Scootering

I occasionally take part with the Toronto Scooter Meetup group for rides. This past Saturday, we staged at Vespa Markham, four other braves souls came for the ride through Durham Region. Was it ever cold! It had been a few weeks since the last time I to my Vespa out, and the last time I took it out, I noticed my rear hub was a little loose, and I hadn't tighten it yet since I need to replace the cotter pin to tighten it. I finally remembered when I took it out that morning. Oh well to late now, no time or a replacement pin in the tool box. I headed out, and realized just how cold Saturday morning was. 20 minutes later I arrived at Vespa Markham, I was surprised to see another real Vespa there, a new PX150 with a upgraded engine out front. It's surprising since most new riders get the more modern automatics, it was nice to see another manual shift scooter. We waited a bit because another guy from Barrie was supposivly trailering his Vespa in. When we finally set off, I realized that one of the riders was riding a Vino 50. Bad news this guy was gonna limit us to 60 km/h, not good when doing 80 km/h roads.
Well we rode for about an hour or so and made it to Lake Scugog, and made a stop to stretch the legs, it also gave us a chance to let the 50 guy go ahead and we could catch up going at a decent pace.
By now I was freezing, jumping around trying to keep warm. I had 4 layers on including my motorcyle jacket, and long johns. I wore my summer gloves, since they're my only motorcycle gloves, and I really need to get a Balaclava. We rode for another 20 minutes to Port Perry and stopped at a Horney Tims/Wendys to get some lunch and coffee to warm up. When we suited up the guy on the 50 gave me his Balaclava, and it made a huge difference for my riding comfort.
Our next stop Uxbridge. Home of Love Scooters. They sell Kymco scooters. Kymco is Taiwanese brand of scooter. They have been manufacturing scooters for a very long time, and are known to have made scooters for other companyies such as Honda, and build ATVs for ArticCat. Interesting shop, they don't display the scooters over the winter, but instead turn it into an art gallery. But they still sell them, just a few in the basement and the rest of their inventory is at the warehouse.
We headed back to Vespa Markham after that. Our goal was to make it home before sun went down. We got back in about a half hour, and went to speak to Brian the proprioter of the shop, and discuss how we could not include anybody on a 50 to come to our country rides, without having to insult them. It's just too dangerous for the rest of the pack to ride with a 50 since we have to go at their pace, which is no fun for the rest of us.
After that ride, it's time to put the Vespa away for another season. Hopefully we'll have a lot of Indian Summers this winter so I can keep riding.