Botch the Squid

[Botch]

The GF bought her 17-year-old son a 50 cc scooter for his birthday this coming Thursday, he has no idea that's what he's getting. She found it and paid for it this last week, and today (Saturday) she asked me to help her pick it up with my truck. I've only got a small Toyota, with a topper, and it was apparent we couldn't fit it in the back, so the GF announces, "No problem, I can drive it to your place and we'll leave it there until Michael's birthday".
Well, she had never been on a motorcycle, or scooter, in fact I found out later she hadn't been on a bicycle in 15 years or so. She finally relented and agreed to let me drive it home instead; then I realized I had no protective gear whatsoever. So here I am driving down one of the busiest roads in northern Utah on a Saturday afternoon, no helmet, gloves, t-shirt and shorts, my 6'5" frame barely fitting on the bike. I passed an older guy on a Harley, he gave me the wave but I could tell he was laughing his ass off.
Damn thing redlined at 45, and that was km/hr, not mph (so 32 mph was about my top speed). I have a fairly steep hill to climb just before my house, and the poor thing barely carried my 230 lbs up the hill. The GF drove my truck behind me with the emergency blinkers on, so that kept me from getting run over from behind.
Hope it works out for Michael. He's 100 lbs lighter than me, but that 32 mph top speed has me worried. He'll probably be trading up within the year, but maybe it'll be an ok bike to learn on.
I still have to get the thing to her place on Thursday, and she lives about 20 miles away; I don't want to have to ride this thing that far; time to sweet-talk a neighbor or something...

I was LMAO waiting for the part where you crashed the kids toy but no problem, you made it home. Look at it this way, it will give him some experience on something less likely to kill him. I still have an old PW80 that I steal from the grand kids from time to time and it's still a hoot to ride....

[cv_rider]

I see lots of people commuting on (much bigger) scooters. One thing I've noticed is that scooter crowd doesn't gear up well, so you were probably right at home. I commonly see people wearing their office clothes and a helmet. I'm sure the easiness of learning to ride them probably gets people into a complacent frame of mind, and don't think about safety.

[Nelly]

Well you now have first hand experience of what its like to be that vunlurable. Please post up a picture of you riding it
Did it look like this?


Nelly

[gomd3]

most scooters are limited to 45KPH so they qualify for the moped laws. As for the motor if you have a 2 stroke motor, you can get it up to 45 to 50 MPH getting rid of the various governors that they have in place. If it's a 4 stroke motor, most are limited to that speed by the motor design. Good luck with it.

[Red Wazp]

Sounds like you could pick it up and carry it to her house.

I'll bet the kid finds a nice big hill and gets it up to 50 on the way down- even if he has to do some drafting.

[zero2sixty]

Before she got her Honda Shadow my started out on a Yamaha BW 50 scooter and it would do about 40-45 mph. It was fun, but not on highways!

[farish]

well, if the bikes's new, you did him the favour of breakin in the engine