Last night, Ed and I were driving around Kitsilano when his scooter fell apart.

I wish I could say that we were surprised, or that it was the first time something like this had ever happened, or that we were going to be fully reimbursed/receive a fair exchange for the faulty part, but nope. Ed’s had a horrible series of luck with his Dio, and last night was just another notch in the “time to go to Richmond” belt (the shop moved to Richmond last year).

We were riding along 4th when there were vibrations and clanging and other bad noises coming from the Dio. Ed pulled over, and CLANG! his exhaust pipe fell off onto the road. The bracket had snapped last month, and last night the vibration caused the pipe to break at the weld and fall apart. Fan-fucking-tastic. It’s only a two month old, $200 part that just decided to break – add that to the $250 console that just decided to stop working a few months back (and has yet to be replaced/refunded), and you’ve left a pretty great impression in my mouth about it all.

The Dio couldn’t be ridden without an exhaust, so we were sitting on the ground thinking about how we were going to deal with the situation. Normally we’d ask John Josh or Shan to bring the Delica around so we could pack up the scooter, but they left a few hours earlier for a weekend of camping. We don’t know any people with trucks, it was past 9pm, and we were 16km from home. Hooray!

Ed started asking people who walked by if they knew of anyone in the area with a truck, thinking perhaps we could buy a ride back home. No one had one, but one guy said “I just live down the street, and I’ve got some tools – do you want to bring your bike over and we can take a look?” Ed took him up on the offer, and they were off.

A quick glance told us that the pipe wasn’t fixable, and that a new exhaust had to be fetched before we’d be leaving that area. Ed had given his old exhaust to a Dio buddy who had the same problem weeks before, so it’s not like we had a spare lying around – we had to wait until the shop opened up in the morning and get a new one. House Guy offered to let Ed wheel his Dio into his garage, but I had a “better” idea that involved my scooting home, picking up tools and a lock and the car, and driving back to Kits to fetch Ed. We locked his scooter to some pipes outside the house, thanked House Guy, and drove home.

Today we drove to Richmond so Ed could pay another $200 for a new exhaust (go on, ask me what I think about that arrangement), then we drove back to his scooter to put it back together. It didn’t take long and soon Ed was on his way back home on the Dio, with me driving the Mazdabator. The new exhaust works well enough, and our trip next week may not be in jeopardy after all – it just cost a lot of money to fix and was yet another stupid frustration in the saga of Ed’s scooter.

House Guy and his band of merry neighbours were great, though – if he hadn’t offered to lend a hand, we’d have had to leave the Dio unattended and unlocked in Kits and just hope for the best. He offered tools and advice and a secure Dio home for the night, which was just awesome. Thanks, House Guy! You were the one bright spot in this otherwise steaming pile of crap!

I am beyond grumpy about the amount of money Ed has spent on shitty scooter parts, though. The two exhausts and the console come to $650, and all he has to show for it right now is the new exhaust ($200) and a generic stock console (worth about $50, tops). So far he hasn’t been offered any refunds or exchanges or even store credit, and the store owner is out of town for another 2+ weeks. It’ll be interesting to see if he does anything for us this time.