Revenge of “The Chinaman.”

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“Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.”

Kari and I have been scooter shopping. We’ve looked at Craigslist just about every day for the last month, calling everyone we could and asking them about their rides. I had zeroed in on one particular scooter, a Honda C70 Passport (pictured). All the reviews say it’s reliable, sturdy and fun. The thing’s as cute as a button.

We found “the one,” a beat-up old Passport for $650 in NW Houston. No pic. Runs and functions perfectly. Dream. Come. True. We spent Saturday late morn driving up there and looking at the thing. When Kari saw it she got nervous. It was cosmetically as described, except for no headlight, title, or electronic ignition, and it had no leg cowl. This thing, without a leg cowl, looks like a motorcycle missing a gas tank. Then with no headlight and a bundle of old wires in it’s place, it looks like a scary motorcycle. Never-mind that it starts in 1/2 a kick of the starter and idles so quietly you can whisper while standing next to it. Never-mind that it effortlessly glides up to 40mph, and shifts quickly and firmly. It LOOKS unreliable. Then when I turn it off in first gear, the transmission seizes up. We have to roll it and drop it into first to get it to start up again, and then it works fine. At this point poor Kari is probably crapping her pants. I’m talking about how we can buy it, put $300 into it, and have a nearly perfectly working Honda scooter, Kari’s wondering why we’d bother when there’s a brand new chinese scooter down the street for $1095.

So, as you’re guessing, we didn’t buy the C70. There was a perfect functional C70 in the guy’s garage, teal even, but he said we didn’t “even want to know” how much he was going to ask for that one. No deal. We instead drove down to Richmond last evening and bought a 2006 CF Moto E Charm 150 for $1,500 from one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He bought it for his wife, and they put 2,600 km on it before deciding she really just wanted a golf cart. We bought it for $700 less than he was asking and gleefully rode back towards Houston on it. This thing FLEW. I thought the speedometer was in Km/h, “35mph? Give me a break Kari,” I thought to myself while driving down FM 359. We stop to put gas in it and I comment that she’s driving too slow and she tells me she’s going 50, I look at the speedo and am a little shocked. The thing had more in it. I wanted to open it up and see how fast it would go. I had nicknamed it “the Chinaman.”

We left the gas station and cruised along the back-roads towards town. There’s a section in there that’s all forested, and the road’s just been paved this year. It’s smooth and curvy and green and beautiful. It was bliss until I looked down and noticed the temperature gauge was reading a little high, just up to the part were the red starts. We pulled over and put more water in the water tank and kept driving. After a couple more miles the scooter died at a stoplight and wouldn’t restart. I pushed it into the gas station to see what was wrong. Dead battery. So now we have overheating and dead battery. This time I topped off the crankcase oil, thinking maybe the oil’s low/bad and making the thing run hot. We jumped it and drove it another mile before it died again, this time in the street. We jumped it again. We took it to Phillip and Amber’s place and jumped it again, slowly this time, chatin it up with friends.

We start it up and its great, cool, bright lights, the works. I drive it 2 blocks and it dies at the light again. It restarts and I keep on the throttle while stopped. Seems to work. We make it all the way to 24/7 Flowers on Westheimer before it dies again, dead battery and still running hot. Jump start, drive further (about 2 miles). Dies again. Jump start. Drive almost 3.5 miles before it dies this time, with me now giving it FULL THROTTLE to keep it running at lights, the headlight about as bright as Tara Reid. I go over the train tracks on Richmond and when I try to accelerate I get almost nothing, then a burst. I lay on the throttle getting up to about 40, take the corner onto Drexel hot, and suddenly lose all lights, power, everything. Coast to a stop. Five blocks from home.

I pushed it home. I’m going to call Scott today and ask him to come take it back, as it has serious problems. He seems like a nice guy, I hope he’s cool about this. In all we took this route. We stopped 9 times, only two of which were planned.

We’re buying a Honda. Joel in NW Houston with the teal bike just emailed me and offered me $1600 for it. There’s two Elite 80’s for sale for $1000. Never again, China, never again.