Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Our Neighbors Know Our Names

OK, so our cabin is in the second curve of what, I suppose, could be called a 'subdivision'. We tend to give a nod a a wave to our neighbors as they drive by. Never gave it much thought.

Today some guy we didn't know dropped by our place. He came up as if we were old friends. He explains that he took the MSF course and was looking at his first bike. He explained, "I should talk to Chet and Ruth. They're always riding off on one of their bikes."

Now, while we didn't know this guy from Adam he seemed perfectly nice. My wife pulled me aside and said, "I think he's the 'Romney guy'." This was based upon a yardful of signs during the fall.

What caught us off guard was his questions. His queried us on which type of scooter he should buy. He mentioned that he traveled a lot by RV and he wanted a bike that would be able to fill in a variety of needs. We directed him toward the KLR 650. Easy to ride, cheap, you can ride it anywhere, easy to fix.

He seemed a little disappointed. He mentioned a couple typed of scooters and we both offered that we really couldn't help with that. We just didn't know anything about scooters.

We were mostly taken aback that any of our neighbors actually knew our names.

Google changed many things....

Consider yourself lucky!

I am the only foreigner in my town. So, pretty much everybody knows me. I've been approached by total strangers at the supermarket and told: "I know you and I know where you live!" Kinda freaky!

And Chet, when you said THIS...

Quote:

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We were mostly taken aback that any of our neighbors actually knew our names.

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...then the next time you and Ruth find yourselves in Boston, it might be best skip patronizing a certain bar located downstairs from Melville's seafood restaurant.

(...and for obvious reasons!!!)

Well, believe it or not all your neighbors talk to each other. Many times they talk about you. It only takes one to k ow your name, local postal worker, waiter or waitress in a dinner, so on as it goes. You have been in contact enough with some neighbor for them to know ya names, and when they hit the local gossip circuit your are often the topic. Anything from that couple who live over there and ride motorcycles never socialize much too yeah, Chet and Ruth who ride those loud obnoxious motorcy les. Saddly thats the way it is.
When I lived in Chicago was the only time that my neighbors werent in my business. Even then one of them didnt like me, he gave me dirty looks when he drove by, and once flipped me the bird. I never knew why. It was weird.

Perhaps creepy but maybe you should be flattered that he took the time to look it up.(wait motorscooters...creepy) Look up my last name and you'll find 60 tons of iron in Namibia.

I live in a small town (on purpose) where pretty much everybody knows everybody else, and I like it that way. Sure there is always some plus and minuses anytime you get enough people together (thats people). I have lived in a lot of different places and prefer to know my neighbors rather than not.

I definitely live in a one stoplight town. Asheville is only minutes away but I am in the boonies. To me, it's perfect.

Where we live is more of just a road than an actual subdivision, though it has a name (Rainbow Ridge). The houses sit on a acre or more. Pretty rural. Maybe a dozen houses on the road. It's a pretty spot. Most folks have a nice view of the mountains. Our cabin is the second house in, right at the apex of a tight curve. We are outside most of the time so we've taken to giving a passing wave as folks come and go (The Harley riders never wave back. Just kidding, no Harleys up here.). Apparently, everyone 'knows' us due to that.

A few days back a different neighbor was walking with her daughter and stopped to talk to Ruth as she worked in the yard. Her daughter said that Ruth was commonly referred to as "the lady with the long legs".

I have spoken a couple times to another neighbor that seems to have quite a bike collection. I've seen him on a Norton, an old Ducati, a Honda 305, an unidentified sport bike (I have a hard time telling them apart) and a couple others.

I do need to get to know him.

Wow, A Romney guy, be careful.

Small town. Trust me, they know more about you two than just your names. Unless most of the other neighbors are transplants, they've had many, many discussions about you. In some towns I've been in, it'll take a couple of generations for "newcomer" to wear off.

For scooters, there are a lot of new options out there.

You might tell them about http://advrider.com/forums/ The Battle Scooters section is pretty active. A lot of them carry scooters on RVs.

Just try to steer them away from the Chinese brands - the build quality is sketchy. Taiwan is OK. If they still want to do it on the cheap, send them to the ScootDawg forum http://itistheride.boards.net/index.cgi

Or, you could just send them to the Honda dealer.

Then you'll become known as the WISE newcomer.

But I was just another Romney guy, so whaddo I know?

He mentioned Suzuki and Honda so he's probably headed in the right direction. My advice was to look at the new Honda (NC 700?) as it has a lot of scooter features but I've read is a decent bike and, of course, the KLR 650 which I feel is a Swiss Army knife of a motorcycle and unbelievably affordable.

Oh, and btw, I've run into John a few times since then and he's turned out to be a VERY nice guy.

(...well, as long as I steer him away from a certain topic, anyway...yep, that boy can REALLY get fired up sometimes...I think he just needs a hobby, if ya ask me!)

Sorry Matt, but I'm not so sure I wanna be responsible for that!

Ya see, I have a feelin' that IF I ever talk John into gettin' into motorcycling at all(Triumph or any OTHER brand), he might just be the type that thinks ridin' one WITHOUT a helmet on and with just, say, sportin' a doo-rag is somehow "more cool lookin'" than ridin' WITH one on.

And so I don't wanna feel responsible for the guy IF the worst ever happens!!!

(...I mean, I don't think his wife Carol would EVER forgive me for that!!!)

Well, I was riding past the local multi-Japanese bike shop today and thought I'd drop in a take a peek. Love me some new bikes.

As I was walking out, there's 'ol what's his name (still don't know). He starts in about how he learned that his hitch mount rack can 'only' hold 500lbs. I replied that there are plenty of bikes that fall into that weight class. He offered that the scooters he'd been looking at were over that weight and blah...blah...blah.

I walked back inside with him (Not that I wanted to. He's a Clemson fan and always wears his fan clothes. For those of you who don't know, Clemson decided purple and orange were a great combination of colors.) and directed him to some nice, docile motorcycles with lots of storage that weighed well under 500lbs.

He starts talking about 125cc scooters that weighed in at 450+ lbs that looked like just the thing for him. All he wanted to discuss was scooters. Don't bother him with actual motorcycles that cost less, have real engines and brakes, and handle well enough to keep you out of danger.

There is absolutely no hope for this guy. But, then, I assumed that last fall.

Speaking of the local bike shop. I looked at the CB 1100. It bears a startling resemblance to a late 1970's CB 750, all the way down to the chrome fenders.

Love to have one.

Yeah, the more I see pictures of that new Honda CB1100, the more I'm diggin' it too!

'Cause I have yet to spot one the road around here in the land of Harley cruisers.

(...and doo-rags!!!)

Btw, speakin' of this whole "doo-rag" thing again...

I was up in Jerome last Sunday, standin' in front of the old saloon called The Spirit Room and stuck up a conversation with a couple of Harley guys there.

One of 'em turned to the other and asked if he was gonna ride to that big meet they have in Laughlin every year, and if he was, then he'd have to bring a helmet 'cause Nevada has a helmet law.

Well, the other guy replied that he wasn't sure if he was gonna go, but if he did, he'd be sure to bring one of those "damn brain buckets".

Now, you know me! I JUST could resist sayin', "Well, ya see that thing sittin' on that beautiful Triumph's seat right there? Well, one of those "damn brain buckets" kinda like THAT one once saved my head BIG TIME after some freakin' kid about 17 years ago pulled his cage right in front of me while I was goin' about 35mph down a road and after my head bounced off the pavement about three times."

Now, what's funny here is that the "darn brain bucket" guy tells me that he kinda knows what I've talkin' about, as he then goes on to tell me that about 5 years ago he ran off of White Spar Pass Road(my favorite road to "have fun on", if ya know what I mean ) when I still lived in Prescott. This guy THEN does on to tell me that he hit his head SO hard on a boulder that he was in a coma for 5 days, BUT when he finally awoke from this coma, the doctor told him that "it was a good thing he wasn't wearing a helmet because just the weight of it probably would've broken his neck".

Uh huh, I kid to NOT! And THIS is when the guy pulls back his long hair from around his face and points to this REALLY "nice" indentation of about 1/2 an inch in and about an inch in diameter just above his right eye and around his temple.

Well, my reply was FIRST to tell him that while I'm pretty much against helmet laws, after that freakin' kid pulled in front of ME back then and after my helmet hit at JUST about the same area as where HE hit his head, I didn't have to wait for some passerby to stop and call the paramedics while I lay in a freakin' coma, 'cause MY first reaction was pick myself up off that freakin' asphalt, start to hop around on my right foot('cause I THOUGHT my left leg was broken, but it turned out just to be a very bad sprain) and to get in that freakin' kids face as he exited his freakin' cage and start yellin' at him somethin' like, "WHAT, you freakin' moron?! Are you BLIND or somethin'?!!! Just look at MY BIKE and what YOU DID!!!"

(...and that's the end of THAT story...just thought you might appreciate hearin' it, THAT'S all!)

Wait for it, wait for it..... C'mon Ian, you're on.

Well Steve, as we all know, Ian is such a GREAT and experienced rider, that if somethin' like THIS ever happened him, HE would just do that whole "SOMERSAULT" thing he's said he's perfected and avoid hittin' that hard head o' his on anything!

(...boy, I sure hope one day I can ride as well as that!)

Here I was debating whether to respond to Chet's ill informed prejudice against scooters - then you let me go in an entirely different direction.

I've gone on many times about my paramedic years. I've heard all those stories about "you're lucky you weren't wearing a helmet because..." and I'll happily go on record as saying that each and every one of them is a steaming pile of $hit and, if anyone actually said something that stupid, they deserve whatever comes their way.

Go ahead and convince yourself of whatever helps you sleep at night but don't try to convince ME (or any impressionable young rider) that your life was spared because you didn't have a helmet on. That's just bull$hit. For every motorcycle accident you've seen or been involved in I've seen a hundred...at least.

Wear a helmet or don't wear a helmet, it's your choice. I don't care. Just be responsible enough to have some health insurance and get those donor documents in order.

I realize this is a motorcycle forum. My first experience with scooters was renting a couple of those 50cc scooters on a vacation in Boone, NC. Then we started renting them on most of our vacations. Then, my wife bought a 150cc scooter (she had ankle damage/surgery and can't work a manual shifter) and I started riding it more and more. Enough that I bought one for myself (Big Ruckus). It'll never replace my motorcycle, but they have their place. On the ass end of a motorhome is one.

Now, it'll in no way compete with a KLR (which I would like to have - and I already know how to do the doohickey mod), but for scootin' around the campground or a quick run into town, that KLR would be overkill. Especially for someone with little or no 2 wheel experience.

Now, don't confuse the scooters I'm talking about with those little smokers running around Asheville. Those are mainly the little 50cc/DWI scooters and they need to stay downtown. But some of these things have enough power to go anywhere and the handling to keep up. http://www.visordown.com/road-tests-firs...l#ixzz2QeOikdyu You should see if your local Honda dealer will let you take a PCX for a spin.

And who is this Beiber fellow you speak of?

Well, maybe that's just what my purple and orange neighbor needs. I hope it is because it's pretty clear that's what he's gonna buy.

Different stokes for different folks. I've never ridden one so my opinion is based on what I've read.

I'm not a scooter guy myself(as the last time I rode one on a lark about 7 or 8 years ago, I forgot the little sucker didn't have a hand clutch and manual gears as I started out and gained speed and inadvertently grabbed the left hand lever as I momentary forgot that it was a brake and NOT a clutch, and just about flipped over the front of the little sucker! ) , BUT I just googled imaged the word "Motorscooter", and THIS nice lookin' little baby, a "Vespa 946" showed up on my screen...



Nope, they're not for me either, but I have to admit I like this one's design.

(...saaay, maybe Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn might like this one too...oh, wait, they're both dead now, aren't they!...well, never mind then)

I live is a fairly small town. My dad owned and operated a bicycle shop for thirty years so every body knows him. Occasionally, someone refers to me a the "Triumph guy", or "the guy who knows all about Triumph". (Sadly mistaken, as I know just enough about the old Triumphs to be dangerous) That's what happens when you're the last guy in town to bear the standard and, your dad owns a business.

My Dad has had a couple of little scooters. I likem. They are a lot of fun, although you gotta be careful they don't get away from you due to their inferior handling. Here in my small town, a decade ago, scooters under 80cc hit in a big way. Lots of teenagers had them. They were cool. Then, the city fathers noticed that the kids were riding them kinda recklessly and instituted a local ordinance that required a tall, orange safety flag on a stick to be attached. The scooters dried up almost overnight! It's not cool to have a funcky orange flag attached to your machine!

I'd rather see someone riding a scooter than trying to manage a machine too big or complicated for their pay grade. A motorcycle is not for everyone.

And I'd much rather see an RV toting a couple of scooters than hauling an SUV behind it. That drives me nuts!

Why should it bother you as to what a person wants to tow behind their rv.
Why do any of ya give a rats arse what some one else drives, rides, or tows, and or ownes with or with out using it.
If they earned their money and spent it on what ever they wanted why is it anyones business.
If that fella wants a scooter and you cant assist, its as simple as, thats outta my interest so I dont know what will suit ya mister.

Oh I know, our feelings get hurt when some one disagrees.

Why does it drive ya nuts? Why are we that emotionally involved with someone with which we have no contact?

I understand Smokey's deal here. A stranger approached him from outta the blue, and already knew who he is. Creeptastic. Thats bizarre behavior.
He could be creepin on ya wife bro.

I really like the KLR but why not suggest the Tiger 800 or 800XC.

Well Chad I've never met you in perosn but what if I were to stop in your shop and call you by name?

Home is one thing the shop is another. Folks come in my shop and ask for by name lots of times.

I drove my parents fifth wheel RV out to tour the US Southwest back in 1990. It drops in five minutes and if you see one driving under the speed limit it has more to do with the driver timidity or they have an insufficient vehicle towing it. If you don't like your neighbors you just move it.