Moto Preserve Garage

Welcome to Moto Preserve!

After a year of wrenching and parking on the curb outside my building, and being buried under snow, I finally had to break down and admit that a garage space would be better, safer and ultimately, more fun.  A real estate agent friend of mine found a garage space that seemed like it could be a good candidate for a bike garage.  It had everything I needed and more.  Great location, mechanical garage door, huge skylight, brand new bathroom, and plenty of space to park and wrench on scooters and motorcycles. On top of that, it’s nestled into a community of artists (some are even motorcycle riders), who all chip in towards making the buildings a cooler place to hang out and work.

I imagined there must be more people out there with similar interests, who would appreciate some indoor space for storing and working on their bikes, so I put the word out through a few forums and email lists, and  got a bunch of great response.  The problem was, it was hard to get a “collective” all on the same page.  So I took the plunge, hoping that eventually people would get on board, and went ahead and set up a garage space, for myself and any other scooter or motorcycle lovers out there, who need a place to work on and park their scoots.  So far, we have a great group of riders at Moto Preserve, and we are hoping to add some more of you to that crew.

Located in the heart of Williamsburg, just 1 block from the Lorimer/Metropolitan L and G train station, it’s just minutes from Manhattan, and easily accessible from most parts of Brooklyn.  The facility is equipped with motorized access door, monitored security system, full bathroom, individual storage spaces, common work benches, and outlets for battery tenders.  For the DIY mechanics among us, tools are available such as: bike lift, sand blaster, air compressor, parts cleaner, specialty tune-up gear, bench grinder/buffer,  etc.

Come have a look at the space, and see how a comfortable, spacious home for your bike can make owning a motorcycle or scooter in this city, so much more less stressful.

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The latest victim. Spotted this morning near Union Square.

Like me, the New York Motorcycle and Scooter Task Force have had enough. They’re declaring war on lousy parking by others with the mantra, “No More Knockovers.”

As NYMSTF puts it:

Most of us have been here before. You’re walking back to your bike after work. About half a block away, you can already tell something doesn’t look right. When you arrive, it’s on its side leaking fuel, or worse. Your brake lever is snapped off, and your plastics are scratched. There’s no note. There’s never a note.

It’s enough to make you want to kick someone. Or, enough to make you want to park on the sidewalk next time!

We’ve discussed the issue of “knockovers” on several occasions given it’s a unfortunate part of scootering life in NYC: “Parking On The Street“, “12 Months of Parking Abuse,” and “When Is Nice Too Nice?” all come to mind.

Thankfully, the NYMSFT has some nice tips to help minimize the chances of your next knockover. My favorite piece of their advice: If you find a spot large enough for a car, don’t be kind and park in that spot but close to the bumper of an adjacent car. Declare the space yours. Park right in the middle. Saving room for a car is just an invitation for someone to squeeze in and squeeze you over.

For a full list of tips to avoid being tipped and what to do to make sure you can file an insurance claim if the damage is severe, click on through to the dedicated “Knockovers” page at NYMSTF.org.

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Courtesy of Ken, NY Scooter Club

I finally got the old Vespa out of the backyard, and began the cleaning and tweaking process, to get her ready for the riding season.  Going over every inch of her, detailing the lines and curves, has made me fall in love all over again.  It’s a beautiful design, and it’s something that I have always wanted.  A nice looking scooter, for my 2-wheeled adventures.

When I first got this scooter, and started frequenting the bogs and forums, I was hit back with a resounding, “be prepared for it to be wrecked.  It WILL get knocked over!”  The NY Scooter Club has a thread dedicated to it!  This is obviously the last thing I wanted to hear, and I tried my best not to let these opinions (or were they fact?) seep into my enjoyment of this beautiful machine.  I wanted so badly for my experience to be carefree, but as time went on, and I took a look around at other bikes on the street (it’s amazing how many more scooters you see once you own one), I realized that these people were probably right.  In open lots, I did everything in my power to park away from other cars.  At home, I was lucky enough to be able to keep it on the sidewalk directly against our building, away from careless drivers.  These seemed to have been decent precautionary steps, because I made it through my very first riding season without any serious damage (OK, I scuffed the fender parking too close to a fence, but that was ME messing it up!).

The other day a friend of mine, who collects and refurbishes vintage motorcycles, told me he is thinking of selling one of his prized possessions, because he fears what might happen to it if he treats it like a daily rider.  Despite his skills with wrench and paint, he considers himself a rider, first and foremost.  He does not put in the blood, sweat and tears, to have it sit in a museum.  These bikes get overhauled, and then he hops aboard, and off he goes, into the streets of this potentially damaging metropolis.  The motorcycle in question, a 1971 Honda CB750, has become quite the collector’s item.  Motorcycle enthusiasts covet these bikes, considered to be among the very first “sport bikes (think early 70′s Ninja).

The problem is, he feels he may have made it too nice.  The idea of having a 40 year old bike, restored to near mint condition, has made him start to wonder if it’s in fact too sweet, for the streets of Brooklyn.  He worries each time he takes it out, fearful that this might be the time that someone backs into it while attempting to parallel park, or a kid might be just drunk enough to feel the need to mess with it.  These are the things that run through your mid when you ride a nice, perhaps too nice,  2-wheeler in this city.

So he has mentioned selling it, wondering whether it might be best served by an owner in the suburbs, who has a perfect space for it, in a secure garage.  It would be sad to see it go.  It is a bike that he has wanted to own for quite some time, and after all the work he has put into it, it would be a shame to forfeit this enjoyment he has earned.  But I understand his reservations.  I can feel his apprehension each time he pulls it into traffic, or parks it, perfectly legally, on a side street in his neighborhood.  The reason I can relate. is that I feel these same apprehensions with my vintage Vespa.

I made it through one riding season, unscathed.  But how long can this last?  Is the sight of my bike, knocked over on it’s side, bleeding gas and oil, only a matter of time?  That is a day, and a sight, I do not care to experience, yet it seems, according to many NYC scooter owners, to be an inevitable reality of owning a nice bike in this city…

How nice is too nice?

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Photo by smcgee, Flickr.

According to Big Apple transportation advocates Streetsblog, that’s exactly what could happen if the bean counters have their way.

The city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO) has reported to the Major’s office with some compelling numbers that could be leveraged to address the city’s budget deficit. According to the report, currently not charging for road traffic crossing the East River and Harlem River bridges is a missed fiscal opportunity to raise up to $970 million per year.

The report recommends the consideration of Eastern bridge crossing fees which could bring crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, for example, in line with the current charge for a trip through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

The report is a long way from implementing change which would require a trip to Albany and presumably a whole heck of a lot of opposition. But just the thought of paying to cross to-and-from Brooklyn and Queens into Manhattan is a fear-inducing prospect for anyone in New York City, on two-wheels or four. Of further interest is the hypothetical question of whether commuters would be given incentive to move from four to two wheels with lower tolls for motorcycles and scooters.

But it doesn’t stop there. The report also goes on to suggest that the city consider ending free street parking in residential zones through the implementation of resident parking permits – a popular revenue generator in many cities around the world. The report recommends a pilot program with permits at $100 per year raising $2 million a year for the city for every 25,000 permits issued.

Finally the IBO feels that the current meter charges have room for improvement as far as revenue generation is concerned. Toll raises across the board and the implementation of more meters would naturally bring more money to the city’s coffers. An additional $12 million could be raised by charging current Manhattan residents who pay for garage parking at a currently reduced tax rate.

Dark times ahead? Let’s hope not. Thanks to StreetsBlog.org for the story.

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After publishing the article, the owner (an Upper West Side resident) was located and quickly fessed up that they had simply parked the scooter on the UES during a day of bad weather, removed the plates, and left it there across town during the winter while they waited for the weather to improve.

The main reason the bike attracted unwanted attention was not the removal of the license plate but that it simply never, ever moved from one spot, barring a couple of entrepreneurial car owners who used the Vespa to periodically save parking spots.

As the NYT reported:

A vehicle that violates alternate-side parking rules (Tuesdays and Fridays, on that block, between East 56th and 57th Streets) is typically under the jurisdiction of the Parking Violations Bureau, but one without plates is customarily referred to the Sanitation Department. However, if it is missing only a license plate — and not stripped of tires or other essentials — it may be referred by Sanitation to the Police Department.

After the Times reported on the mystery scooter, the Sanitation Department tagged the scooter to be picked up by the NYPD because it was deemed to be in too good condition to be sent to the scrap yard, and instead the NYPD located the owner using the VIN.

The owner collected the scooter after paying a fine. They declined to comment so who knows how much the whole debacle cost them.

Lessons learned? Don’t leave your scooter for months without moving on alternate side of the street parking days. A scooter that looks derelict could literally be sent to the scrap yard – vintage owners beware. Upper East Side residents are nosy.

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Given my recent ticket, and with both plates back on the bikes, this could be a risky move, but to start at least, 2011 will be the year of a new parking methodology.

I’m so sick of my Vespa PX being knocked over that I thought a change of approach might be the way to go. Per NYC parking laws, I normally park my scoots perpendicular to the curb with their back wheels touching the curb.

The trouble with perpendicular parking is that it puts you at the mercy of parking vehicles that are either prepared to nudge your bike forward a few inches with their bumper so they can park (result: my bike  tips over asshole) or reverse into it without seeing it (result: my bike definitely tips over asshole.)

If I’ve learned one thing in the past ten years of studying karate (a story for another time) it’s that how you stand has a large effect on your ability to stand your ground. Putting this twisted logic into action with the scooters I’m going to try an experiment of parking parallel to the curb until I’m either ticketed or knocked over regardless.

My logic, a scooter pushed from the front or back may have a chance of staying upright. I just hope to god neither one of them pushes off its stand. Come to think of it, perhaps I should park them facing the direction of traffic? Ugh. Time to turn them around. What a terrible idea.

One thing is inevitable, they will be knocked over soon or later. Hope you fair better. If you have any better parking ideas, I want to hear them.

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Sadly, I must admit that I allowed myself to go MIA for a while.  I let the cold weather and snow conquer my drive to ride.  I found myself giving in to my landlord’s advice, to put the Vespa in the backyard for the winter, to avoid the harsh accumulation that developed on our street.  So, there it sat, where I could see it out the rear window of my apartment, a daily reminder that this winter had gotten the best of me.  The picture above shows you the depressing site I had from my window, and that daily view just kept eating away at me.  The snow stayed hard and tall for weeks, and the idea of digging it out became easier and easier to avoid, as the wind turned ugly.

But then this past week, the weather turned warmer and I started having visions of riding around Brooklyn, once again wearing the lightest (yet protective) gear possible.  It’s high time to fire the old gal up, and make sure all the parts are in good working order.  This will be my first winter survived, and the defeat I felt by the winter of 2010-2011, will be gone.

Let’s hope that she starts right up, and the effects of winter don’t delay my riding any longer.

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As you might have gathered from my last post I took the chance of some sunshine today to prep the bikes ready for the 2011 riding season (although apparently there will be more snow tomorrow.)

Lifting the cover off my PX that’s been sitting on the sidewalk for the past two months or so revealed an nice little present from the meter-maids. While I’d taken the plate off the bike, the issuing officer had evidently gone to the trouble of evidently removing the cover from the bike, cleaning the goop off the VIN plate behind the leg-shield (from some past wrenching I’d done on the bike) and locating the plate number from the VIN on record.

Fortunately, the Lammy parked not three feet away only gives up it’s VIN number to those who know how to get her to give up her secrets, so I don’t have two tickets to my name.

Given I didn’t pay for winter storage this year, while the ticket is annoying, I guess I’ll consider it my Winter 2010/2011 storage fee. That said, given the ticket was issued a day during the worst of the snow, it was wee bit unfair of the officer to write me up given the alternative was to leave my bike on the street under snow and salt and at the mercy of NYC Sanitation Department snow plows.

In the words of the late New Yawker Rodney Dangerfield, I don’t get no respect.

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Exactly twelve months after a top to bottom restoration, my PX is looking a little worse for wear. By my count the bike was knocked over a total of seven times in the past twelve months my parking vehicles.

Both cowls are now badly dented, with the battery side cowl significantly scratched when the bike was not only pushed over but either pushed or dragged along the asphalt.

The engine side cowl hasn’t suffered scratches but has a sizable dent and both left-hand side turn signal lenses are cracked.

The front fender took a number of bashes but thankfully is easy to bend back into shape. In addition to scratches though, the plastic crest that adorns the top of the fender was snapped off in one of the knock downs.

I’ve come to terms with the scratches and dents but let it be a warning to anyone considering parking their newly restored prize on the streets. At least these PXs are built like tanks. The damage is only cosmetic. I replaced the battery this morning after it sat on the trickle charger this winter, and the bike started up on second kick after sitting idle for the past three months. I’ll take my breaks as I can find them.

Photos of the damage below.

The "Fragile" sticker I brought back from Paris has found a use.

A cracked rear turn signal from one of the drops.

Another turn signal lens cracked.

The fender took a beating but bent back into shape, it's missing it's crest though which was snapped off.

At least my bike has dents on both cowls for the balanced look.

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I envy this guy’s (gal’s?) cojones.

Parking parallel to the curb? Check. Hi-viz traffic cones? Check. Got to love how this scoot commands its rightful parking space on the mean streets of Manhattan’s East Village. I’ve been thinking of doubling up my bikes as parallel parkers like this to command more attention to car drivers. Seems like the chances of a bike getting knocked over would be much less because a bike pushed from the back or front is more stable than tipped from the side, but it also begs the question how many times an irritated car driver has taken it upon themselves to move the bike (and cone) by hand up on to the sidewalk to claim the spot for themselves.

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