Scoot. Rain. Scoot.

Drenched on the Scooter, originally uploaded by JaseMan.

My plan for the 4th (and the rest of the weekend) was to ride my hog as much as possible since I've not really been in town. Plus, the Memorial/Washington area gets PUH-ACKED, which makes parking a PITA. Thus, I ignored K-Not's warning that a rainstorm was unloading on The Heights.

The storm was gianormous enough for me to see the clouds and rain from just outside my place. "It's moving pretty fast. I probably won't get caught in it," I thought. Wrong.

I caught up to the backside (tee hee) of the drama when I was about two-and-a-half miles from The Bolivian's and quickly switched our plan to meet at his place instead of the lunch spot.

He snapped this photo just after I'd pulled into the shelter of his parking garage. Good thing I had spare clothes in the satchel.

M is for Motorcycle Endorsement

Training Wheels, originally uploaded by JaseMan.

Hello. I'm JB el JB. I once wrecked two motorcycles in the span of a week and followed up those crashes with a near miss on a scooter two weeks later. Now you know why my mom is not digging the fact that I bought the hog.

The key thing to realize is that I'd never ridden a motorcycle prior to renting the Ducati in Australia. The short story is that a colleague, who had a bike at home, suggested that we rent bikes and ride the coast line. I rode for six plus hours without incident prior to failing to make it through a left turn and ended up hitting the side of a mountain.

Motorcycle riding is not rocket science or so I thought. "It's just like driving a stick in a car, but you shift on the handlebars." That's true, but the real issue is cornering as I demonstrated during my tenure down under.

I knew that I needed to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation BasicRider Course, which is what happened this weekend. The class was three hours in the class room on Friday night followed by about five hours riding each day on Saturday and Sunday.

The students were a diverse mix. A mother/son team was seated at my table along with a Nigerian guy named Abe who was pretty hilarious. The 20 other students were black, white and Latin. They rode (or wanted to ride) Harleys, scooters and crotch rockets.

The class room portion was cake (I got a 100% on the written test), but the real challenge was the practical part of the class. The instructors split us into two sections of 12 students with whom we'd ride over the next two days. We progressed from idling across the parking lot to maneuvering through swerves and curves at 20 MPH.

Some folks did well; some did not. The double u-turn drill was a daunting task. So were the braking drill and the 130 degree curve. The mom from my table and a another lady seemed to be having a contest about who could drop their motorcycle more often. In the end, the other lady "won" by wrecking during the final evaluation. Fortunately, the only pain she encountered was a bruised pride and a failure in the class.

In case you are wondering, I went out for a spin after class and avoided an accident thanks to my much improved cornering skills. I didn't panic when the oncoming car stopped in the apex of the turn. Instead, I just Slowed, Looked, Pushed & Rolled...and Pushed some more. Take the class and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Big Trouble

Big Trouble, originally uploaded by JaseMan.

I know what you're thinking.

You're joking, right? Aren't you the guy who crashed two motorcycles in a seven day span in 2002? Didn't you follow-up those fiascoes with a near wipe out on a Vespa in Rimini two weeks later?

Nope. Yep. And, uh huh.

The fact is that I have wanted a motorcycle for eons. My spectacular crash near Melbourne Australia didn't do much more than provide a slight pause in my conscience. In fact, the crash was pretty exhilirating - scary as hell - but exciting none the less. I'd also like to think that my recent $3000 a pop trips to the shop for my VW have something do with my desire for alternative transportation, but that's not true. This is more about fun, rebellion and looking cool.

I finally have my own powered two-wheel vehicle after spending lusting after a 1966 Honda Superhawk 305, a Ducati Monster or a BMW touring machine. In fact, I only ended up buying my Virtacci Edge after my latest round of stalking Superhawks on eBay.

DFT and I were perusing my eBay Watch List late one night after dinner. I was stoked about the 1976 Honda Super Sport in mint condition...and the 1978 450...and the 1984 Interceptor. Mmmm hmmm. I would look super fly riding around on a red, white and blue grand daddy of today's crotch rockets.

DFT was more excited about scooters. One scooter caught his eye more than the others. The Honda Ruckus. $1900 for 49 ccs didn't seem like the smartest decision for me given my non-pixie like dimensions, but the design was pretty sweet. The engine was housed by a minimalist frame that makes the thing look more like a kit you put together than something produced by big industry.

We surfed motorcycle and scooters sites all night until we could surf no longer. Both of us were excited to head to the local scooter shop as soon as we could. We were test riding in two days.

A lunch trip turned in a scooter testing trip. Apollo Scooters was between me and DFT and seemed like the perfect spot to talk about lunch options. If we just happened to ride a couple of sleds around the parking lot, then we were cool with that. The place was packed with customers looking to get green. Guys bigger than me that looked like they should be riding Harleys. Nerd couples looking to cut their carbon footprint and raise their cool factor.

DFT and I both thought the Edge (not the guitarist) was the most intriguing model. Its style is very similar to the Ruckus (more precisely the Big Ruckus) but with a bigger engine - 150 cc. We took it for a spin around the parking lot. Uh oh.

JB: "We'd better get out of here before one of us buys this thing."

DFT: "O.K. Let's go to Jenni's and check them out online."

Lunch at Jenni's was great. The food was solid and our Internet searching uncovered an Edge on Craigslist for about $700 less than retail if you include the dealer prep fee.

You can see where that led.