With Proper Training…

For the last month or two, I’ve been seriously debating the purchase of a motorcycle/scooter. It wasn’t something very realistic until a number of things occurred:
1. Yaeka and I moved to Issaquah which lengthened my commute from 13 miles to about 35 miles
2. Yaeka began looking for a new job in the Seattle (as opposed to Tacoma) area

Right now Yaeka and I are carpooling which has numerous benefits including the carpool lane and Yaeka’s better gas mileage. My Astro van gets about 20 miles per gallon and that’s when I was just driving highway with no seats in the back. If you look at the bottom of the links, you’ll notice that gas here is not cheap. So what’s a guy like me that loves his minivan, but has a long commute to do? Get a motor bike!

Now I have no idea how a motorcycle works or even a scooter for that matter, but luckily there are places to learn. In fact, my motorcycle class is coming up in two weeks and after that weekend of learning I’ll have my motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license.

The idea of a motorcycle is somewhat intimidating, however, especially the whole shifting gears part of it. I have it under control in a car, but using your feet to shift just seems a little too complex and as a result I’ve been looking into getting a scooter. Now I know you’re thinking that there’s no way I’d be able to keep up with freeway traffic on a little scooter, but there are some big ones out there.

I’m pretty much set on getting the Aprilia Scarabeo 500. It’s an automatic (like a scooter), but has larger motorcycle-sized wheels and can go up to 100 mph! On top of that it gets about 50 mpg. I had been looking at the smaller 150cc model, but it just would barely be unable to keep up with the freeway traffic.

If any of you out there have any recommendations, please let me know as this is a pretty big decision for me. It really is a win win situation though as I’ll get better gas mileage and still be able to use the carpool lane. Now if only I could stop rain from falling and magically make the price free, I’d be all set.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2004 at 10:45 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.