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Another side note: last summer I purchased a USED push mower to deal with the areas in my yard unsuitable for the Bush hog. It was one of the smallest available. And it doesn’t not have the fast charging capability. But it cuts well even in relatively thick grass. It’s run time is only about an hour. Less in high grass. But I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Noise is much lower. Less vibration, I don’t have to pull a rope to start. And is significantly lighter. If I bought an extra battery and the fast charger, I could mow uninterrupted.

A push mower, you mean like one of these?


So I guess the extra battery and fast charger look like this?


And since getting married, I don't think I've been able to get anything done uninterrupted...

Joking aside, I'm excited for any new battery technologies and I hope they get developed into something usable at a widespread consumer level. Lithium is working great for everything I have tried so far, but the mining of the lithium and cobalt are pretty nasty and I don't think that is too well-known to the general public.

You're right about the coronary on the moped. I never had a gas-powered moped, but I had an electric scooter which was given to me for free. The pedals are utterly worthless. The gearing was too low, the cranks themselves were wiggly, the stroke was too short, and the riding stance was far too wide to generate enough sustained movement to balance. I think the farthest I got it to move on pedal power from a standstill was about 4 inches. It worked decently on lithium power, but I still considered it a fairly large and impractical vehicle during my ownership of it.

As for $4K+ bicycles, I personally agree, but everyone has their hobbies and passions where unreasonable amounts of money are spent, to the outside observer. I used to be really into mountain biking, but I still never owned a bicycle that cost more than $1K. I can't say from personal experience, having never owned such a high-end bicycle, but I imagine like most things there is a fairly early point of diminishing returns. I would say there is a vast improvement from $200 to $400, and still a significant improvement from $400 to $700, but it gets less noticeable as you go up. This is for things like smoothness of the drivetrain operation and such. These days I don't care half as much as I used to about bicycle specs. But yes once the price hits about $2K, I start thinking about scooters or motorcycles instead.

My current rides are a 20+ years old mountain bike retrofitted with a 48V 1000W front wheel drive kit, and more recently a moderately-spec'd department store mountain bike retrofitted with a 48V 1000W rear wheel drive kit. These are heavy (by bicycle standards) if I ever have to lift them, but they are perfectly rideable under pure pedal power and the weight is not terribly noticeable. Both of these have top speeds higher than what I feel safe doing on a bicycle, but the power is there for hill climbing and just a little throttle is great for casual cruising or running nearby errands, making them great practical machines. I know it's off topic, but I highly recommend putting together such a custom bike. It really doesn't cost much and they are great fun to ride, almost as much as scooters IMO.

My first scooter ever was a Lifan LF50QT-9. I installed a 72cc kit on it, and it ran fine. The belt wore fairly quickly and I replaced it with a better belt. I only had it for a few months before I upgraded it to a Bet&Win 250, but I sure wouldn't mind having a cheap beater in my garage again. It was my first experience to do my own mechanical work; I learned a lot and continue to learn and do what I can myself owing to that experience.

I actually argue that parts availability for Chinese scooters is superior, because I can order pretty much anything and everything I need online, for a relatively low cost.

I would not disrespect their reliability either. I have seen these things at work in the motherland, and what the people put these machines through on a daily basis as a matter of necessity will blow your mind.

I have seen a few around my city. I like them, but then again I like nearly all scooters. Supposedly lots of underseat storage, but a pain to work on.

Even during non-pandemic times, I would rather ride a scooter than take public transportation, rain or shine!

I don't own rain gear, and I have ridden in absolute downpours before.

I own a textile armoured jacket and textile armoured pants, and I own waterproof boots. What I find works very well for me, is to spray my riding gear with two coats of Kiwi Camp Dry once or twice a year. Water rolls right off of it like a duck, yet unlike a duck there is no flapping. Inexpensive, and convenient for daily riding as far as not having to carry a separate set of rain gear.

On the scooter, it holds water well enough that I can get a big pool of water collecting in the crotch area, that I can just pour out by standing up.

Back in the day, a bunch of us in our regular riding group owned large-displacement Kymcos.

In Hong Kong Cantonese, the word(s) for small-displacement scooters literally translates to "little sheep". We called the large-displacement scooters "super sheep". I don't know if this is a commonly accepted nomenclature, but it was fun to call ourselves the Super Sheep Club.

Most of us drive bikes now, though I do love my Super 9 LC to bits.

Rise from your grave!

I finally got a case on my scooter, after looking around a lot for a pre-fab rack, with no luck.

So I just took one of our used Ikea cutting boards from the kitchen, and drilled a few holes into it to take the place of the useless "wing" thing.

Bolted in using M6 bolts (can't remember length though, but I think around 35mm) with some nylon spacers and washers. The Givi/Kappa plate is bolted in with 4 countersunk M6 bolts from the bottom, and nylon insert nuts from the top. It works well, but the cutting board flexes quite a bit, so if I feel spendy I can replace it with something more rigid. But this altogether only cost me a few dollars in pocket change.

I didn't bother cutting or shaping the board at all - I can grab the hole in the board for pushing the scooter, and one other detail I didn't mention is that I also put two additional long bolts that protrude out the bottom - these I can use as attachment points for bungees if I need.

And here are the before/after comparisons of that bulb, vs the standard halogen H4:

The price was in the ballpark of USD$30 shipped to Canada, so I felt I got good value out of this upgrade.

The ones you should be looking for with proper cutoff will be the ones with the solid, passive heatsinks, or the flexible fin heatsinks. I have the newer solid ones in my bikes, my wife's car, and my dad's car high beams, and the flexible ones in my dad's car low beams. All of them have good cutoff.

These are the updated version. A little pricier, but why wouldn't you want the brightest one? And they come in pairs, so you can split the cost with a friend.