Gear Talk: Sacrifices to the Road

Way better than stock.

This post is dedicated to the bits of my scooter that have broken or fallen off thus far.

The most noticeable is probably my front left reflector, lost to a fall in rain and rough road in New Orleans. I’ve replaced it with a winged dude I found at the French Market. He was zip-tied on there ‘bondage style’ (Davide’s words) until Madison, WI, when I found a few small bolts. Ironically, that was the day I came out to discover my scooter knocked over in a ditch. No serious damage, thankfully.

I didn’t realize it was gone until I tried to honk goodbye to Amerivespa goers.

Another casualty of New Orleans was my horn button, popped right off in the same left side fall. TTRNO had a spare, I replaced it in Itasca, IL, at the garage of Dave and Kasey where I took this photo.

Not sure if it fell in or out, but it wasn’t holding.

Likely a roofing nail, somewhere in North Carolina or Tennessee. Discovered in Atlanta, GA. The plug wouldn’t stay. R.I.P. first rear tire.

Way more glam in chrome.

Rt 421, aka The Snake, ate my Crampbuster. Lucky for me, Jill loves Jack scooter accessories carried a spare at Bandcamp. They only had chrome, so I’ll get used to shiny.

I’m trying not to think about this.

I’m not sure when this happened, possibly the woman in the minivan that cut me off in Atlanta? It was a slow motion fall, again in rain. I’ve probably been overloading that bag hook anyhow, and when the weight was thrown to the right…SNAP. I’ve been putting off replacing this, because it involves taking off the glove compartment.

One day I’ll replace this with a USB outlet. One day.

Ohhh, damn. The Bee Incident.

I thought there was a bee up my sleeve in Minnesota. I pulled onto the shoulder to shake it out, and in my bug-induced anxiety I failed to notice the scooter tipping over. The weight took me with it, and the guard rail split my windscreen and sheared the right mirror right off. No serious damage, except to my ego.

Battle scooter: Engage.

Nate helped me remove the bolt end in Fargo, ND. The windscreen seems to be holding up fine with Loctite plastic glue (I had tried a cable and some duct tape before), but I should probably price out replacing the right mirror in Seattle or California.

Yeah, my scoot’s got a few miles on her.