Cannonball Run 2006

Ashrat is in da house. Sitting at breakfast we heard that wonderful pop pop pop sound, look out the window and there sits Ashrat.

Question though, where is Mr Purple Bear? I guess that's going to have to be a mystery for now as I'm chilling at Scooter Heaven Portland, the new Vespa Portland Service facility. I call it Scooter Heaven because I've never seen so many so scooters in one place at one time. There's lots of Genuine Buddys here that need homes, folks! (Lots of Vespas, too) Also, currently at this location is one very hot Genuine Blur that is already spoken for. :-}

Yesterday, I put a couple hundred miles on the Blur riding around Portland to break it in as much as possible before hitting the road. Here is the big surprize about riding the Blur - the Blur is a people magnet. I think. Genuine expected the Blur's appearance to be polarizing. They figured that people would love it or hate it.

My question is where are the people who hate it? I ask because I was totally caught off guard by the number of folks who went out of there way to come over and tell me they love it! Particularly women! How odd! All those middle-aged men who spend $75 for Corvettes and then ride around with thier male buddies... they need to save the $71.5K and get a Blur. Totally, totally unexpected. Go figure.

So what about the Blur? First, the Blur is COOL. I don't quite know how to explain it, but, if you're at all curious, you should go see a Blur in person because the pictures just don't do it justice. Even the hard-core guys are grudgingly admitting it. It's cool. Enough said.

The Blur's brakes rock. You throw a finger over the front brake lever and give it a gentle squeeze and you STOP. RIGHT NOW. And that's just the dual front disk brakes at work. At that's totally not to mention that the rear disk on the Blur is OUTSTANDING. Seriously.

The Blur's suspension and handling are so good that it get's your attention. When you set up for a curve, the Blur reads your mind and does the work for you. Turn left here? Yes Sir! Mid-turn course correction? No Problem! Whew, the worst thing about the Blur is that it's a little disconcerting to ride a scooter whose handling may be better than my ridng skills. Wow.

The first question everybody asks is always, How fast is it? Later in the Cannonball after I get the motor broken in completely, I'll measure the speed with the GPS and report here. Stay tuned. I can tell you that I noticed the Blur getting faster and faster off the line as I was riding around and around Portland yesterday. Stay tuned.

One final thing. Genuine rocks! Vespa Portland rocks! P Town Scooters rocks! Portland scooter peeps rock! Thank you everybody who's gone way out of their way to help us out.

It's time to wrap this up. I have a little scooter ride to go on. :)

# posted by jrsjr @ 12:23 PM