Green Vespa at Work: Early Mornings

What's going on here? Did the wife kick you out bed...?

There it was, the obligatory remark from the office's security guard/stationery man as I walked through the front door of my work place. He seldom fails to put a smile on my face with his oh-so smart comments.

You see, I woke up early yesterday morning. Really early. To prove my point, I had breakfast at 3.30 in the morning. Yes, I did say early...

Having not much else to do that early in the morning, I decided to go to work. And, what a decision that turned out to be. Everything's so fresh early in the morning. Traffic was pretty much non-existent. People just seemed so calm. Traffic lights? Well, they're all for some odd reason, a shade of magical green - all the way. Even the scent of 2-stroke oil popping out my Vespa's rusty exhaust seemed different, but in a nice way.

I wanted to make a detour just to extend the early morning ride but my inherent kiasu-ness took over. I wanted to be the first at work at least, this one time. So, instead of taking a right or left, I headed straight to the office, confident that I'd get to my destination well ahead of my colleagues.

In the end, I was horribly disappointed. No, the car park wasn't full of cars but there were a few of them already there. Dammit. Don't these people ever sleep?

I'll be first one day. Nah, maybe not... I like my sleep too much.

Reflecting on Ramadhan...and Zombies

Tired.

Note to self: Do not stay up to watch a movie. No matter how good it is. Yes, you look at the time and say to yourself...

Hmmm...movie ends at 3 am. Then, straight to bed and wake up around 9-ish. OK, make that 10-ish. Good plan.

It never works. The kids are bound to wake up right after the movie ends. It takes anything between half an hour or an hour to put them to bed again and then the sun’s up. Sunlight creeps in between the curtains hitting you right in the eyes. You try to get to sleep but between the shining sun and the kids doing somersaults in the next room, your eyes just stay wide open. Good plan is now bad plan. Dammit.

That was the weekend. For the rest of the week, for your sins, you’re destined to walk the Earth like the undead. Running on auto-pilot. You’re a zombie.

Speaking of zombies, I just happen to come across SPAZ on my recent (internet) travels. Seems the Scooter Patrol for the Annihilation of Zombies have been around for awhile. Good idea.

Think I should join up at least, for that cool patch (or sticker) and of course, for my own safety. Maybe not, since I’m sort of a zombie these days. I’ll give it a week and some mega sleeping session. Then I’ll be cured. I’ll have an enormous migraine but I won’t be a zombie any longer. Yay!

PS: Ramadhan’s just around the corner. For those of you who are taking part in it (in whatever form), have a good one...

Get a Grip

After a disappointing time looking online for a decent seller that doesn't charge a fortune on postage costs, I decided to contact the manufacturer of the Grip-Lock directly. Having told my sad story about how difficult it was to get a hold of one of these locks in Ireland, the company decided to sell it to me directly, at a far more reasonable price.

The lock was posted the previous Friday and on the following Thursday, I had it on my table at work. That's a mere three working days (Monday was a public holiday in Ireland) to get all the way from New Zealand to Ireland. That's one hell of a postal service they've got there.

Yes, yes, postal heroes but what about the lock itself?

Well, my first impression was that it's definitely bigger than the pictures floating around the web. The description on the company's site doesn't help dispel this either - it says that it fits easily in pocket... I'm sure it fits in a pocket but not your ordinary pocket, maybe MC Hammer's pockets but definitely not mine.

Nevertheless, as I don't plan to carry it around with me all over the place, I'm just glad that it fits in my PX's glovebox, comfortably squeezing in between my lunch, a chain and a lock, the 2-stroke oil, some tools and God knows what else that found its way in there. It's also light enough but still has enough weight to come across as sturdy rather some flimsy contraption your 3 year old could hack into pieces in a matter of minutes.

Putting on the thing was a pretty idiot-proof affair. The lock itself came with a choice of three pieces of rubber spacer inserts. You choose the best one i.e. the one that fits snugly for your vehicle's twist grip, depress the brake lever into lock's slot, lock the errr...lock and there you go.

My PX has the factory standard grips on it and with this, the thinnest rubber spacer works best. I wasn't too worried about my plain old rubber grips but it'd be interesting to see whether the exposed plastic of the Grip-Lock would do any damage to the fancier type grips like chrome Sundance ones or one of those polished alloy billet grips. You'd have to be really finicky to complain but I suppose, people with bling grips on their scoots wouldn't want it scratched either, no matter how minor.

But does it do the job?

I don't know. No, really. The last time I checked, I haven't got any experience in stealing bikes or scooters but what I do know is that it's convenient. Very handy when you want to leave your scooter in a public spot for a while but don't want the hassle to get down on your hands and knees to use the chain and lock to secure your scooter. The only other lock that comes close to the Grip-Lock's convenience is the VE-CEM Handlebar to Frame lock but I wasn't to keen on the look of the thing.

Talking about looks, I went for the nasty bright yellow option. Grip-Lock does offer green among various other colours as an option but the last thing I wanted with my lock was for it to blend in. And, blend in it didn't. I didn't need to tell my mates that I had gotten a new lock for my bike, they immediately noticed it themselves. So, if normal, law-abiding people who have no intention of stealing my scooter (as far as could tell) noticed the thing, I'm sure most if not all of those low-life thieves out there would have seen it from a mile away and I hope, be discouraged enough from nicking it.

There you go. It's only been a few days but hopefully, I leave my Green Vespa safer and a bit more secure these days.

Oh, as an added advantage that was pointed out to me, the lock stops those annoying eejits who come along, sit on your scooter and then go mental at twisting the throttle, flooding the engine in the process. They won't be able to do that now, will they? Huh? If that still fails, unlock the Grip-Lock and use it to smack them in the face. Theoretically, that should stop most people.