Bought a new scooter today

In a break from tradition, I bought a new (or very nearly new) vehicle. It's a 2007 Yamaha C3 50cc scooter. Why buy a new scooter when I already have numerous other scooters?

I bought a used Italjet Torpedo scooter a few months ago, and have been having a blast riding it around town. It's surprising to see just how easy it is to add 100 miles to the odometer. Every 100 miles on the scooter instead of the car is ~1 gallon of gas instead of 3 or 4 gallons...it all adds up. In addition, the scooter is downright fun to ride. However, the Italjet (like most scooters) is a 2-stroke with a carburetor and no emissions controls. Though I'm getting 85ish MPG, I know the scoot is a pretty bad polluter, so I'm saving money while I ride, but I'm not helping the environment. I'll need to search the Web to see if I can find some statistics, but I'll bet the Torpedo puts out more emissions than any of my cars.

So, when a nearly-new Yamaha C3 turned up on Craigslist, I had to take a closer look. The C3 isn't (in my opinion) the best looking scooter on the market, but it has several key features that interest me: 4-cycle engine, fuel injection, catalytic converter, and air injection. These features all combine to make the C3 one of the lowest-emission internal-combustion vehicles on the road. It's also water-cooled, which should help to ensure a long engine life. Low emissions also means the engine is very efficient -- owners are reporting more than 100 MPG.

The C3 is the most technologically-advanced 2-wheeler I've ever owned (except for the Segway!). The Torpedo is a crude machine -- technologically, little separates it from a 1950s scooter. The engine is lightweight with few moving parts. The whole vehicle is pretty quick and easy to disassemble and reassemble. In contrast, the C3 has effectively the same components as a modern car.

How do I like the C3? I've only ridden it once (to come home), but it's clearly not as quick as a 2-stroke, though top speed is similar. It's a bigger, heavier machine, so it's not as good at jackrabbit starts. It's also a lot quieter. It feels like more of a "grown-up" scooter. The build quality is great. Most importantly, I can now scoot around with relatively little guilt.