... but he can learn, sometimes. :P
I occasionally ride one of my scooters to school at night, around 10 miles away from my apartment. One night in mid-December I made the trip in the rain; I had a feeling I shouldn't, but I was being stubborn. About 2/3 of the way there, I went to make a left turn and the scoot almost went right out from under me. I must have hit mixed oil/water puddle or something. Luckily I am a good enough rider that I was able to get control again rather quickly, with nothing more than a slight scare. I haven't ridden in the rain since-- but that's not much of a feat, since it so rarely rains here.
In early January my red scooter needed another minor repair; one of the forks of the front suspension had begun to leak. No problem; I took it to the shop and got it promptly fixed. On my next ride after getting it home, it wasn't handling well. The rear wheel felt like it was fishtailing a bit, so I parked it and didn't so anything with it again until this weekend, when I finally had some time to inspect it thoroughly and figure out what the problem was.
Check out what I found!
The motor mount bolt had begun to work its way loose, leaving the engine, transmission and rear wheel only tenuously connected to the frame. It took me a heck of a long time to get the bolt back in, find the nut...
... and get it back in place and tightly secured (OK, I went back to the shop for some help.) Anyway, it's all fixed now. Took it for a test ride and it's handling very well.
So what have we learned? 1) Be careful when riding in the rain; 2) Inspect your scooter very frequently; if a nut, bolt, screw, etc. comes loose while riding it can be very unfortunate indeed.
Since that the weather is improving, I'll resume hiking in March. Camping may resume in March or April. We'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment