One of my biggest obstacles to biking or walking to the bus stop (on a more regular basis), is that I mostly work evenings. I just know I’m not going to be interested in a two mile walk home at 9:50 pm. Biking sounds slightly more appealing, but I’m not sure how visible I’d feel to cars on the road. I see bikes riding around town at night, but not so much out here by the cows. So I thought about it a little more and it looks like there are a few more alternatives to my fuel consumption dilemma to consider.

The first one is a shared-ride program. I’d forgotten that the local public transit offers a night time shared-ride, and I think it might come this far out of town. I haven;t gotten around to calling and confirming yet. Of course that would involve a 5 to 30 minute wait after work, and occasionally buying some passes, but that’s better than an hour’s hike or an $80 a month fuel bill.

Something else I noticed while walking around town last weekend, there’s a scooter shop in town. I’d never noticed it before, so on a whim I stopped to take a peek at the few that were sitting out. I’ve always thought scooters like the Vespa were adorable, but never had a chance to look at one up close. I also assumed the prices were fairly high. I was surprised to see the price tags on these in the $2-3000 range. Even more surprising (to me, who knows next to nothing of scooters) was the advertised 120 mpg!

I confess, I’m curious now. I might have to do a little math and see what kind of fuel savings that would give me. Of course, I’d have to figure in how long it would take to cover the cost of the scooter itself and its regular maintenance needs. Likely the break even point will be too far off in the future, but its still worth taking the time to sit and play with the numbers. Something like that could take me to work and back quite nicely, while being much more visible than a bike with reflectors and a tiny flashing light.

I wonder what sort of fuel they run off?

I wonder if they come in purple?