Mainly because I was extremely turned off by prices, warranties, maintenance, and reliability. I'm not cheap. I just don't like to waste money by stumbling around in unfamiliar places. So, anyway, I just bought a scooter. It's a cheapo, second hand, but I had it checked out at a shop that was recommended to me and everything checks out fine. At any rate its maintenance will be a new hobby.
I've been tracking my fuel spending and driving habits over the past couple of months. Even if I don't reduce the distances I'm going, I'm still going to save on the order of 250 dollars a month.
And the savings will only increase as fuel goes up. It's funny. My limit was $4.00 dollars. At four dollars a gallon, that was my absolute limit for the vehicle I currently have. Coincidentally, today, with the handshake, and the title exchange, the average price in Baton Rouge for unleaded ticked past $4.02.
Digressing every so slightly.
If this whole meteoric oil price thing turns out to be an Enron style price fixing with culpable American corporations in on it, then some actual suits need to go before firing squads. Actual firing squads. Cheap gas is more American than baseball and pie and Jesus. We have an inalienable right to cheap gas, endowed by our creator.
That being said, now I'm going to go tool around the roads aimlessly on a little machine that makes 80 miles to the gallon. Pictures, later, if I'm not annihilated by a H3(miles to the gallon)
milky [email] said at 4:00 PM 06-08-2008: A vespa-styled honda? I have a honda. Ancient little thing. I stopped working on the engine a whiles ago. Something's either missing or clogged.
And I have a link to a helmet only you could pull off. Post a pic, I'll k-mail ya the link.
anthony [email] said at 7:09 PM 06-08-2008: I've contemplated doing something very similar but getting something along the lines of a cafe racer. I need to deal with my commute issues as well. Congratulations.
brandon [email] said at 12:04 PM 06-13-2008: Triumph has a nice cafe-racer-ish model, the Thruxton. If you don't want the hassle of maintaining an antique. I've seen their scramblers all over town - there's a dealership in New Orleans - nice looking machines.
brandon [email] said at 11:09 PM 06-08-2008: Nice scooter, Ben. I want to move up to a Vespa. I was actually kind of caught between the Piaggio Fly 150 (there's a nice deal on it right now) and the new Yamaha entry level 50, with the extra storage, and the one Max had recommended a while back - the People something or other - but I would have had to have fetched it from New Orleans. This week, I decided that I was going to purchase. I went to Vespa on Jefferson, but wasn't totally sold on the fly. Then I saw that Rad Cycles advertised a Helix for cheap on the project-bike list, but they hadn't evaluated it, and the mechanic I talked too thought there were issues beyond just flushing out the fuel lines. So, I was going back to Vespa, when this guy posted a Roketa on Craig's list, I arranged to go meet him Drove it around, took it on Burbank, and there I am. It's not exactly what I wanted. It has a lot of zip to it, though, for what it is. And he threw in two helmets. It was a total bargain, and if it doesn't work out, I'm almost guaranteed to break even. But it's baby steps. I think I'm either going to get a Vespa next or just go straight to either a touring scooter, like a Silverwing or a Reflex or an MP3, or just move up to a cruiser-style motorcycle. Eventually I'm looking for something that can totally replace my car, including getting on the interstate and going out of town. For the time being, the car will be garaged, but still an option. Plus, I'm 6'1" and 200 pounds so, I do kind of look a little silly on it. But fuck it. I'm going to take that money and buy oil stocks.
I was talking with a bunch of yuppie friends at lunch today and I was shocked at how many of them - people who drive SUVs, trucks, gas-guzzling cars, and make the kind of money that they're not hurting, yet, were really amenable to the idea of smaller personal transportation, or, shockingly enough, started talking light rail alternatives. For instance, as recently as the mid1960s, there was a drunk train that ran weekends from Baton Rouge to New Orleans that was heavily used by college students, something like that could clean up right now. If they set up reliable service from here to, say, Houston, or Atlanta, or here to New Orleans and on to Atlanta, something more reliable and regular than the horseshit amtrak, leased rails bs, all kinds of markets would open up in rail travel, as a new kind of commuter might emerge. I expect we're going to see a significant uptick/investment in rail in the near to moderate future. But who knows.
john [email] said at 8:55 AM 06-11-2008: My 401k has been smoking hot lately due to the huge increase in rail shipping with my company. I recently changed it so that about 90% of it is invested in the railroad right now. That's risky but for now it's doing really good. I'll change it back to something more conservative if or when gas prices ever come down. And as a bonus, I don't have to buy gas at all anyway because of Chicago's public transportation. Although I'm actually benefiting from all of this oil hike bullshit, I'd rather see it come back down and stop fucking everyone else up like it is. The public transit is more crowded than ever and that makes my job a bit more stressful.
brandon [email] said at 9:05 AM 06-11-2008: Sweet. Good luck with that. I'm seeing this girl right now who just got a bunch of Exxon stock via a succession. Everyday, She sounds more and more like Scrooge McDuck.
brandon [email] said at 8:20 PM 06-09-2008: I just brought it home. I was on Highland. I brought it up to 60 mph on that long smooth straightway and I quite actually came in me pants.
I'm going to need a bigger bike.
*I'm also going to leave out the part wherein I at a very low speed comically drove into the bushes at the intersection of Gardere and Highland, and people laughed.
brandon [email] said at 10:27 PM 06-09-2008: That's at the Villa's off Acadian. It's sweet when it's not 95 degrees outside. It was nice, when the crazy guy wasn't living downstairs. And after the guy that used to beat his girlfriend moved. But, they're ratty. And the landlord sucks ass. So, I'm moving next week to a place off Stanford - a house.
john [email] said at 9:20 AM 06-11-2008: That tortured my mind every single day while living in BR. I couldn't pass it without that damned song popping up in my head.
brandon [email] said at 11:27 PM 06-11-2008: We're going to be neighbors pretty soon. I'm going to borrow your edger and return it filthy with pubic lice.
brandon [email] said at 9:25 AM 06-10-2008: I do look pretty retardulous on it. Nor am I moving to Denver just to go pub crawling - yet. Maybe later for the kayaking.
kiche [email] said at 9:21 AM 06-10-2008: i hate to be the one to inform you of this brandon; but i don't think that our government will be putting any money into rail or any other form of public transportation in the foreseeable future.
brandon [email] said at 9:31 AM 06-10-2008: Sad, innit? Once it costs more to get to work then you make at work, which already might be the case for a lot of low-skill jobs, unemployment's going to skyrocket. It's kind of funny how, now that the sky is actually falling, Chicken Little seems to have Abdicated for Eeyore.
This isn't Europe or Japan, the death of cheap/affordable gas is going to turn the U.S. outside the megalopolis(es) into a series of civic islands, where strange and terrible things will begin to occur.
brandon [email] said at 10:59 AM 06-10-2008: Did anyone here ever link to the Aptera?
Here it is just in case. Aptera
In the future we will all drive Apteras, and walking will be abolished in favor of Segways, Segways powered by coal.
max [email] said at 9:42 AM 06-10-2008: Just so you know, there's zero parts availability for that machine. So, if you ever decide to sell it, it would be good to do so while it's still running. Other than that, congrats on your scoot! Welcome to the nerdery.
brandon [email] said at 1:51 AM 06-11-2008: Thanks for the link, Milky. It made me laugh out loud. I think, if I find 200 dollars lying around, I'll buy one for passengers to wear.
