Spender's Web Log

So Paul is back from Afghanistan and was visiting the weekend before last. I come over to his place and he’s on the web checking out miniature motorcycles. I’m just thinking to myself, “wtf Paul?” Well somehow his search for trucks turned into a search for mini motorcycles, but he came to a site called minipocketrockets.com where they were selling some of these things for under $200. Intrigued I went on you tube and checked search for some pocket bike videos and found a bunch. Apparently this thing is pretty big in China as there were several videos feature championship races or something.

After watching a bunch of videos I got to thinking shit $200. Is that really it? I gave the place a call to ask a few questions about the bike and after some rounds of “I’ll get one if you get one” back and forth withPaul two bikes were ordered for $237.12 shipped each. It’s a tiny motorcycle that comes in a cardboard box! It’s shipped with standard FedEx shipping!

So a week later on Friday the bike arrives in all it’s cardboard box glory. When I pulled it out of the box I have to say I was impressed. The quality is remarkably good for such a low price. The welds looked good, the plastics were nice, and the engine fired right up in no time. A few hours later the fun began. I took my bike over to Paul’s and it was race time!

The first thing I noticed when I started riding, it’s kind of scary! You sit in a really weird position and until you get some speed it isn’t very stable. After you do get some speed it’s kinda scary trying to steer for fear of hitting the ground during the lean. The bike is after all only about 16 inches tall. The next thing I noticed though was how remarkably fast these things are. The site said they do 40 m.p.h. I haven’t been able to confirm that, but they definitely go about as fast as you would want to go sitting that close to the ground. They also accelerated quicker than I expected. With only a 47cc engine I didn’t expect much in the way of power so I was happy to see it was pretty decent.

So for the racing. We drove by this one guy’s house where he was working on his motocross bike. He see’s us drive by and later comes out on a kids 50cc dirt bike. I joke with him, “you wanna race?” and he’s just like sure. We all get lined up and go. He had us on acceleration and pulled away early on, but the mini pocket rockets had higher top end speed so I was able to pull up and past him before we hit the finish line. I wish someone had a video camera because I has to have looked hilarious as grown men raced on tiny motorcycles!

I put up some photos of my bike on my site. Check them out here.

Yes it’s true; I went and bought a new car! I picked up a brand new 2007 Pontiac Solstice GXP and I have to say, this thing is sweet! I took it off the lot with a grand total of 20 miles on it, most of which were from the test drive I had done a few days earlier. Essentially I’m the only person to ever drive it! It has a turbo charged 2.0L 4-cylinder engine putting out 260 hp in an under 3000 pound package so overall it’s pretty fast. It also handles great! It sits completely flat around corners at speeds I would never dare to take my Grand Am around at! Sure it’s not up there with your Porches and Ferraris or some of the higher end BMWs, but it also cost less than half as much. Even though, it’s definitely a blast to drive!

I got the car almost fully loaded with options except for OnStar and an automatic transmission, neither of which did I want. Other than those two it has just about everything including, 6-disc in dash MP3 CD player with auxiliary input jack for MP3 players, XM radio, 7 speaker sound system with sub woofer, A/C, leather seats/wheel/shift knob, chrome exhaust tips, rear spoiler, 18” chromed aluminum rims, sport tires and the ever important GXP logo floor mats. The GXP model also includes a lot of performance upgrades over the standard model, but I’m not going to list them here as you can find all the details on Pontiac’s website.

For the first 3 months I get the XM free before I have to start paying for it so I’ve been listening to that a lot and so far it seems pretty good, but I’m no sold yet. Still have 3 months to decide so no rush. I’m lovin’ the MP3 CD player as it’s cutting way down on the number of discs I have to keep with me in order to have some variety. The MP3 player jack is also great as it eliminates the need for CD’s altogether however I still need to find a good place with easy access to keep the player while driving. There’s no space for it under the stereo because the shifter is there and the cup holders are the pop out type so the player just falls right through them. The passenger seat works fine when I don’t’ have a passenger, but with one… well not so much. I’m not really too concerned about it right now though as I’ve been using the XM and MP3 CD player mostly as it’s way more convenient to use on the drives to work and back. I’d probably only use my MP3 player for extended trips.

So is this car practical? No not really. Do I care? No not really. Actually, for the task of driving to work and back I can’t really say it’s impractical. I mean it gets me and my one bag there and back and with 22 city and 31 highway mpg so in that sense it’s a lot more practical than me driving say a Suburban where my mileage would be half that. Heck, my Grand Am doesn’t even get that good of mileage and that’s what I would be driving if I didn’t have this car. Really the only way it wouldn’t be practical is if I was taking an extended trip or needed go shopping for a lot of stuff or some larger item. That’s why I kept my old car anyway. That and the fact that I don’t plan to drive this thing in the winter at all.

Now I was considering leasing a BMW 335i before I bought this car. If I had done that, I would have gotten rid of my old car and would drive the BMW year round. I decided not to pretty much when I saw a Solstice sitting in a parking lot one day. I had always liked the car since I saw it premiere at the Detroit auto show and I just had to stop and admire it. I remembered back when I saw it at Detroit and said to myself I have to get me one of those! I’m glad I did. The car really stands out in the crowd way more than the BMW would have, especially in this town. The biggest problem with this car though; it has the unfortunate side effect of attracting a lot of unwanted attention from the cops and people wanting to race, but I guess I knew that would happen. The chicks love it so I guess it all balances out!

Anyway, you can check more photo’s of it in my photo gallery.