Temperamental Scooter

Today’s weather: High = 6 Low = 1
Rainy, overcast, and crap

The scooter viciously protested against me taking it out of hibernation early. It was a big mistake to ride it in this crap weather to begin with. But it’s awfully tempting when it can reduce a commute to 15 minutes, as opposed to 45 minutes each way on the subway -- most of the time spent walking to and from stations.

And who can argue against the convenience of taking a scooter into town for the evenings, and coming back later at night when the subways stop running. That was the idea anyway. I filled up the scooter with fresh gas in the suburbs, but it sputtered out and failed halfway to People’s Square. A superb annoyance, as I had to leave it parked on the side of the road and catch a taxi the rest of the way otherwise I’d be even more late for a date.

Fortunately the breakdown happened in Xu Jia Hui near my work. Due to time constraints and no subway, I had to take a taxi home and leave the scooter parked overnight on a busy road. Then the next day I went to retrieve the scooter during my spare teaching blocks. Fully expecting the bike to have been stolen (despite the fact it was locked) I was astonished to see it still there in one piece. What’s more, it re-started when I put the key in the ignition. Totally amazing!

A friend figured that the carberator was dirty and/or water got into the fuel line. Most likely both. Let’s face it, scooters were designed for Thailand weather, not this cold and miserable rain crap.

At first I wanted to put it back into hibernation and wait until March to ride again. But the convenience won out.

After a maintenance job I've now been going back and forth from work on this bike in the freezing cold, not to mention various parties.

The good news -- the weather in Shanghai warms up quickly in March. Then it’s at least 9 months of the year of good riding. I’m going to upgrade this May and go for a new Yamaha YBR250 motorcycle. If the scooter survives until then, will keep it for zipping around downtown and the motorcycle for the suburbs. An added advantage is that the motorcycle acts as a mobile fuel storage tank and can siphon into the scooter when needed.

The scooter tank doesn’t hold much fuel, maybe 200km worth or less. So every week it needs a fill-up. If you’ve read the book, “Who moved my cheese”, then this concept applies LITERALLY when it comes to gas stations in Shanghai. Let’s just say someone moved my gas station when I was getting too comfortable.