A few months ago I finally got a vehicle manly enough to take on the highway and get around to wherever I needed to get around to, my Piaggio MP3 500ie.

http://www.piaggiousa.com/scooters......erview/mp3-500

It's been a fantastic ride. Simply fantastic most days, and spectacular when the weather's been both perfect and horrible. It'll break 100mph when I open the throttle all the way, and the three wheel set-up that turns heads everywhere it goes keep it gripping the road even when I'm riding in torrential rain.

I've also modified it -slightly- since then. You can see one of the critical modifications here. On the back of the bike I've added a top-case. It pretty much tripled my cargo capacity over what the storage in the saddle compartment offered (which was actually pretty big in and of itself. I used to have to carry my helmet wherever I went. It wouldn't fit in the saddle of either the Piaggio or the Yamaha. The topcase makes things a hell of a lot easier.

Simple little aesthetic addition was the skull-and-chefbones sticker on the front.

You can't make them out here, but I also purchased a set of strap-on saddlebags. They fit under the topcase mount and drape over the sides of the bike's rear. They're awesome for pulling up to fast-food drive-throughs, since I can drop my purchases in them without having to do more than pull into a parking space and pull the zippers open.

An additional modification that is -just barely out of view- is a modification to the saddle compartment. For the entire winter I wore heated gloves on my rides to work (same gloves I'm wearing in the picture, but there wasn't a need to power them in the rather pleasant weather we've got right now). They're run by the bike, and to get their juice you hook the controller up to the bike's battery, or to a cigarette lighter plug.

In the Piaggio's case, the battery is at the front of the saddle compartment. When I ride, and the saddle is closed, that means the rim of the saddle is pinching the wire the entire time I'm on the bike. It didn't come up as an issue, but I don't like the idea of the wire being damaged by excessive pinching. So I had the shop I get serviced at cut a notch into the saddle rim, and cover the notch with a protective rubber strip for waterproofing. The wire for the gloves is now run through the notch and some of the bike's paneling, making it a semi-permenant part of the bike, securely held in place, and no longer a pinch prone piece of electrical equipment.

Plus, hey, this is what I look like now! It's been a while since my last self-pic. Pic was taken by a coworker after we got done at the shooting range (which was his first time ever shooting a gun, and he had a fantastic time. He's thinking about getting a gun of his own in the next few months).

Picture was taken with my little point and shoot Kodak.