Bank Holiday Weekend

I’ve been running the scooter now for around a week. I did a number of runs around 15 kilometers from the farm to Amsterdam before doing the 25 kilometer run to work. The run involves a couple of city centers (Zaandam, Amsterdam, Amstelveen) and one ferry. It took just under the hour of which the ferry took up 10 minutes or so. Bad traffic at the bottom of the Overtoom and my desire to stay within the law (no bike paths or speeding on the combined bike/scooter paths (speed limit 27k) kept the time down. Very pleased with the performance I guess on a better day I can get the time down to a more respectable 40 minutes. If I take the car then the trip will normally take around an hour. In good conditions it will take 20 minutes but that sort of time is only available on weekends or the middle of the day.
Top speed is hard to tell but I would guess around 90k. The engine must be running rich as when it gets hot I loose power in fourth gear. Not so much I can do apart from mess about with the jetting. I changed out the stock exhaust for a performance model. This appears to have been a mistake as it has deepened the engine note. The over rich fuel means I’m getting unburnt fuel igniting in the exhaust resulting in a nice popping/crackling noise when you come off the throttle. Great effect but not what you really need when trying not to draw attention to yourself. I have another exhaust which is more like the stock model which I hope will raise the engine note to a more acceptable scoot noise. Having the speedo working is amazing as I now notice most peoples scoots are doing around 60 I now can spot the after market parts that have been added to squeeze out an extra couple of k.
The main only remaining problem is that the kick start does not work. I went back into the garage and they will look at it for me on Tuesday of next week. I’m going to strip the engine out of the bike at the weekend. Hope to get the engine back Wednesday night.
Over the weekend I spent time working on jobs around the farm. Got around to putting down weed killer to keep the paths clear and strimming around the property. With three of the rooms completed it was time to start moving items from rooms that need to be renovated to the completed rooms. It’s a bit of an annoying job putting stuff in boxes, moving it knowing that your going to have to do it all again in another month.
This week I need to sort out the central heating system and a hot water boiler. I have a friend who can help me get these things for trade price. I need to get the other materials purchased so the guys can get started when they are back.
Spent a fantastic Sunday evening and Monday with my girlfriend. I had been planning to cook supper but all the supermarkets in downtown Amsterdam were closed on Sunday. As a result we went out for a great dinner. Monday morning we hung out in the apartment before going out for brunch then onto see the Interpreter at the pictures.