Coolster QG-210 and Tao Tao Lancer

[phager76]

So, on the 23 of Febuary, I ordered a QG-210 for my daughter and a Tao Tao Lancer 150 from Powersports Max. The bikes arrived today and I was able to cut out of work early and get the 70 assembled and the Lancer most of the way assembled.

On the good side, the bikes arrived with no damage and in good shape, so kudos to the shipper (RL Carriers) and the warehouse that loaded them. Powersports Max was more than a bit of a dissapointment, It took them over a week to process the order and when I attempted to contact them, their response was much delayed and contained no real information. I'm hoping they redeem themselves with the MCO, but I hold little hope of that.

On to the bikes:

Both bikes we're shipped on a single pallet, and as mentioned came in good shape:




The QG-210 went together in about 30-40 minutes, real easy assembly!



And a couple of the Lancer mostly assembled:





And of course, a couple of picks of my bad-ass biker chick with her new ride.





Since I can't seem to embed worth a dang here's a link to my daughter tearing it up:

[BlackBike]

Great name for your daughter...she doesn't seem afraid of it at all, probabbly is a natural. (The video worked)

Did you say the wife will ride the scoot?

How's the blaze have you had time to mess with it any more (probably not, been busy with these).

[phager76]

I got the blaze running briefly, but haven't touched it since. It'll come in time, as we've been looking at some local parks to ride (Less then 2 hours away) so I need to get her up and running soon. Unfortunately I have to replace the shackles, shocks and ball joints on the Dakota I'm trying to sell in order to get it inspected, so that's costing some money, so titling the blaze is on the back burner for a bit.

My wife is planning to get her permit and ride it for short hops around town and to the parents house, she used to ride dirt bikes as a kid and wants to ride again, but is a little afraid of the street, so a scoot is a good way to get back in the swing of riding again for her (and me for that matter).

I have to say, that Lance is bigger then I thought it would be. the last time I looked at China scoots, they were mostly 50s and a couple of 125s on a 50 frame so they were a whole lot smaller. I took it for a little putt around the driveway, and I got to say, those tires really don't like mud and wet grass, got more then a little wobbly doing a course correction after drifting in to the grass a bit. It's got decent pickup though I think it's going to be a fun ride! I was really hoping to take it out around the neighborhood this weekend, but they're calling for 1-3 inches of snow on Saturday. I blame the scooter. Before I got the shipping confirmation, they were predicting 60's this weekend, shipping conf. drops, boom weather system shifts, and snow and 20s :(

[phager76]

Oh and here's one of her first epic endo in slow motion (She loves all 11 seconds of this video). I need to record more of these, since they're good for showing where technique can be improved.

[BlackBike]

And best of all, just to have rem8nders of them when they were little toots.

[JerryHawk250]

Too Cool! Like they say there are two kinds of motorcycle riders, Those that have crashed and those that will. She got hers out the way early. She's good to go now.

[phager76]

I mentioned this in jsumd's thread about his Vader from powersport max, but I ordered my MCOs for the two bikes today. Since I live in the peoples republic of Pennsylvania, I also have to have the title notarized (Learned that one on my first attempt to title the Blaze). Through Powersports Max, the notarization is $30 per MCO, then for the Lancer I also opted for the Express Mail Delivery which was an additional $30. Twenty bucks says that I'm still waiting a month before I see it, It'll be interesting to see if they ship the two MCOs separately or in the same express mail envelope.

I've got a pool going at work over how long it'll take to get them, the winner gets to take the scooter for a spin (They've all ridden before, so we're good there), might as well have a little fun with an annoying situation.

In other news, I just ordered a cheap GoPro clone of Amazon (At least I know that'll come in two days!), so when the weather breaks, I'll be hooking it up to Rhiannon's helmet, or the bike itself and get some nice POV vids of her riding (and taking innumerable spills). She's really looking forward to putting them on her YouTube Channel, which right now just has some videos of her trip to DC on the Capitol Limited in a sleeper car last October (Cheap plug, search for Rhiannon's First Videos), so it'll be nice to see it filled up a little. It'll also help when she gets a little more comfortable, and I can follow and allow her to see what she's doing right and what she can improve on. To be honest, I'm not too worried about her technique at this point, it's more about having fun and being safe while doing it, as long as she's grinning and doing things in a safe manner, that's enough for me. When she decides she wants to up her game, so to speak, we can go over ways to do that then.

The next week is going to be rough, the 8 day forecast is calling for chances of snow every day with temps not breaking into the 40s, so no riding for me, but at least it gives time for the MCO to get here. I ended up moving them in to the basement last night after work before the last snow storm moved in. Since they're in a warm basement, I'm going to change the oil on the both of them tomorrow, and change the gear oil in the Lancer as well, Rhiannon is going to assist, as it's never to early to start on learning to take care of your investments and how to fix things. Since I'm into detailing as well, I'm going to give them both a rinseless wash and throw a ceramic coating on both of them to make keeping them clean (I know putting a ~$100 coating on a $300 bike is nuts, but what the hell, at least I'm playing with my new toys)!

[phager76]

Well, oil changes taken care of on both bikes, It look like I may have a slight oil leak on the Coolster where the wires for the magneto go into the left side cover. The rubber boot seems to have split (Manufacturing defect, or kid dropping it repeatedly? Who knows) so I'll have to monitor it over the next few weeks and see if it is legitimately leaking or not. At least it's only three bolts holding the left cover on, so should be easy enough to deal with. Rhiannon pretty much did the oil change on her bike herself after I broke loose the drain plug, I also tightened the plug for her. I then showed her how to check the level of the oil (Bike level and level at the upper end of the cross hatched area, but not over). I think my 7 year old has more mechanical aptitude then my 42 year old brother!

She also helped me with the oil changes (Engine and gear) on the scooter. What the hell is up with the dipstick/fill tube? You can't get a freaking funnel in there between the muffler and the engine! Going to have to pick up a tranny funnel for my next oil change in 50-100 miles. Speaking of the muffler, what a joke that is! I'll have to get a picture when I pull it out of the basement again, but it has a fat chome tip on it, but when you look at it closely, it's actually about 1/2-3/4" diameter pipe inside that turns down an exits out the bottom of the tip. I got a hearty laugh after seeing that!

We also gave them both a good wash with McKee's N-914 Rinseless wash, and gave the tires a good scrubbing to get the mud off of them, and took the time to explain the importance of really cleaning the bike on a regular basis, not only for protection of the paint, but to be able to get up close and personal so you can see if anything is amiss with the bike. After getting the bikes all clean, I then applied Pinnacle Black Label V2 ceramic paint coating, which should keep the bike looking good and make it a whole lot easier to clean. It's advertised to protect for three years, meaning I'll just have to give them a quick rinse down when they get dirty. It left the painted portions smooth as glass and super shiny from what I could see in the poor light of the basement.

I'll probably get the top case and mirrors installed today as well, so they'll be ready to ride when the weather gets nice (And my MCO shows up!).

[tortoise]

Originally Posted by phager76

oil changes (Engine and gear) on the scooter. What the hell is up with the dipstick/fill tube? You can't get a freaking funnel in there between the muffler and the engine! Going to have to pick up a tranny funnel for my next oil change in 50-100 miles.

Should be similar to the 50cc GY6 engine.

[phager76]

Originally Posted by tortoise

Should be similar to the 50cc GY6 engine.

Yep, exactly the same. I managed to get it filled with no issues other then cleaning some oil off the basement floor, exhaust and the underside of the fill tube. I'll definitely be picking up one of those funnels next time I work at Advance for the next oil change in 50-100 miles. That still might be a month or so if spring doesn't get it's butt in gear and get here!

[phager76]

Time for some updates. The bad is I'm still waiting for my paperwork to show up on the bikes, so no riding for me, that and it's still winter (Although up to the 40s today) so it's put a damper on the fun.

On the good side, since we got up to the 40s, I asked Rhiannon if she'd like to get some more practice in, and she said yes. I decided to take a different tack from before, and instead of essentially saying "Let 'er rip and don't wreck" I followed the intro excercises from the MSF course I took last year and set up a wire spool on one side of the driveway, and a wheel chock on the other. I had her run it at a walking pace and turn it at each "cone" and head back the other way. Really, this was probably the smartest thing I've done as a parent ! As you'll see from the videos, this did wonders for her confidence and her skill (Hmm, must be why it's part of the training curriculum!).







These are the experiences that stay with you for a lifetime. I couldn't be more proud right now, she'd ride for a good 20 minutes, take a short drink break, and get right back on. Ended up putting around 1.5 hours of actual ride time on the bike before she wanted to come in for lunch.

[phager76]

Crystal (My Wife) just got back from a couple of quick spins around the neighborhood on the Lancer. She did drop it once, apparently she thought it was a dirt scooter and tried to ride it up the wet grass hillside and hit some mud, the back end kicked out and she saved it from falling, but came to a complete stop and started rolling back in the mud. Thunk, down it went.

No harm done, and then she took it up to the parent's house, and around the block with a huge smile on her face. The down side of all this? I don't think I'll be riding the scooter a much as I was hoping, as she got off the scoot, she said "I can totally see me leaving the kids with you and taking this to get a gallon of milk or something". The "or something" has me worried, that's a little vague and nebulous. It could just as easily mean say a burger...at Fuddruckers...in Hershey, PA... a couple of hundred miles away!

[culcune]

Has she taken the MSF course (your wife)? I mean, the 'or something' would put her on the open roads. In other words, she cannot ride it until she takes the course (meaning you get to buy some time!!!)

[phager76]

She hasn't gone through the MSF course yet. I actually haven't completed it yet, I got through the first day last spring and someone directly in front of me hit the front brake around a corner and hit hard, almost taking me out with her, and was rushed to the hospital. We were also on a camping trip that weekend (Poor planning on my part) and when I got back to the camper, I decided to call it and just enjoy my weekend.

After the MCO gets here, I'll be reupping my permit and getting her one, which makes us legal here in PA during the daytime only, and we'll both do the MSF course in the summer/fall.

One problem I had with the MSF course, was I don't do well learning new things while I'm on display, so I found myself worrying more about looking or doing something stupid in front of the rest of the class, then I was my technique and what the instructors were saying, not a good thing. I did a fair amount of riding and building confidence last year on local roads and I think I'll get a lot more out of the course with the basics firmly entrenched into muscle memory. My wife is much like me, in fact she's more self conscious then I am, so I'm thinking some time on local roads will help her as well.

She's actually very nervous about going on larger roads, so I don't have anything to worry about, at least until she's ridden it for a week or two!

[BlackBike]

MSF...I got a little miffed at the , do this, add this and then do this exercises. I would forget to, "add this" to the exercise and would get the big wtf gesture from the instructor. You will try to do everything perfect but will fu reguardless. It makes no difference, your there just to get the piece of paper and it is pretty hard to fail. Then your free! The self conscious thing gets old with age and soon you will not give a rats anymore

As for daughter...good dad!