A tad under 200 miles on the scooter, and there are some definites to riding the MP3, aside from the fun factor--and it is a ton of fun. I admit, I was worried that moving from an SV650 to a scooter would be, hmm, less than cool, but it's far from being the weenie-ride I worried about. It's pretty much like riding a small cruiser, but without the tank to grab with your knees, or shifting to think about.

Saturday morning I geared up and took it to a nearby church parking lot to get more familiar with it: lots of going in circles, braking, swerving, more braking... overall it felt pretty good. The brakes are very responsive without being too grabby, it's got a good turn radius, accelerates well (though not nearly as fast as the SV...but ya gotta expect that), and does very slow speeds smoothly. I could creep along slowly enough that the You-May-Lock-The-Wheels light flashed at me, and zip up to fast-parking-lot speed quickly.

After about half an hour of that I hit the streets, deliberately looking for streets with varied speeds, and long slow curves. One, I wanted to get a better feel for reading that speedometer, and two, I wanted to work on scrubbing the tires so that I'd be able to take it out and open up on curvy roads. Well, that and I wanted to see how well it leans into curves. And it turns out, it leans pretty well, and it's very flickable.

I did about 50 miles just around town, and other than being pointed at (a lot) it was a fairly uneventful ride.

On Sunday I headed out into some wind; I normally hate riding in the wind, but I wanted to see how well the MP3 faired under windy conditions, and how it felt on less than perfect roads.

Bear in mind, windy to me is anything over 15 mph winds...I can ride in it but I don't enjoy it, and the windier it gets, the less I like it. I headed out with the wind blowing at about 22 mph with 30 mph gusts; probably weenie winds for other riders, but annoying winds for me.

One thing I noted pretty fast: while *I* don't like the wind much, the MP3 doesn't seem to mind it. I encountered a few gusts that made me lean just a little, but for the most part the scooter didn't move. It felt like my helmet wanted to pop off my head a few times, especially when I got over 50 mph, but the scooter held steady. It went on roads that had it hitting me from all directions, and was only surprised by a side gust once when the scooter leaned a little further than I expected. Head winds were where my helmet felt like it wanted to launch.

There are a few roads around here badly in need of repair; I learned to avoid them on the Rebel (I want to keep the fillings in my teeth, thank you very much) and could tolerate them on the SV (since I could get up on the pegs a little better.) The MP3 is closer to the SV in handling seriously bumpy roads; I didn't have to get up on the floorboards as I would pegs on a bike, but the suspension handled them nicely and the jolt from them was dampened by the seat. And for someone with a bad back, that's greatly appreciated.

A few noted things:

• The MP3 doesn't care much for hills. I hit a long, moderately graded hill, and the engine lugged a bit. I was able to get it back up to speed (40 mph on this road...I admit, I was doing about 50) with a little more throttle, but I'm not sure it had a whole lot more to give.
  
  
• It's fairly forgiving of newby mistakes. Go into a curve too fast, and you can ease off the throttle a bit instead of leaning harder. Accelerate from a stop too slowly, and you don't have to worry about stalling and/or dropping it.
  
  
• Short riders might have problems on the MP3. I'm 5'8" with a 32" inseam, and I can't exactly flat foot it. While you can lock the wheels at stop signs and lights, you still have to be able to move the scooter around with your feet to back it up, and it's not always feasible to lock the wheels.
  
  
• You feel all of the 550-odd pounds when trying to back it out of a slightly sloped parking slot. Pretty soon I'll have killer-calves.
  
  
• If you're not on the throttle, it's effectively in neutral. Put the parking brake on when you park, or it will roll. Do not ask me how I learned this...
  

Oh, and with a little help online from someone who's been riding an MP3 for a while, I finally got a full faced helmet stored under the seat. Yay.