To the right, my current bike - a 1990 Honda CB-1. This model was fairly popular in Japan, but at only 400cc, it never quite caught on in the states or europe, so they were only exported for two years.

The original CB-1 has a sort of "cafe racer" look to it, in that the stock model doesn't have front or side fairings (when I got mine, someone had wrapped a complete set of fairings around it, and it looked terrible. I liked the idea of a windscreen, though, so I took off the side panels but left the front.) or a windscreen.

So far, I've been pretty happy with mine. It's had some mechanical issues, such as a leak on the gas tank that I just fixed, but overall, I'm pleased.

Before I got the motorcycle, I had a scooter. To the left you can see me atop my beloved Yamaha Vino. It was a great little bike, perfect for around town. It could carry six full bags of groceries. It got 80 miles to the gallon.

When this picture was taken, I was on a group ride with Hostile City, the premiere Scooter Club in Philadelphia. Many of the folks are very much into the vintage scooters like Vespas and Lambrettas, but they've still made new folks like me feel welcome.

As I noted, I replaced the ugly trapezoidal front turn indicators with some less crappy ones (see right). I also replaced the stock exhaust with an an aftermarket Technigas Next exhaust. I got it from Moped Hospital. I'm not very mechanically inclined, so I had Ginger and Paul at Working Class Motors in Philly replace the pipe, but I did the turn signals myself. Since there were no moving parts involved with that change, it was fairly easy. I didn't change the rear turn signals, which were just as ugly, because frankly I didn't have to look at them while I'm riding. I just couldn't take looking down at those godawful things anymore. Ah, well.

Unfortunately, the very reliable, efficient scooter just didn't meet my needs. With the mods, it went 45 mph on flat ground, but unfortunately it just wouldn't climb hills with me on it.