Modern Vespa

My Liberty 150 gets 80 to 90 MPG around town but only 65 on an aggressive ride with a lot of WOT. Your Xmax seems to be very efficient.

OFG

Bill, I'm sorry that happened. I happen to know that the XMAX gets great economy for its displacement; I have friends who own one. I own an older Majesty 400, which can only manage about 65mpg while only making about 4hp more.

With the BlueCore technical improvements having evolved it past the capabilities of the older Minarelli-developed 250/400 of the Majesty and Morphous, it's a great engine. Heck, the cat's out of the bag on the fantastic capabilities of the 155cc SMAX...you'd think it might be plausible that Yamaha has sprinkled some of that magic on other models too.

Thinking on it more, let them believe that performance to be unbelievable. Then you get to savor their incredulity when it plays out.

P.S. I'm more gobsmacked that anyone's questioning your bona fides when your body of experience with the Cannonball and long riding is relatively public knowledge.

I might have been the first person to understand that the Smax was the best scooter, speed for handicap, for the Cannonball.

My friend Walt, flyguy2, wanted to run the 2016 SCR, and compete for the win.

I recommended the Smax, that he bought and ran in the run from Fernandina Beach, FL to Mukilteo, WA.

I wanted to compete too, on Vanessa, a 2007 Vespa GT.

We both ran, a few times together when we happened to catch each other.

I was maybe two mph faster on the flats but he was faster climbing mountains.

He finished second and me third.

I had a faster raw time but his better handicap put him ahead.

He finished third in 2018, but would have won had he not gone to the alternate second ckeckpoint on day one, losing scoring two legs.

Bill

It is, especially in the mountains.

In Colorado, over 900 miles of fast riding with two friends on faster motorcycles, I averaged over 90 mpg.

In the North Carolina Mountains around Asheville, I always get between 90 and 100 mpg.

The rides are slower but sometimes spirited.

Bill

Oooooh, looks like you've got some added motivation now.

Kymco Downtown 300 pulls about 85 mpg so you're not making it up.

Some people eh ?

Welcome to the Internet, where any idiot can post whatever wanders into their head - and most idiots do just that.

US or Imperial?

Just sayin'.

Neither of them is an idiot.

Actually very nice guys.

That is why it was so surprising to me.

Bill

4.5 Litre version.

Nice guys don't call you a liar.

The Olympics are pissing me off. Scratch that, the Olympic coverage is pissing me off. Hours upon hours of swimming, cut to a touch in fencing, back to swimming. 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000, 1500, 5000 meters in freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, plus medleys, individual and team. Cut to some dude falling off highbar, back to swimming. It will remain like this throughout the games, Track for days, with cuts to the winning point in various other sports, plus showing the entire 26.2 mile marathon. WTF?

I stand corrected. To a point, literally. NBC showed complete women's and men's fencing Gold medal matches. Hence the point.

About $6 will buy you a month of Peacock and you can watch any Olympic events you want. Maybe even get a free trial for a month.

Touché?

Mais oui!

Touché Indeed.

I've not watched any of it.

I've been riding motorcycles.

Any?

Hell hath no fury...

For clarity, is she cutting off a 'pretend' head thats on the pole. Or her own head?

either way, its a bit dull compared to crossbow spacehoppers.

The things that are pissing me off today (tl;dr at bottom):

IT has mandated that we change our passwords every 90 days (which is not as secure a practice as some think it is). Mine was set to expire last Friday. I had Friday off, and made a mental note on Thursday morning to change it right before I left for the day.

I completely forgot to do so.

This morning I logged into my desktop and saw that I had to update it. I did so, and spent the next hour updating it in Outlook (PC & Mac), Teams (PC & Mac), OneDrive (PC & Mac), Windows, District WiFi on my cell, and Skype for Business. Except Skype for Business isn't connecting to the desk phone, and keeps asking me to login. I've restarted the computer, and attempted to enter it on the phone, nothing works. It should work tomorrow, once all of the servers update, so I get to work without the phone today.

tl;dr: IT policy, my own forgetfulness, and desk phone software are pissing me off today.

nope

Long(ish) range weather forecasts-i.e. anything past today.

I swear meteorologists are a lot like Medieval cartographers.....faced with unknown spots on a map, they'd throw in some mountains, rivers, lakes and a few unicorns to boot. Meteorologists promise rain that never arrives, and vice versa....at an alarming frequency.

I've been watching the forecast for a long ride this week, and the forecast changes daily. Guess surprises can be fun.....

Rain gear in the pet carrier maybe?

OFG

Oh, yeah, that's a given! Looks like at least one day of iffy weather.

Okay - this is cheering me today. Well done sir.

You're asking a lot here.

Forecasts do actually change, and not just daily. They would be worthless otherwise.

There is an art to interpreting forecasts, especially WRT time. All-season riding generally mandates that you watch the forecast continually as the departure time approaches, and adjust as necessary. The 10-day outlook, then the daily forecast, then the hourly forecast. Spotting the window where the rain won't be (either in time or direction) is like hitting the jackpot.

I often thought that if my work was as accurate as the forecasters', I'd be out of a job pronto. I refer to them as "The Weather Guessers". (See Indian Weather Rock.)

Yesterday I put a new rear tire on my Vstrom. Today I pulled a piece of sharp metal out of that tire, and patched it. Why is it always a new tire?

2017 called; they are missing your corporate IT department.

As one of my professors once told me, "It's a forecast, not a prediction."

Understood, but I'm convinced I'm gaining nothing looking at the so-called long-range forecast. In this case I'll be riding for 5 days, and if it rains we keep going anyway, just wetter.

The company I worked for once wanted to enforce a password change every thirty days. Fortunately, that idea didn't last more than a couple days.

I think the 10 day or 5 day forecast is at best a vague suggestion.

It'll get dark. Then light, then dark, then light again. On repeat.

We've gone the other way. We've made passwords longer, simpler (no need for mixed cases, numbers, special characters, you can use them if you want, but you don't need to) and we only force someone to change their password if we find evidence that its been compromised (either from our internal security software or our dark web monitoring service).

how long?

minimum 16 characters, but we encourage people to use a phrase that is easy to type. When you type that phrase over and over, you get pretty fast at it. Most of our 2100 staff members have passwords that are over 2 years old now. We generally have to force half a dozen people to change theirs in any given month.

Correct horse battery staple. Which is of course the password that I use for the AWS admin panel for MV.