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Post by earlwb on Apr 11, 2013 22:15:27 GMT -5
I think lane splitting only seems to work in California. Everywhere else I have been the car drivers have been too undisciplined in staying in their lanes. The drivers tend to have the cars all over the place trying to get a look up ahead and thus they close up the gaps between the cars in the lanes. Then we have the pickup truck drivers all wanting extra wide review side mirrors too. Here in Texas you would be lucky if you could even walk between the cars in a stopped up traffic jam. The people just close up all the gaps front and back and on the sides. But in California on the freeways, the drivers seem to stay in straight lines better so you would have a chance at lane splitting. Now in downtown New York City the bicyclists seem to be able to zip in and out between the cars in the traffic jams so maybe they can do it there too, but I don't think motorcycles would fit though, too wide.
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Post by earlwb on Apr 10, 2013 14:00:22 GMT -5
You have me curious as to what was wrong with the engine kits they confiscated. Was it because the engines exceeded the 49cc limit for mopeds?
I remember a while back the Feds and EPA had new restrictions on two stroke engines, but I forget when that went into effect though.
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Post by earlwb on Apr 6, 2013 21:27:15 GMT -5
Many scooter tires don't work well when flat. The tire bead tends to come out of the groove and causes the tire to flop from side to side. This happens fast and you crash.
But I did discover that the Perelli S26 tire did really amazingly well when it went flat on me. I remember riding home fro work and the scooter felt sort of squirrely feeling like. So I stopped a couple of times and kicked the tire but it felt stiff, so I figured it was my imagination or something. I have crashed before from flats and it wasn't fun and it hurt a lot too. But the next morning I went out and discovered the tire was flat.
Somehow, a broken piece of a metal locking screw arm on a compass (the thing you use to draw circles with) had somehow punched its way through the tire. Now these Perelli tires are stiff, thick and the sidewalls are very stiff as well. So it is amazing something could punch through it. beats me. But anyway I was able to get home though. If it was the OEM cheapo tires, I would have crashed for sure.
When I went to replace the worn out OEM junk tire with a Perelli tire, the OEM tire almost fell off the wheel, I just about didn't need any tools to get the thing off. But the Perelli tire was very difficult to get on, it took a lot of effort to get that sucker on, and those tire beads are not going to be moving much without air in the tire.
Plus the Perelli tires are round and balanced so well to start with, that I didn't have to balance the wheels when I got done either.
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Post by earlwb on Apr 6, 2013 8:50:02 GMT -5
You need a new tire, you cannot repair a tire with a bad sidewall cut.
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Post by earlwb on Apr 6, 2013 8:48:47 GMT -5
That is a funny video, thanks for sharing. I like it.
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Post by earlwb on Mar 30, 2013 22:55:28 GMT -5
They can't manufacture and sell scooters for anything considered reasonable prices. Union costs and pension costs pretty much force them to sell only big iron nowadays. Worse they would have to compete with the cheap Chinese imports too. So they just will not do it. A HD branded 80cc scooter would probably sell for $5000. If they actually tried to make it.
The last big thing HD did was buy Buell out and then they quickly discontinued it as they couldn't make and sell the bikes like Buell did for those prices.
Years ago HD tried importing cheaper bikes made in Italy and that worked for a while. But they couldn't compete with the Japanese after a while and they gave up the smaller bike market to the Japanese.
The scooter market tends to follow the gasoline price fluctuations. When gas prices go up higher, people get interested in scooters. When the gas prices go down people lose interest in scooters. So it pretty much kills the market to sell scooters. You can look and see the limited offerings from the Japanese manufacturers to see that they don't see much of a market selling scooters.
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Post by earlwb on Mar 30, 2013 22:48:31 GMT -5
Several states do not require a drivers license for 49cc and under scooters or mopeds that are limited to about 30mph top speed. This wound up being very popular for those who lost their drivers licenses for various reasons.
Some of those states do not require the 49cc and under bikes to be registered or titled as well. This wound up being really popular for thieves and criminals to steal and resell those bikes too.
There was also a limited cottage industry created where people would modify their mopeds or speed limited scooters, etc to go much faster than 30mph. That is one reason there are so many performance kits available for 49cc machines. Plus some folks were getting 150cc scooters and setting them up to look more like a 49cc scooter too. It works until a savvy cop catches them going over 30mph, then they get hit with several citations and may even have their ride impounded.
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Post by earlwb on Mar 29, 2013 10:15:14 GMT -5
When I passed through Venus, Texas and made a lunch stop and I met some other riders out for a day ride too.  |
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Post by earlwb on Mar 29, 2013 10:08:27 GMT -5
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Post by earlwb on Mar 29, 2013 10:00:45 GMT -5
Thanks everyone. Very interesting how many miles did you travel to get those pic's Oodles of miles. The trip to Pittsburgh, Texas was around 370 miles for a one day round trip. The Zabcikville trip was a little shorter at around 275 miles round trip for the day. The other excursions varied but were shorter though, as I went around touring the countryside. I didn't really ride on the freeway much as I preferred to tool along on the country roads. I would plan a route to pass through towns or cities where I hoped to take photos as I passed through. Another bit of trivia, if you look closely at the Grapevine / Flower Mound photo, just below and to the right of the big sign, you'll see a small antique Grapevine City Limit sign that dates back before WWII. Before the dam was built creating Lake Grapevine even. |
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Post by earlwb on Mar 28, 2013 20:51:21 GMT -5
Trophy Club  University Park  Venus  Venus  Waco and Robinson  Westphalia  Yarellton  Zabcikville  Zabcikville  |
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Post by earlwb on Mar 28, 2013 20:49:41 GMT -5
Northlake  Oenaville  Pittsburg  Quinlan  Quitman  Roanoke  Rosenthal  Southlake  |
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Post by earlwb on Mar 28, 2013 20:47:48 GMT -5
Highland Park  Hurst  Irene   Keller and Westlake  Lott  Leroy  Maypearl  Malone  Mertens  Milford  |
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Post by earlwb on Mar 28, 2013 20:46:13 GMT -5
A while back I decided to try to visit at least one city named A through Z in Texas and take at least one pic at each town or city I found. Except for a city or town or locale that started with a "X", I pretty much did it. I rode my Roketa MC-250B scooter for all of these pictures. Anyway, here are some of the pics I took as I went through a town or city as I was doing all of this. Argyle  Belfalls  Chalybeate Springs  Cedar Hill  Coppell  Durango  Denton  Flower Mound  Farmers Branch  Elm Mott  Gerald  Grapevine and Flower Mound  Grand Praire  Golinda  |
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Post by earlwb on Mar 20, 2013 7:41:25 GMT -5
Yeah some of those belts they sell are pretty poor in quality. Plus some sellers also push counterfeit fake brand belts too. It is difficult to filter through all the junk to find good ones.
One other thought is temperature. The 150cc size scooters tend to have really poor air circulation through the CVT drive housing. I gave up on using the pitiful foam filter insert as it clogged up really fast, like in a day or two. I simply left the grid screen in place but removed the little foam filter and that helped a lot as it allowed for air to circulate inside the CVT housing better. If the CVT belt overheats the belt breaks down and disintegrates on you. Some other guys went with a new competition racing CVT outer housing cover that had cutouts to help promote air circulation too. But one could likely do the same thing with patience, a drill and a dremel tool or use a milling machine.
When the Chinese first made the scooters, cruising speeds in China were typically 25 to 30mph, most of the time. So having a scooter go faster didn't help any due to the crowded roads and streets. But when they started selling them in the USA problems started occurring.
After having several belts go bad on my 150cc scooter. I opted to carry a spare and to also carry the tools to be able to change the belt out somewhere away from home. It actually came in handy one day too, when one of those crappy Kevlar belts disintegrated on me too.
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