A fun little anime clip I found from The Scooter Scoop:

On my morning commute, I sometimes see a dude on a Harley riding to work. His attire; old-school leather slippers (the kind Mike Brady wore with his pajamas and robe), shorts, t-shirt, “can” headphones with a basketball sweatband to keep them on his head. Those headphones plus the fact that he is bald makes him look like Lando’s second-in-command from SW:ESB. Except on a Harley. Wearing den clothes.

Last night I spent an hour in our apartment garage getting the C70 ready for the move. I emptied out all the gasoline using the carb overflow tube. It took a long time to drain 3/4 gallon thru that skinny little tube, but it was a clean operation. In the past, I used to disconnect the fuel line from the petcock and drain it into the gas can, which can be messy and smelly, but quick. The method I used last night involved removing the gas cap, loosening the drain plug, turning the fuel petcock to reserve, and letting the fuel flow into the carb bowl and out its overflow tube.

It dripped for about half an hour, while I packed up all the tools and spare parts and removed the fragile legshield. I told the moving company that we are moving “a little moped, which is not working and is dry”, and they said that’s ok. The C70 is a bit bigger than a moped, but it is such a funky looking bike that people in the U.S. don’t necessarily think of it as a motorcycle or scooter, especially with the legshield off. They don’t really know what to think. Anyways, I hope that the moving goes smoothly!

I was looking at the US Vespa site, and noticed this image on the opening page. I thought, “That looks very familiar.” Then I remembered seeing an old 1960 Supercub ad, which used a similar concept. Kinda neat...

I painted the replacement front fender I bought a year ago. It was originally red, and I plan to paint it dark blue, along witht the bike frame, but temporarily painted it an off-white color, the same as the side covers. I didn’t want to have a red fender on my light blue bike. I used Rustoleum “Paint for Plastic”, and it turned out pretty good. I will put on a coat or two of clear coat in a couple days after it dries a bit.

While in Japan (and before we met), Mariko used to have a scooter like the one above. She cannot remember what happened to it, though. I can’t believe you can just not know what happened to you scooter? Crazy woman!

Tonight I went for a ride around the neighborhood. It was about 77° out when I started, which made for a perfect ride. First I went to the parking lot of the huge church “compound” near our place to practice some hard braking and slow tight turns. I saw the Austin Police Dept motorcycle cops doing their training there a couple weeks ago, and the parking lot was marked with painted pylons, which I used to do some u-turns. After doing that for a minute or so, I took off and rode around the neighborhood. Tonight was the first time I wore my full-face helmet, and it makes such a huge difference! I felt much more protected, and the wind was kept off my face and eyes, but visibility was still excellent. It didn’t even feel like I was wearing a helmet after a while. It is so much better riding with a full-face helmet as opposed to a half/open face helmet, even at 40mph and lower.

We went to a wine-tasting at Central Market, and I spotted this nice C70 Passport.

I have been reading “Jupiter’s Travels” by Ted Simon for a week or so, and it is really good. It’s about a round-the-world trip that Ted Simon took upon his Triumph motorcycle back in the 70’s. He balances the technical motorcycle aspect with the travel aspect perfectly (to me, at least), and the pacing is nice and fast. I read that Simon is attempting the same trip by motorcycle again, and I can’t wait to read about the modern-day journey. It will be interesting to get his perspective on how the world has changed.