Mark's sweet new ride

 Meet Sasha, Mark's new scooter.

About 8 weeks ago, Mark bought this Roketa Capri MC-16 150 from his buddy Chad, who is moving to PA school next week. It had been sitting outside for a really long time and didn't run at all, which got Mark rather excited. Note that it was being held together by duct tape, haha.

  Mark has been dying for a motorcycle for years, but I never let him get one. This was small enough (150cc engine) and cheap enough ($160) that I finally said okay. Although to get it running again, he ended up putting a couple hundred $$ more into it........

 It looked like this for a long time, and I was sort of doubtful that he knew what he was doing. He bought a repair manual, and has been able to make major repairs to our cars that way in the past, so I just let him do his thing.

 Maybe Luke was able to inherit some mechanical genes from him. He certainly won't get any from me...

I just asked Mark to list what repairs/maintenance he has done: 

replaced front brakes

replaced electric starter/throttle

fixed gas gague

fixed headlight

changed oil, crank case oil, spark plugs and fuel filter

repaired cracks with fiberglass

repainted front end and added stripes

 He decided to take off those silver decorative thingies on the front, too.

Everything on the scooter is plastic, which is why it didn't hold up very well sitting outside. Also, it had been crashed the first day his friend bought it, which cracked this front piece, and some brake fluid had leaked and eaten away at a big section of it (big white blob area).

 Stinky fiberglass

 Mark does love a good project...

 IT RUNS!

 Racing stripes

 

 Remember how we had to rearrange the entire garage? We got rid of an old dresser, bookshelf and computer desk while we were at it, too.

 Just so we could still park both cars in there along with the scooter. Mark keeps it in front or in back of his car, and shuffles them around as needed.

 In addition to all the work and repairs, he then had to get it insured, switch the title, register it and get his motorcycle license. Finding a helmet took a few weeks, too (he was using his snowboard helmet in the meantime). The first one he ordered looked like a black German WWII helmet, only it was ENORMOUS. It looked like a mushroom, it was absolutely ridiculous. I wish I'd taken a picture. So he sent it back and found this one on ebay. It took a week waiting for the auction to end, and then another week for it to get shipped out. It tested Mark's patience a great deal.

He drives it to work and around town whenever he can (whenever the wind isn't too strong, which is only about 50% of the time) and loves giving the kids rides, too. And hey, it gets up to 75 miles to the gallon. Can't beat that!!