Vibiant

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Detroit is not having any fun.

Well, maybe somebody is, the repo men living in Redford or the lawyers in Bloomfield Hills, but least viewed from the 2009 North American International Auto Show, there was a distinct lack of fun this year.

Blame the economy, blame the Big Three [Toyota, VW and GM? Those are the actual Big 3, in case anyone cares] blame the Mayor, blame Csaba Cere. Regardless, I’ve been to funerals that had more emotional and spiritual uplift to them. Airliners stuck for hours on the tarmac have contained more smiles. If I needed a poster visually defining the phrase “goin’ through the motions”, a panoramic photograph of NAIAS ’09 would suffice.

I was excited about the show. I always am. I go every year, and as much fun as the cars are, [and to me they are, down to the very least subcompact] the atmosphere is as at least as exciting. The huge, elaborate sets in the vast space that is Cobo Hall, the thousands of people who pour in, especially on opening day, that is the day to go, where there are so many people in the narrow isles and alleys between the cars that it’s almost claustrophobic. I rely of a very wide angle lens to get any pictures of the cars at all, were I to back away any farther, I’d get nothing but pictures of people with something shiny in the background. Assuming you can even get that far away. Despite the size of the venue, the cars are chockablock, every model, often in multiple trim packages, vying for space with the turntables and the mechanical and electronic razzmatazz that make the concept cars look so compelling, even when they’re just painted blocks of sculpted foam.

This year, not so much. The sets were not elaborate. No walls of ice, holographic projections, waterfalls, and an embarassingly small number of LED video walls. The number of cars present were also fewer, far fewer. And I’d estimate that roughly 40% of the opening day crowd was missing. I could stand 20 feet from a concept car on a raised turntable, [it was a rather mild looking Chrysler concept sedan, but still] and take a picture with essentially no people in it—except for the far background. There was a slightly grim atmosphere to the event, among the people that did show up there was a undercurrent of it being a mandatory attendance, like some form of May Day festival in a communist country. Even the spokesmodels had a certain level of forced enthusiasm to them, at least, more so than in previous years. Not enough people to interact with, perhaps, they lacked the crowd’s energy to reach critical levels of perkiness. The only exception to this were the spokespeople at the Chinese car stands, who seemed largely indifferent to the presence of any autoshow goers whatsoever.

The only real enthusiasm I saw was with the engineering students at their Formula SAE [Formula Student] stands on the lower level. The attendees could catch that enthusiasm if there were a few more of them. The models could catch that subsequent enthusiasm, and perhaps, with some enthusiastically-generated sales, the manufacturers could catch it, too.

Clearly, because I don’t have enough to do, I decided to buy a scooter and customize it.  Actually, there are reasons:

I want to get on two wheels.  I’ve finally gotten to the point where the tug of th eopen road has outweighed the fear of a horrible death at the hands of a soccer mom behind the wheel of a free cingular mp3 ringtones | phone ringtones verizon | free music nextel real ringtones | celcom malaysia caller ringtones | free funny voice ringtones | free real ringtones tone | download free ringtones samsung | free verizon cell phone ringtones | virgin mobile ringtones | free nokia ringtones | free get ringtones | download free midi ringtonesкомпютри | free ringtones for cingular phone | complimentary music real ringtones | real ringtones | free ringtones for cricket cell phone | ringtones for prepaid phone | dash mobile ringtones t | free new ringtones | free samsung x427 ringtones | Suburban, but you have to walk before you run, so passing my motorcycle test with something that requires no shifting is probably best, all things considered.

I want something to traipse around on at the various Burningmman-like festivals I attend, and a scooter is easy to pack up and transport places.

I want a project, and my current car, the Fit, is new, and a daily driver, so having the leisure of pulling something apart I don’t have to reassemble by Monday is nice, as is the fact that it’s always easier to tear apart something that’s crummy and old, as opposed to your brand new car.

So off to craigslist I go, I had tried ebay and found good deals in faraway states that I couldn’t get to easily ro cheaply, so I wanted a local seller. I wanted a Honda, since they build quality scooters just like their cars, and for the most part they sell 4 stroke engines with them, which pollute less and are a known quantity with me.

But then I found a 1984 Honda Aero 80 on craigslist for an absurdly low price that I felt that I had to have.  I did some research, and yes, it’s a 2-stroke, but it has oil injection, neater and cleaner running than premix, and, I suppose, I’d have to learn about how 2-strokes work sometime anyway, so this would be my chance.  Also, the fact that this scoot shared engine architecture at least with some Honda dirtbikes meant that I could hop it up some, yup

The scoot looked good,  and I wanted it, so I sent off the requisite email and heard. . . nothing.  I emailled and emailled through the end of February and almost all of March, only getting 2 responses, perhaps the most maddenning aspect of the it.  It seemed like he wanted to sell, but no movement was being made.  Finally, about 40 days into this mess, I made a fateful decision–  I had the seller’s name from his email, and it being somewhat unusual, I hunted around whitepages.com and found an address for who I thought was the right guy.

Thursday, March 27 was raining, the kind of fine, drenching rain that seems to so often be the mark of portentious events afoot, so I drove out to the address I had and knocked on the door.

I didn’t even get a whole sentence out when he said “Oh, you’re the guy who wants the scooter.”

Bingo.

I paid for it and dragged it home, inside my Honda Fit, no less, hatch closed and everything, and it’s now sitting right next to me as I type.  I done some basic cleaning and a little disassembly, to see what I have:  All 4 turn signals battered or missing, missing left engine cover, ancient tires, lots of scuffs and scratches, but no rust, and  and mechanical soundness everywhere else.  I’ll backdate this with pictures as they get scanned into the blog, and the inevitable lists of what needs to be done and what I want to do to make this the most spectacular scooter of all time.

The parking lot was perfect; a thick crust of wet snow on ice, about an inch thick.  Enough to show tire tracks.  Walking behind my car, I see two pairs of tracks, one set smooth, perfect part circumference, and a second set.  This set describes almost half a square, straight then an almost perfect right angle, then straight again to merge with the curve.  Like I said, almost perfect.

The modern car is loaded with no shortage of safety features, not all of which help the proactive driver.  The proactive driver uses all of the controls of the car to control it, including, as in this case, the handbrake.  The handbrake turn is the cure for the common understeer, maintain momentum, press the handbrake button and hold it down, give the lever a judicious yank, and feel the car slew sideways with your inner ear.  Compensate, but don’t overcompensate, to aim the car, as if you were aiming a gun, and roll into the throttle to proceed in the new direction that you have chosen.

My main concern with this Fit of mine, being the first car that I’ve own that had ABS, was whether the ABS would default to “ice mode” when I pull the handbrake?  Ice mode essentially means no brakes at all, your diligent car waiting for the wheels to resume turning, i.e., the return of traction, before it even attempts to apply the brakes again.  The locked rear wheels of the handbrake turn is what makes it work, but if it removes the ability to stop the car, that moots the technique for anything but sliding into a parking spot that you were barely molving into anyway.  In addition to scaring girlfriends and goofing off, judicious use of the handbrake on snow and ice when in cornering situations on dry pavement lift throttle ovesteer would be more than sufficient is sometimes necessary.  The Fit, by the way, barely lift throttle oversteers under the best of circumstances, so at the speeds that you can attain in winter, all you’ll do is plow, unless you use your right hand.

It take practice.  I practice every year, first snow of the year, in the largest, emptiest parking lot thta I can find.  Groping for the subtle shifts in C of G changes  is a frangible skill, practice builds it up.  So I found an especially empty lot this year, and drove in a wide circle, slowling adding speed until the car started to veer wide, I stepped on the brakes hard enough to engage the ABS, and then grabbed the other brake.  To its credit, the Fit knew what to do; the ABS pulsed, I still had control of the steering, the rear wheels locked, and I tightened my turn radius, easy as pie.  Or, easy as doing it six or eight times in a row and then getting the feel for it.

So, no worries, right?  If you hold the handbrake too long, the car beeps at you, so it can sense you”re doing something that it doesn’t approve of.  Then the ABS light went on one cold, cold morning,  and it took much of the day before the ABS modulator came back on-line, so it won’t be until I get the ECU read before I know exactly what happened, and what, if anything, was the cause of it.  But no problems since.  And I am still making the circle and the square.