Born to Be Wild

I've been searching for a scooter on eBay ever since I saw a yellow Honda Metropolitan with 100 miles on it in Athens sold for about a thousand bucks. I have an eBay search for desirable scooters within 200 miles of home. Last Sunday morning my email brought me a message from eBay that a Yamaha Vino Classic located in Birmingham was recently listed. When I checked it out I saw it had a really low Buy It Now price. I did a little searching and confirmed that it was reasonably priced. After some debate and discussion with Megan, I bought the scooter.

Next step, how to pay? It was Sunday, so the bank was closed. A while ago, you will remember, we had a fence installed to keep the dogs penned in. I made a deal with our neighbor, who also wanted a new fence, that we would split the cost of the fence that separates our yards. The day before she had stopped by with an envelope full of cash to pay her portion. After a quick stop at an ATM we were off to Birmingham with a wad of cash that would embarrass Tom DeLay. OK, I'm lying, it was way too small for that.

We drove to Alabama on I-20. Neither Megan nor I had been on this route before. We were surprised at the mountains we saw along the way, thinking that Alabama is pretty flat. Not true! The transaction went very smoothly, the fellow who sold the scooter was a nice guy. He bought it for his wife a while back, but she never rode it much. They live in a hilly very suburban area and have two kids, I can see where this was not a practical vehicle for them.

You're probably wondering how we got the scooter home, 150 miles away. We loaded it into the SAAB of course! We took off the mirrors then put it in the back, careful not to damage it. We were a few miles down the road and started to smell gas. Not good, but couldn't see it leaking. We rolled down the windows, but the gas smell was still pretty strong. We stopped at a gas station and found that a pool of gas had leaked out. Luckily it was in the cargo mat, but still we had a problem. We took the scooter out of the car, and a bunch of gas ran out of it. As we sat in the heat discussing our options, I suggested that I would ride it back to Atlanta. Megan just looked at me like I had sunstroke. We had to get it in the car, without endangering ourselves. Megan suggested using the spare tire to prop it up. I pulled out a rope. Between the two, we were able to set the scooter upright enough that no more gas leaked out. Not only was it good our car would not explode, but since it was 99 degrees F it was good to roll up the windows and turn on the air conditioner.

I took the scooter to the Yamaha dealer yesterday to get the transmission fluid changed, then I'll be set. Oh, and I need to get a helmet. I've used Megan's helmet the one time I rode the scooter, but without my own we can't ride together. Plus, her helmet is about seven sizes too big for me.

The scooter is great. I even found a scooter tuning web site that sells performance upgrades to increase acceleration and top speed. Zoom zoom.