BV 250: the next chapter of scooting

Though I upgraded to the BV 250 to cut my drive time, the weather was unseasonably warm, so I took the long way to work anyway.

At lunch, I dropped off some paperwork at the bank. As I put on my helmet to leave, I felt like someone was watching me. I looked up to see the loan officer and her assistant smiling and waving. They stepped outside and said "that looks more like a motorcycle!" I nodded, and they asked about the fuel economy. "65 mpg", I said. "I would've guessed 80, enjoy those gas prices!"

Co-workers have also commented about the look being more like a sport bike than a scooter. A friend remarked - "When you hear 'scooter' you picture a girl riding a vintage moped in Paris, this looks like a motorcycle." Great. Anyway, when I meet motorcycles on the highway, a lot more have been waving. This wasn't the case on the Metropolitan.

A situation at work gave me the first opportunity to carry a passenger. I let him wear the helmet. We stayed on the back roads to keep it slow while I got used to the balance. It wasn't too bad. Carlos said "It seems that you have to pay attention 100% of the time." Amen, Carlos, amen.

Last Saturday reached nearly 60F/15C. I rode in to Wal-Mart, then Exotic. Mr. James rode his bike in, too. He asked if he could take the 250 around the parking lot. I was happy to oblige. After work, I took the long way home, and though it was pushing dark, I throttled past the road home and decided to test the speedometer on the bridge.

With no traffic behind me, I let myself drop 20 miles below the speed limit and when I hit the bridge I floored it. I got up to 75 mph and probably could have pushed it a little more but I was running out of bridge! There was a bit of an unsteady feeling at that rate of speed but you gotta test a new ride out. I turned around and headed home, watching the last bit of orange fade out of the water and sky. It reminded me of a boat ride with a friend near that bridge. We saw a couple of sport bikes come flying through, one of them riding a wheelie most of the way.
On Sunday, I took Robin into town. She was nervous at first but asking to learn to drive it by mid-afternoon. I'm glad she's comfortable with it. So with that, we ordered her a textile, armored jacket from New Enough.com and a helmet from another site. The helmet site had an issue with the check-out cart and their lazy customer service answer denies them the courtesy blog plug.

The freak weather didn't last long, so I parked the scoot under the deck and put a tarp over it for the forecast 8 inches on snow that amounted to 2. I took the car and the opportunity to drive to the state police headquarters to take the written part of my motorcycle test.

I missed one out of ten. The officer ran it through a scantron and in classic DMV fashion didn't bother to tell me what I'd missed. He specifically wrote "no passengers" on my paper learning permit. I'll need to take a late lunch or something and take my road exam later this week.

State Farm quoted out the insurance at $15 a month. The Metro was $22. I didn't ask questions.

I need to take the bike into Vespa of the Ozarks to get a switch fixed and pick up a cover.