The Long Way Around

I know I said my next update was going to be about my GT200L's new exhaust, which I love. Aaron and I did have a fantastic time installing the exhaust, and we nearly screwed it up since my replacement spark plug was missing an end cap, and we "accidentally" broke the original taking it out of the GT.

BUT - there's much more pressing information to be distributed.

I have purchased yet another bike. Because I'm insane and clearly addicted to scooters. I picked up a Honda Elite 250, which is my Cannonball Run bike. That's right, I'm going to be doing the Cannonball Run on a 21 year old CH250.

For those of you who are not in the know, the Cannonball Run is a scooter "race", cross country. I believe it lasts 10 days, might be 11, might be 9. The total distance is close to 3200 mi I believe, and truly it's a matter of stamina and riding abilities. Taking a cue from my boy Jess (Curator of ModernVespa.com), I decided that it would be an insufferably bad idea to take my pride and joy scoot (Grace) out across the country and risk either running down the engine or wrecking the bike. Instead, I picked up this Elite for about a grand. She's in storage now, and will remain as much until I have time and money to bring it up to spec. And by storage, I mean my "friendly" garage.

The Elite's going to be named, "Starbuck", for one very good (and yet insufferably geeky) reason: I'm going to be repainting the bike to look like a Viper from the new Battlestar Galactica series on Sci-Fi. To give you some context, here is a Viper:



Following is the Elite:


I believe the family resemblance is strong.

Anyway, she's got new tires and a new belt, and has 13k mi on her. She'll truck over 65 and has a ridiculously accurate speedometer for some reason, since most 2-wheelers have really bad speedometers. Always off.

So that's the CBR bike, Starbuck. Welcome home, girl.

In other news, Lesli and I will be attending The Rides of March, a rally over in San Luis Obispo tomorrow through the weekend. It amuses me that I am in no way worried about the ride, where as about 2 years ago I made a similar trip on Grace to LA stopping off in Morro Bay, and it felt incredibly harrowing. Maybe I'm just getting to be that much more comfortable on my bikes?