Southern Hospitality (Meeting 49ccScoot Members)
Mar 7, 2020 17:21:55 GMT -5
190mech, ryan_ott, and 4 more like this
Post by 90GTVert on Mar 7, 2020 17:21:55 GMT -5
ryan_ott (Ryan) contacted me maybe a month ago to let me know that he would be heading to South Carolina to pick up a motorcycle from oldgeek (Scott). Some time ago, 190mech (John) swapped a Yamaha RD250 engine into a Kawasaki Ninja 250. So he changed it from a 250 four-stroke to a 250 two-stroke. The Yamasaki was passed along from John to Scott, and now Scott isn't doing anything with it so it's moving along the 49ccScoot trail to Ryan.
Ryan offered to let me tag along for the trip if I was interested. He's north of me (MD) in PA so I am kind of on the way. I ended up taking him up on the offer and found a spot to meet him so there was only about 15 minutes difference in his travel time each way.
As an added bonus to the whole deal, everyone was going to meet at John's shop. So Ryan, John, Scott and I would all get to meet. I've met Ryan multiple times now and Scott and John have met, but the northerners had never met the southerners before. I've known John and Ryan through forums since the ScootDawg days before 49ccScoot even existed. Probably 11-12 years. I think Scott has been around for around 8 years, unless I'm forgetting a name change or something. All of them have helped me with various things over the years and all have done a lot for the forum in general.
I met Ryan at 6AM yesterday and we headed toward SC. It was about an 8 hour ride in his truck, so we arrived at the airport where John works around 2PM with just combined fuel/bathroom stops.
Scott greeted us outside of John's shop before we went in and met John. John and Scott were both very friendly and cool to talk to. We all share common passions of two-wheelers and two-strokes, so it was great to BS about that stuff and other things face to face for hours with a group of guys that have talked online for so many years.
John showed us around his aircraft maintenance shop and we met the people that he worked with, who were also very easy to get along with. He continued the tour by showing us some planes in adjacent hangars. I know essentially nothing about aircraft, but they were interesting to check out. The old war planes were beautiful works of art and those radial engines are really something to see in person. Unfortunately I was so wrapped up in the whole thing that I took 0 pictures.
We also got to look over John's experimental Honda scooter (check it out in it's build thread HERE). John has a way of turning a pile of parts into something pretty badass. As I said to the guys that day, most people couldn't take a bunch of money and make anything that cool IMO. It was my first time up close with an Elite. Those things really are tiny.
We spent about 4 hours at with Scott and John before heading out. John even sent me home with an ignition test rig that he built and sent one of his project engines along for whoever wants to work with it.
Ryan and I went and grabbed something to eat and then got back on the road. The initial plan was to get a hotel and go back in the morning, but he asked if I was up for at least going partway back that night and I was up for whatever. Partway turned into making the entire trip home. I drove the last few hours so Ryan could sleep since he had another 2 hours to go after getting back to where I park.
We got back to my car at 2:30AM, so somehow I managed to spend about 16 hours in the truck with Ryan and he never even tried to take off without me while I was in the bathroom or anything. lol I think the total trip for Ryan was about 1,300 miles and I was there for just over 1,000 of it.
I wanted to say a big thanks to Ryan. He said he was going anyway so it was no cost to him for me to go and wouldn't let me give him anything for gas or anything. I bought him a sandwich and fries at Chick-Fil-A so I prob gave him $8-9 worth of food is all.
Thanks to Scott for making the trip to John's shop so we could all meet and to John for letting us meet there and giving us the grand tour. It was great meeting you guys.
Also, the Yamasaki is a neat bike. I hope Ryan will post about it at some point. Now or when he actually starts working on it. I haven't been lucky enough to spend much time around two-strokes much larger than the scoot stuff, so it was awesome to hear the twin cylinder 250 fire up with two Peace Pipes spittin' out smoke. John did excellent work on that swap too. The engine looks like it belongs there.
PS : When I was driving through Baltimore or DC (at 1-2AM it's all a blur) I went through a work zone with a speed camera doing about 80 in a 55. Ryan was asleep so this is news to him. lol I'm pretty sure the flash was for a group of cars a bit ahead of me and I got it slowed down before it would have been my turn. If not, lemme know if you get a ticket in the mail and I will take care of it.
Ryan offered to let me tag along for the trip if I was interested. He's north of me (MD) in PA so I am kind of on the way. I ended up taking him up on the offer and found a spot to meet him so there was only about 15 minutes difference in his travel time each way.
As an added bonus to the whole deal, everyone was going to meet at John's shop. So Ryan, John, Scott and I would all get to meet. I've met Ryan multiple times now and Scott and John have met, but the northerners had never met the southerners before. I've known John and Ryan through forums since the ScootDawg days before 49ccScoot even existed. Probably 11-12 years. I think Scott has been around for around 8 years, unless I'm forgetting a name change or something. All of them have helped me with various things over the years and all have done a lot for the forum in general.
I met Ryan at 6AM yesterday and we headed toward SC. It was about an 8 hour ride in his truck, so we arrived at the airport where John works around 2PM with just combined fuel/bathroom stops.
Scott greeted us outside of John's shop before we went in and met John. John and Scott were both very friendly and cool to talk to. We all share common passions of two-wheelers and two-strokes, so it was great to BS about that stuff and other things face to face for hours with a group of guys that have talked online for so many years.
John showed us around his aircraft maintenance shop and we met the people that he worked with, who were also very easy to get along with. He continued the tour by showing us some planes in adjacent hangars. I know essentially nothing about aircraft, but they were interesting to check out. The old war planes were beautiful works of art and those radial engines are really something to see in person. Unfortunately I was so wrapped up in the whole thing that I took 0 pictures.
We also got to look over John's experimental Honda scooter (check it out in it's build thread HERE). John has a way of turning a pile of parts into something pretty badass. As I said to the guys that day, most people couldn't take a bunch of money and make anything that cool IMO. It was my first time up close with an Elite. Those things really are tiny.
We spent about 4 hours at with Scott and John before heading out. John even sent me home with an ignition test rig that he built and sent one of his project engines along for whoever wants to work with it.
Ryan and I went and grabbed something to eat and then got back on the road. The initial plan was to get a hotel and go back in the morning, but he asked if I was up for at least going partway back that night and I was up for whatever. Partway turned into making the entire trip home. I drove the last few hours so Ryan could sleep since he had another 2 hours to go after getting back to where I park.
We got back to my car at 2:30AM, so somehow I managed to spend about 16 hours in the truck with Ryan and he never even tried to take off without me while I was in the bathroom or anything. lol I think the total trip for Ryan was about 1,300 miles and I was there for just over 1,000 of it.
I wanted to say a big thanks to Ryan. He said he was going anyway so it was no cost to him for me to go and wouldn't let me give him anything for gas or anything. I bought him a sandwich and fries at Chick-Fil-A so I prob gave him $8-9 worth of food is all.
Thanks to Scott for making the trip to John's shop so we could all meet and to John for letting us meet there and giving us the grand tour. It was great meeting you guys.
Also, the Yamasaki is a neat bike. I hope Ryan will post about it at some point. Now or when he actually starts working on it. I haven't been lucky enough to spend much time around two-strokes much larger than the scoot stuff, so it was awesome to hear the twin cylinder 250 fire up with two Peace Pipes spittin' out smoke. John did excellent work on that swap too. The engine looks like it belongs there.
PS : When I was driving through Baltimore or DC (at 1-2AM it's all a blur) I went through a work zone with a speed camera doing about 80 in a 55. Ryan was asleep so this is news to him. lol I'm pretty sure the flash was for a group of cars a bit ahead of me and I got it slowed down before it would have been my turn. If not, lemme know if you get a ticket in the mail and I will take care of it.
