Today I fired up the motorcycle to go for a ride. Why not, it’s only -1 outside and the roads are bare and dry, if not covered in sand and crap from all winter they could be considered pristine! My steed is a 1984 Honda Elite 150. Yup just like the ones from MTV in the 80′s 
The ugly side of bike ownership in Ottawa is that you have to pre-pay the insurance for the entire year yet they know you won’t be riding in January. This is why you’ll see nut jobs like me, riding in minus 1 in March!
I donned the regular gear, and added a scarf to the mix to protect my chin (the biggest complaint I have of riding at +5 Celsius and below is that my chin freezes and cramps up with the wind chill of the ride). I rolled the Honda out of it’s slumber and tested the brakes. They seemed fine. Pressing the go button made the starter click but the battery just didn’t have enough juice to fire the engine, it barely turned over. (Nope I didn’t winterize it, nor did I need to….)
I grabbed my little 12 volt booster pack from the house and connected it to the battery leads. The starter engaged with vigor and after about three cranks the engine came to life settling on that typical Honda purr of a 4 stroke single cylinder.
Gotta love the Japanese engineering. I let the bike idle for a few moments then disconnected the booster pack. Donned my gloves and was off! The bike is an amazing way to get around town. It’s powerful enough to move my fat ass briskly and is so cheap to operate that having a car seems criminal. If only it had heat and a stereo?
I rode down to the bank, allowing it to keep running while I used the machine then over to the gas station to add some fresh fuel. After a whopping 2.3 liters of fuel the tank was full. $3 later I was turning the key, the bike fired up like a champ. I guess that means the charging system is still working!
Did I mention that I love Honda motorcycles?! I just rode her home and inputted the numbers and here is my total cost of ownership for 2010.
654 total kilometers driven $27.94 worth of fuel consumed.
I found the old battery was weak so I bought a new one for $58 and installed it myself. So not bad, a year’s worth of transportation for under $100. This year I want to crack 1000 kms.