The Shinn Digs

Gas prices are getting ridiculous. Garth and I have both resorted to hypermiling. Garth is obsessive about it. When he leaves for work in the morning, he now puts his car in neutral, gives it a little push so it begins to roll down the slightly sloped driveway, and then turns on the engine as he’s rolling out. Probably saves us a $1.50 a year or so. But it helps. Ok … I’ve been doing it too. Actually, as I’ve been practicing my hypermiling techniques, I’m pretty amazed at the simple concept of inertia. You can get a lot of extra mileage on your car by just taking advantage of inertia. My Vibe weighs about 3200 pounds. When I get that much weight moving 30 mph, when I see a light up ahead turn yellow, I simply shift to neutral and can coast for a surprisingly long distance, sometimes even stretching the time such that the light turns green by the time I get there (which is a hypermiler’s goal). But, even at it’s best performance, I’m only getting about 32-35 mpg out of the Vibe …By my scooter … 60-70 mpg! And of course my bike is free. So I’m trying to opt for these more economical modes of transportation for as many errands as possible. Saturday morning I had a couple of stops to make … the post office to drop off and pick up mail, Home Depot to purchase a towel bar and a garden hose reel, and Island Feed and Seed to purchase some organic pest control for the garden (so that little bugger that’s eating things in our first box will STOP!) I knew going into this trip it was going to be adventurous for the scooter, but I’ve seen pictures like this one of people hauling some ridiculous loads (usually in India or Asia), so I thought I’d give it a try. Well, I admit, I was a little nervous as I started strapping the hose reel on the back in the Home Depot parking lot. Two different men walked by and asked me how far I had to go, and if I wanted a ride. I smiled and assured them I’d be just fine (not quite sure myself). But I was able to strap it very securely, and proceeded on to Island Feed and Seed to purchase my pest control. I was pretty much out of room, but was able to hook it on the bag hook (just under the handle bars in the picture) and made it home safe and sound. So now I’m in the process of convincing Garth we can be a two scooter, 1 car family. Don’t you think he’d look great driving my scooter, and I’d look super cute driving this bad boy! This is a 2007 Aprilia Mojito … SWEET with the chrome drop handle bars and mini-Harley look. I love it! He’s not quite convinced … maybe we should poll the readers! What do you think??