Perhaps As Soon As Next Weekend ...

... I plan to get the required education for a motorcycle endorsement to my driver's license. I've got the money put back for the class. It's just a matter of scheduling convenience, and I figure any time between now and May works fine.

Why between now and May? Because when the university breaks for summer, I expect to see quite a few used scooters on the market, some of which will likely be in the 150cc-250cc range.

I've been looking at motorcycles, and may start leaning more toward them after I take the classes and find out how comfortable I am with a manual transmission on a two-wheeled vehicle. But at the moment a scooter still sounds good to me, and I've been reevaluating whether I really need a 250cc or larger.

A 150cc can technically hit the required minimum speeds for the freeway. I wouldn't want to travel substantial freeway distances on one, but one exit to the next, no big deal.

The more I think about it, the more I think I wouldn't really do the traveling I fantasize about doing just because I had a "comfortably cruises at 70+mph" vehicle to do it on.

And the more I think about it, the more I think that if I did want to make a fairly long trip or two, I could just map the routes to keep me on the smaller highways.

I could do 480 miles in a day on the 150cc (assuming 12 hours averaging 40mph, accounting for gas stops and such even though I'd top out at 55-60), and how often am I going to need to do more than 480 miles one-way? So often that I really, really, really need to be able to do 600 miles per day instead (12 hours averaging 50mph, even though I'd top out at 70-80)?.

New Orleans is 602 miles from my house (on an "avoid highways" map). If necessary, I could to that in one really long day on the smaller scooter.

Key West is 485 miles. Miami, 345. Atlanta, 367. Those are one-day one-way trips. And even if I had a bigger scooter and got there faster, I wouldn't be going to any of those places without planning to stay at least one night.

Los Angeles is 2,535 miles away. Riding 12 hours a day, averaging 40mph, a little over five days. Riding 12 hours a day, averaging 50mph, a little over four days (I could use the freeways, but that would only save me about 135 miles).

So, two days less for a less-scenic  round trip. But how often do I plan to ride to Los Angeles and back? Not more than once. And even that once, I'd be planning to make multiple stops of one or more days anyway, and keeping those stops a little bit shorter -- getting back on the road an hour or two earlier -- would make up some of the time difference from the big scooter.

Meanwhile, back home (which would be 99% of the time), the bigger scooter would have cost more, it would use more gas, it would require more expensive insurance payments, etc. than the smaller scooter.

So yeah, I'm leaning 150cc. It has plenty of power for the country roads in my area, and enough for lengthy excursions in moderation.