Wednesday, November 23, 2016

SYM in Le Mans

SYM Center in Le Mans, France


Le Mans may seem an unusual place for a scooter dealership but I was riding a SYM scooter so it didn't seem unusual to me.


Here's the 2016 SYM Citycom S 300i and this one is much nicer than mine but it's also about five times more expensive at $5,000 US (mine was well used).



This moment in time was brought to you because it was part of the Pilgrimage to Le Mans which is required of anyone who shifts gears in a car because you like it.

There was also a vicarious vibe for Lotho since I knew he was participating on his end and driving past Le Mans would be like skipping the Grand Canyon ... which I did once and, to no-one's surprise, I never made it back down that way.

It didn't bother me to skip Versailles since I regard it as an offensive example of the excesses of the rich so I didn't care to see it ... but ... there are few things currently more emblematic of excesses of the rich than top speed automobile racing and yet this wasn't a problem for me.  I do see my moral outrage may need some tuning in this regard.


I hardly ever miss my Harley and I sometimes miss my truck but I constantly miss my scooter.  They're so incredibly handy as zip, zip, zip and you're gone.  To take off on the Harley, the helmet isn't enough and I want the boots and the leather.  Right away it's a production while Scooter Man is already in the wind.

The Citycom S 300i up there has almost twice the displacement of mine and the wheels are significantly bigger.  This should be a really decent riding machine and you still need that scooter consciousness because it seems like a motorcycle but it isn't and it doesn't drive the same.  It can be a little weird getting the hang of that but it's a gas afterward.

The power on the S 300i actually seems more than it really needs since I found the acceleration on mine quite good and it only had 170cc.  You need the top speed since 80 mph is about 130 mph and that's the speed limit on at least some of the European equivalent of Interstate highways.

Five grand is hefty for the scoot but you should be able to find a good price on a used one.  Mine was used and it held up swimmingly through a difficult long-distance ride.  I wouldn't even hesitate to get another one.  It gets 85 mpg and that's no justification for spending all that money but it makes them incredibly cheap to run for scooting about town since most of the time you don't get up to 80 mph around town anyway.

No comments: