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Four weeks ago, one of our own made the longest ride yet of any of our customers. He made this ride in some of the most difficult weather imaginable for a ride of this distance. Jon Tan left our shop Feb 26 at about 8pm. We pushed Jon and his SYM CityCom300I, “Tasha”, through the ice and snow in our lot to get him going. He officially left Downingtown the next morning and rode and rode and rode!

Jon went from Pennsylvania down Interstate 81 to Kentucky and the Cumberland Gap National Park. He spent a day riding through the hills there and headed down to Mississippi. Now you would normally think that passing south of, say, North Carolina might get you some warmer weather. The weather averaged about 35-50 degrees in this part of the trip. Jon maxed out the electrical system of the CityCom. The specifications for the CityCom tells me we have 335 watts of electrical power, about this time I added up that Jon was using 325 of them giving him … well, nothing left over.

Jon, with a voltmeter added to Tasha, balanced the need to keep the bike running while running just enough electrically heated clothing to keep him on the road.

Jon again carried the SPOT tracking device so we could see where he was every ten minutes. After Mississippi he headed towards New Orleans. Because we could see where Jon was in almost-real time, we spied a storm spinning out of Texas on weather.com that would have required putting Jon and Tasha in an aircraft to miss. Jon spent seven hours riding through steady rain and heavy winds.

That just must have been miserable.

Then Jon tracked east to Alabama and visited the Tuskegee Airman Museum. He then called me from the road and told me that he had some speedometer issues the day before. The speedometer was working fine at that point but given that tracking the distance is important to a distance rider, we had Jon stop in at the Carter Brothers, SYM USA site in Brundidge, AL. Jon popped in at Carter Brothers and they got Jon a quick pit stop on the advice of his ever-worrying dealer principal. Thanks SYM!

Jon then was in a race against time to reach Jacksonville, FL from Brundidge by 8 PM. Jon was headed to the Iron Butt Association (World’s Toughest Motorcycle Riders)(IBA) Meeting in sunny Florida. He and Jerome, another rider from this area, drew a bead on Jacksonville. Jerome tracked down the east coast knocking out the miles on his Yamaha Majesty 400. Both riders arrived by 8pm with minutes to spare. Why was that arrival time important? It made Jon and Jerome eligible to make a long ride with the other IBA members!

What would the IBA be (apparently) without a really long ride at their meeting! So Jon, now joined with Jerome, proceeded to do another Saddlesore 1000 ride around Florida. A successful Saddlesore 1000 ride, like Jon did last October, has a rider completing 1,000 miles in less than 24 hours.

Suffice it to say that they both did it again! Jerome has been an IBA rider for some time. Jon did his second SS1000 and the event organizers awarded Jon the “Sick and Twisted” award for completing this SS1000 on a 261cc scooter. Jon and Jerome were on the only two scooters surrounded by a bevy of BMW’s and Goldwings.

Then they rested.

Then they stopped resting. I don’t think they are happy when they are stationary…

Jon and Jerome left and drove up I-95 to North Carolina and finished the trip by returning to Philadelphia Sunday night.

One final note: a quick hat-tip to Tasha! If you consider that Tasha loaded with luggage for nearly 5,000 miles of travel, in the winter, in the rain with a maxed out electrical system being ridden at full-throttle or nearly full-throttle for nine days- and survived – is pretty darn impressive!

Jon had ridden over 4,800 miles in 8 days. Jon Tan – another huge personal effort that we totally respect!

If you know us, we like riders that ride! Our passion is with people that use our products to their full potential. Angie Buettner has certainly achieved that goal as she rode her pink Buddy 125cc over … 40,000 miles! We show her here with Dave Rueve, the owner of Metro Scooters in Cincinatti, Ohio. As a owner, rider and a truly enthusiastic supporter of the Genuine Buddy, Angie was chosen as the Buddy Of The Year for Genuine Scooters and received a new Buddy Blackjack scooter from Dave.

What seems particularly special to me about Angie’s story is – well, that it could have very easily never happened. Riding is an art and a science. How one becomes a rider can make all the difference. In Angie’s own words (and with the help of husband, Ben):

“Once we got home I rode about 20 feet and had to push my scoot back into the driveway because I was scared to death and clueless about how to ride this “too heavy, too much power” machine. Ben suggested I search online about Riding a Motorcycle because I probably wouldn’t listen to him; he’s right. The next day I bought all the gear and loaded the bike into the trailer. We went all of a mile to the biggest deserted parking lot we could find. I rode that Buddy 50 miles that afternoon in the parking lot! Ben had me ride around tree islands, around cones, teaching me to counter steer and lean into curves. Nothing like being thrown into something! But I had just spent $2600 and what good was it if I wasn’t going to ride it? Next night after work we actually rode to a nearby county park with some slight curves and hills. We rode and rode and rode and rode until dark. Next day we did the Park thing one more time. The 4th day we actually rode to work. Mind you, it was the backest roads we could find but a ride to and from work nonetheless. And the rest is history. I wasn’t about to let my fear of motorcycles (remember, I was an x-ray tech who had worked on lots of motorcycle crash victims in my life) ruin this for me. We signed up for the next MSF Class and riding became even more intense and fun.

What’s that got to do with anything? Just that everything and everyone pointed to the Buddy and there has never been even a hint of regret for those purchases. Riding with so many motorcyclists I get bombarded with “When are you going to get a real bike”. The standard reply is “When I need to go faster than 70mph or this one breaks in half”. ‘Nuff said and they leave me alone. I have skills, I have confidence and I have God as my passenger.”

Angie, that cute, pink Buddy never did break in half and now you’ve got the top of the line Buddy to break-in. MPG Motors salutes you and thanks you for your support of America’s Smallest Scooter Company!

I’d like to highlight a group of people that are doing the heavy lifting to improve aspects of our sport in Philadelphia. Let me say, “THANK-YOU” to the Motorcycle and Scooter Coalition of Philadelphia. I would like this post to recognize some fellow riders and city organizations that are doing the tough work to make it better for the rest of us.

The Motorcycle and Scooter Coalition of Philadelphia was formed to represent Philly bike riders. The goals are the group are to improve riding issues for those that live in, drive-in, shop-in and visit Philadelphia on their bikes.

Anyone that lives *anywhere* knows that the number of vehicles isn’t going anywhere but up in the future. We give a hat-tip to Piaggio for commissioning a study in 2007 discussing the potential benefits of increasing percentages of bikes towards helping congestion in New York City. You can read about that study here. Given the economic situation, it’s reasonable to believe that scooters and motorcycles are going to be a much bigger portion of the transportation picture of southeastern Pennsylvania going forward. From the Coalition’s website, “We travel on two wheels because of the convenience, the cost, and the fun.” You just have to salute a message like that!

The proactive part of this group is currently directed at bike parking in Philadelphia. As we have discussed in Brotherly Love, you can fit a whole bunch more bikes in a normal parking spot than you can cars or trucks. It’s inefficient to waste an entire parking slot for a bike. However, until the Philadelphia Parking Authority began their pilot bike parking program this was the only legal solution. Some of the folks that gave input into this pilot have evolved into the Coalition.

The Coalition folks have been attending meetings to offer suggestions and share real-world experience without which would probably result … in a mess. They have given presentations, attended meetings and helped to shape the direction the Parking Authority takes. To the PPA, thanks for listening to these folks and responding as you have so far. Dividing up parking spaces, adding devices so riders can secure their rides, even making maps is harder than doing nothing. Thanks to the Coalition people and the PPA for working to actually make things better for bikers in Philly!

It is well known that you need at least a 650cc bike to do any serious road-trip.

Smaller bikes, commonly known as starter bikes in the industry, are best fits for local trips on slower roads.

Luckily we have customers like Mike Jarossy of Sellersville who re-write what is commonly called “common knowledge”.

Actually, Mike pretty much blew this knowledge out of the water by taking a 1,296 mile trip on his Hyosung GV250 through five states over 11 days this past summer!

Some trip highlights: Mike blasted up I-95 through Washington D.C., climbed hills to altitudes of over 4,000 feet, rode both the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Colonial Parkway, took his bike on a boat and was even able to pack enough clothes on the Hyosung to attend a wedding.

Read Mike’s terrific trip report and see some beautiful pictures here