I’m fortunate to live in an area where 2-wheel vehicles abound… both the motorized variety and the foot-powered variety. Boise, Idaho is usually a dry, fairly temperate climate at least 8 months out of the year… and there’s lots of beautiful country to explore, from high prairie/desert to rolling foothills to bona fide mountains.

So, despite the dire warnings in the motorcycle manual I studied to get my endorsement on my license, I have never found riding my scooter in this area to be particularly hazardous due to rude drivers. Quite the contrary… people have waved, admired my scoot, and been generally pleasant in every way.

Yesterday, that all changed.

I’m riding down one of our suburban streets, where I ride all the time, which has a middle turning lane. As I passed the library driveway exit on my left, a big luxury car comes roaring out towards me. As I was just preparing to move into the middle lane (which was about to turn into a left turn lane at the light), the car coming out when I was right there quite startled me. I didn’t swerve or anything, but he roared up behind me and then swerved into the right lane at a fairly high rate of speed, considering we were approaching a red light with traffic in front of us.

I have a temper; I admit it. And so I yelled something like, “Slow down, you a***hole!” (So now you know, I’m not as sweet as I might sound on the pages of my site… at least not if you get my dander up!) Well, as luck would have it, we ended up side by side at the light. His rear window had been down and he apparently heard me yelling, because he then rolled his driver’s side window down, looks at me mockingly with a smirk and says, “You should be riding that thing on the sidewalk, girlie…”

Girlie, really? In 2010? He thought he was really hot stuff in his luxury gas guzzler with his fancy business clothes on. I wasn’t impressed. I just spat back, “I have as much right to the road as you do, a**hole.” What a jerk! And then we went our separate ways.

I have to admit, I continued to sputter and mutter for quite some minutes, but in the end, I was grateful that he didn’t do anything more dangerous.

What about my readers? Have you ever encountered behavior like this while out on the road, scooting? Feel free to leave me some comments!

OK, so I live in the high desert of Idaho, where rain is usually a rarity this time of year, but we now feel as though we are the new Seattle. Not more than 1 sunny day in a row in weeks… really. I haven’t even been able to get out on my scooter for 2 weeks.

This morning finally dawned sunny, so I geared up to take the scooter 5 miles to the gym for my usual Saturday “monster” workout (Zumba class, circuit weight training and 30 minutes on the various cardio machines). Got the jeans on over my workout clothes, got the helmet and gloves on, got the jacket on, opened the garage door, back walked the scooter out and then down to the end of the driveway, hopped on, put the key in, pushed the electric starter button and… wait for it… FAIL.

No juice, nothing. I left the key in the ignition a couple weeks ago during a garage cleaning project (had to move the scooter out of the way temporarily). That must have drained the battery. So, no scooter ride today… boo.

Lessons learned… don’t leave the key in the ignition… if you do, check the battery and re-charge if necessary.

Here’s hoping there will be another sunny day within the next decade when I can actually get out and ride again… :(