Andrew rides the red Genuine Stella scooter. I ride the black Tomos Sprint moped.
I’ve wanted a moped since forever ago. When I was 12 I remember seeing the scene in Amelie where the photostrip collector gets on his moped and pedals off down the street. If you go back a few years to some entries in this very blog, you can see a few posts about mopeds. I was crazy about mopeds. After saving up a few months’ worth of paychecks from working at Amy’s Ice Creams, I finally had enough to buy one. Six years after the first time I saw a one, I bought a Tomos Sprint.
After it came in, I’d wake up at 6 or 7 in the morning and go riding around my neighborhood. I’d go to my mom’s house or to Aaron’s house or the grocery store or wherever I wanted to. After I got my moped license and insurance (yes, you need a moped license and moped insurance in Texas), I rode everywhere. I spent a lot of time at Menil Park reading on a bench with my moped parked next to me. With mopeds averaging over 100 miles per gallon, I was convinced I could go around the world on one tank of gas. With that in mind, I quit my job just so I can ride my moped full-time.
Because luck is on my side, one week after I quit, my moped starts acting up. It all started after I put in a fresh tank of gas. I was about to ride out to my friend Katie’s apartment while she was out of town so the gas man can hook up her gas and my moped dies a few blocks from my house. The engine was making strange sounds so I started it off again and rode home. A few hours later, the engine wouldn’t turn.
My moped sat on my front porch for a few days. For hours on end, everyday I’d go out and try to figure out what was wrong with it. I couldn’t figure it out. Having a moped out of service made me feel helpless and worried and scared. I never had any problems before, but now I did and I didn’t know what to do and I don’t know anybody who knows anything about mopeds and there aren’t any moped shops in Houston and there aren’t any Tomos dealers in Texas and I was stranded at my house. I spent hours reading guides, manuals, and forums online but none of it helped. My moped hadn’t been running for only a day or two but it felt like it would never get fixed and I would never be able to ride ever again. It felt like having a kid for the first time and your kid’s all good and healthy but one day your kid gets sick and you have no idea what’s wrong with them and you worry that they’re going to die.
I didn’t have a spark plug wrench to check the spark plug so Aaron and I stopped at a scooter shop by La Tapatia so I could buy one. The guy working couldn’t find one so he opened up a bike’s storage space and pulled one out. I asked him if it was for sale. He told me, “Eh, just bring it back when you’re done.” It was like something I’d never heard before. Bring it back when you’re done? I never met that guy in my life, why would he trust me? Then I realized how jaded at the world I was by thinking this. Is it really unusual for someone to be nice? Since I can only remember a few times when something like this happened, yes. Yes it is.
The spark plug wrench didn’t fit.
My mom called me one morning and told me that the guy doing renovations on the house had the tools and skills to fix it. He’s an old Iranian man with a degree in mechanical engineering. Right away I pushed and pedaled my moped to her house. Pedaling a moped isn’t an easy task. In fact, it takes less effort to push a moped than it does to pedal it. To help imagine what it’s like to pedal a moped full of gas to my mom’s house, try to think about what it feels like to pedal a 150 lb. bicycle at first-gear for 1.5 miles. But I pedaled it anyway.
Upon arrival at the house, I find the old Iranian contractor fixing our refrigerator. I found this odd, considering he was hired to demolish a wall of the house and install some french-doors in its place. He stepped outside and looked at my bike. He asked me how to start it and I showed him how. He asked me what kind of fuel I use and I told him I have to mix oil and gasoline in a container. He asked me where the spark plug was and I pointed at the cylinder head on the bottom of the bike. We both got down on one knee and he said, “Ahh, yes. I had one like this when I was a young boy back in old country.”
After about a half hour of tinkering around and adjusting things, the handyman noticed that my exhaust manifold was loose. Whoever assembled my bike left one of the manifold screws loose so as I rode around the city for several days, the screw was slowly loosening until it had fallen out. The space between the engine and the exhaust manifold was so close together that both the screw and its washer were sitting on top of the engine. After some issues of getting enough room to screw it back in, we finally did and the bike started up. The bike was good enough to go home and then go return the spark plug wrench.
After returning the wrench, I noticed that my bike was making a strange noise. It sounded like my engine was popping popcorn. Then my top speed wouldn’t pass 25 miles per hour. My moped is still sick. I’ll try and fix it tomorrow.
