Maiden Voyage
I've now made the trip to town and back and am still in one piece with all my skin intact. It's still a little strange to steer by leaning and the gravel roads demand respect. Otherwise, the trip was a piece of cake.
I met a man in town who has driven motorcycles and scooters for decades. He was, in fact, driving an old Honda scooter with 18,000 miles on it. He looked at the Gator 150 and reported that the 150-cc engine is a standard one (I forget the model number) made by everyone and used on virtually all 150-cc motorcycles and motor scooters. The belt-driven, continuously-variable drive system has been in production since 1947. He keeps a spare drive belt although he has never broken one while riding.
Also, a Harley Davidson rider waved at me, and a big Honda Gold Wing rider stopped me to ask where I bought the scooter because he wants one. And, everyone smiles at the apple box. Amazing.
As for performance, I reached a top speed of 55 mph but probably averaged less than 40 mph. The trip to and from town took no longer than with the Jeep because I could go down the twisty roads faster on the scooter.
On the round trip of 19.3 miles I used 33 ounces of gasoline. That comes to 0.6 miles per ounce or 74 miles per gallon. With $4.00-a-gallon gasoline, fuel cost was $1.04 for the trip. That's a quarter of what is required by the Jeep for the same trip. And that means I've already amortized $3.12 (0.24%) of the cost of the scooter and reduced the demand for crude oil by what's equivalent to 99 ounces of gasoline!
That and the trip was a hoot to boot with stops at Hawks for produce, Food Lion for bread, Bear Essentials for a cup of coffee and Alleghany ABC for Martini provisions!
I met a man in town who has driven motorcycles and scooters for decades. He was, in fact, driving an old Honda scooter with 18,000 miles on it. He looked at the Gator 150 and reported that the 150-cc engine is a standard one (I forget the model number) made by everyone and used on virtually all 150-cc motorcycles and motor scooters. The belt-driven, continuously-variable drive system has been in production since 1947. He keeps a spare drive belt although he has never broken one while riding.
Also, a Harley Davidson rider waved at me, and a big Honda Gold Wing rider stopped me to ask where I bought the scooter because he wants one. And, everyone smiles at the apple box. Amazing.
As for performance, I reached a top speed of 55 mph but probably averaged less than 40 mph. The trip to and from town took no longer than with the Jeep because I could go down the twisty roads faster on the scooter.
On the round trip of 19.3 miles I used 33 ounces of gasoline. That comes to 0.6 miles per ounce or 74 miles per gallon. With $4.00-a-gallon gasoline, fuel cost was $1.04 for the trip. That's a quarter of what is required by the Jeep for the same trip. And that means I've already amortized $3.12 (0.24%) of the cost of the scooter and reduced the demand for crude oil by what's equivalent to 99 ounces of gasoline!
That and the trip was a hoot to boot with stops at Hawks for produce, Food Lion for bread, Bear Essentials for a cup of coffee and Alleghany ABC for Martini provisions!
Comments
Post a Comment