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Have you dreamed of riding some of the most incredible roads in the world? This might be your chance. Colorado is filled with spectacular scenery, challenging mountain roads, eclectic small towns, dizzying elevations, abundant wildlife and much more. We are recruiting 10 riders, but are you, and your scooter, up to this adventure?

There will be two 'Rider-Hosts'. Both are avid maxi-scooter riders, certified as MSF RiderCoachs, have extensive knowledge of touring and Colorado routes.
The 2014 tour will start, and end, near Denver. The majority of riding will be on twisty, two-lane mountain roads. Elevations will vary greatly, but average above 8000ft. Some highlights for 2014 are Lookout Mountain, Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mt Evans summit (over 14K ft), Glenwood Springs Hot Springs, Silver Thread Hwy, Peak to Peak Hwy, and much more. Altogether approximately 1100 miles of incredible views and technical mountain roads.

This tour is not gender specific. Regardless of man, woman or trained chimp we are looking for riders that meet the tour prerequisites for ability, personality, etc. Attendance is by 'invitation-only'. 10 riders are selected from applicants (with a few on an alternate list in case of dropouts). To find out more and if you want to  apply, go to
www.BigAssScooter.com
You can also check out details and photos from the 2013 tour.

For questions about the tour please visit the website as most answers are there. If you still have a question the website has a link for asking.

Cheers, ScooterBJ
Big Ass Scooter

I did really well on mine. Bought it in November. It was a dealer maintaind '09 R500i with only 5K miles. Stock except for a massive Shad tail box/case. Cosmetically, it had quite a few paint chips along the sides and the plastic exhaust guard was busted, but had a new Metzler rear tire and fresh service. I gave $2100. I then sold the tailbox for $150, so in all I gave $1950.

I made a new exhaust guard from expanded metal, installed a smaller tailbox (I already had) and have spent some on other upgrades, but the initial and overall cost was hard to beat as the low book value was about $1K over my purchase. It did a great job on the Big Ass Scooter 1000 mile tour through the Rockies. It is the scoot on the left side.
http://bigassscooter.weebly.com/index.html

Well I completed the Big Ass Scooter Rockin The Rockies Tour, in all, about 1K miles. We climbed Pikes Peak at 14K and other passes at over 9K. The engine pulls much more freely with better power and acceleration. As the modifications to the airbox are before the filter all air entering the engine is still filtered so no additional dust, etc is getting in. As for mileage, i had not checked it  but feel it does a bit better.

Riding south on the very winding curves of US550 we caught up with a group of Harley riders and tailed them a few miles to a scenic overlook pullout. There, they mostly avoided us but one rider came over with tons of questions about how a bunch of scooters could ride so fast and handle so well.

The only issues I had were personal comfort (which most riders would be fine) and vacuum locking the fuel tank if I overfilled. The vacumm lock only happened a couple times. Since returning i now have the scoot strippped down. I am working on adding highway highway bars so I can stretch out a bit (I am 6'3") and getting the handlebars to a more comfortable angle. I will be setting up a vent for the fuel filler as well

I scrapped the CVT cover a few times when riding fast in the tight  Mountain curves. After that, i made sure to get my weight inside the curve to keep the scooter at a better angle (thanks Total Control).

Overall, the Xciting 500 makes a pretty darn good mountain touring scooter.

I have seen similar symptoms (not specific to the Xciting) caused by a lose or bad ground. Im not sure where the main ground to the frame and engine are but it might be worthwhile to check a wiring diagram and check the scoot.

My '09 was preowned and did not come with an Owners Manual. Many searches via Google have only supplied an older version. Does anyone here have a spare or a PDF version?

I have been setting up my '09 for the Big Ass Scooter tour http://bigassscooter.weebly.com coming up. Some of the things I did were:
• Cutdown the GIVI windshield 2.5" and add a 1" vent hole.
• Wire in a pigtail to the brake/tail light (for additional light with brake flasher).
• Wire a lead through the body panels to a 12V plug in the mini dash glove box (for GPS).
• Mod the airbox.
• Repair a couple of broken body panel tabs.
• Install headlight modulator.
• Increase angle of the sidestand when down.
and misc other stuff. In order to get this done I had to remove the whole rear body section for access. This allowed me to get to the airbox. The mod I did was to de-snorkel the airbox and then drill 2 holes 7/8" dia in the top of the air box. Months back I had remade a high flow air filter (process I posted on the forum). i am pleased to say the mods allow the scoot to accelerate much quicker and it runs about 500-800 rpm less at 60mph.

The airbox snorkel is the rubber tube that slightly sticks out of the air box and runs about 2/3 of the internal length. The purpose of these are typically to quieten the intake noise. removing it allows the air to flow faster and in a bit more volume. The two additional holes in the top allow much more air to come in. The scooter runs much better and I expect to see better MPG (if I can ride reasonably).

No problem. I think I read of this being done on GY6 engines in the Philippines some years back. My '09 is currently partly stripped. I am building a trunk support with rods coming off the upper shock mounts (copied from GIVI) and a custom exhaust built from a 1200 Harley Sportster muffler (which comes with 2). It is about 40% lighter, smaller and will flow better with a little more sound. I rigged it up to check it before starting the process. the only hold up is finding a short tube of the correct inside dia to clamp over the stock head pipe. i don't want to cut up my stock exhaust. I've been riding the wife's Burgie 400 and miss Xciting now that we are starting to get good weather..

Hey, thanks. I never thought of that. I am going to have the valves adjusted, (it's been going on 40,000 miles with no adjustment). And go up 2 sizes on the main jet, (I have a Leo Vince and it pops on de-celeration). And put in a K&N style air filter and see how it performs/MPG and such. And if I am not happy with that, then I may do what you suggested? Strange or funny that know one seems to make the size & weight of the X500 rollers in the after market arena? Thanks again.