Tag Archives: mechanics

About A Girl and Her Scooter

It’s 5:27am. I woke up at about 5ish, just lying there and thinking.
About my scooter.
It’s funny, my scooter technically runs better than it has in its entire life. Completely rebuilt engine, yada, yada. Looks like shit, since The Kid* cracked and broke the hell out of its shell, but what are you gonna do?
All winter, however, my scooter has languished in the corner of my parking lot. Continue reading

Poor Little Scooter

We here in Vancouver live on the Wet Coast. This city literally is in a rainforest. There’s around 1,200 mm of rain a year. 45 inches for you Imperialists down south. With 10% of that rain falling in the summer months, you can imagine the fun that is the winter here in Vancouver. Wanna get wet? This is your town.
I, however, am Vancouver-born. That’s a pretty small percentage, true “locals”. Most folks around these parts are imports. Not me. I don’t do umbrellas. They’re for sissies. I even ride my scooter in downpours.
Like on Monday.
I had an appointment to get to as the weather worsened and worsened, torrents coming down, and figured, “Fuck it, I’ve been in worse.” I grabbed my reflective vest, something I never wear but felt strangely drawn to do, and headed.
I raced out past the airport, and was motoring it faster than I had when I worked out there, and was, despite the torrents, enjoying the new, powerful beast my scooter had become with its souped-up new 70cc kit, crankshaft, new seals, and essentially a rebuilt motor that was geared for performance and speed by my speed-geek mechanic.
While my mechanic’s all that, it would seem the civic engineers in Richmond are fucking morons. Turns out, the Number 2 Road Bridge is NOT designed for rain. Because, why would you take rain into consideration in a rainforest? I mean, how much can it really rain after all?
Enough to send veritable rivers — I’m talking nearly three inches deep — rushing down the CENTRE of the bridge deck. You know, where scooters ride?
Chug-chug-chug-chig-chocka-bonk-bog-bog-putt-putt-thud. Continue reading