Saturday, February 10, 2007

Out of Phoenix

As Louise has already written, we are parked on some empty BLM land (map), less than a mile from a $10-a-night BLM campground, which appears 80-90% full. We are just off US93, between Wickenburg and Wikieup (look those up on Wikipedia).

We did, indeed, buy a scooter today. We almost bought the leftover '05, but they sold us an '07 for just $200 more. In researching the bikes on the 'net last night, we learned that some performance improvements had been made in '06 (bigger carb, different ECM) that increased top speed by about 5mph (from just over 37 to just under 43), and the '07 was also a better color for us. Between those factors and the slight improvement in resale value by being two model years "younger," the pair of C-notes seemed worthwhile.

So we are the proud owners of a 2007 Honda Metropolitan 49cc scooter, color blue and white (officially, "Sapphire").




It fit quite easily in the bay, being (without mirrors) a good inch and a half lower than the lowest point in the bay ceiling. Despite it being much smaller than the Suzuki which previously occupied that spot, it is enough different that we had to completely re-engineer how everything else, particularly the two bicycles, went into the bay. Completing the paperwork, setup, and walk-through at the dealer took nearly two hours, and getting the bay loaded almost again that long. It was well past two in the afternoon when we finally left North Valley Motorsports.

Tomorrow, we will head through Kingman, stopping just the other side to hook up with fellow conversion enthusiast Peter Broadribb, who has generously offered use of his Pro-Link. I am hoping to gather enough information to figure out why I am not getting mileage data on my VMS engine display, or at least enough to get help from SilverLeaf with it. We are getting speed data now, for the first time in three years, and I had hoped that the VMS would simply provide the mileage numbers from speed and time figures. The engine information display also shows zero miles and zero hours on the totals stored in the ECM.

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