton on the interstate and a run to the County Fair on a most splendid road. All in all it's proving to be a very worthwhile purchase.
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
August 7, 2012
No, not me. I hit that long ago. So far this year I've taken two wheels to work fifty times. The new arrival was the magic machine joining a list that includes my 150cc Chinese scooter, the 250 Yamaha, the 50cc Bashan mini-motorcycle and the Honda Rebel. My minivan has spent a great deal of time parked this summer while we use the two wheel fleet extensively. While fifty times doesn't sound like a lot in a work year of approximately 225 days, it's certainly a respectable showing given the usu...
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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.
