Since my Grandmother has lived in Santa Barbara for over 25 years, I feel as if it has been my summer home since a child. That's why I jumped at the chance to go to the Vesperados' Endless Summer Rally. I had never been to one of their events and had no idea what to expect.
I decided to make it a 1/2 rally 1/2 grandma weekend, so I only participated in Saturday's events. We met at the local shop, and rally sponsor Moto Paradiso around 10 and socialized. The shop is small, so you can't do much shopping during a rally. Unfortunately, you could only get the patch in the rally pack which was $20. It came with a t-shirt and a wrist band for that day's BBQ. There was a bit of disappointment in having to pay for the BBQ and having to buy a shirt (I never buy rally shirts). But the patch was well-done and I gave the shirt away.

The ride left at 11 and the route was excellent. Great curvy roads that I had never been on before and beautiful views. The weather was perfect: I could wear a good jacket and gloves without being overheated. The negative part of the ride (and this is a big one) is that this had to be the worst pack of riders I had ever ridden with. There were so many people who drifted around lanes, cut me off and just disregarded the common considerations needed when riding in a huge group that it made the ride far less enjoyable. Since I'm not from that area and don't know the locals, I can't say how many of the pack were newbie riders, but from the many near misses, I sould say that many were clearly unaccustomed to that type of riding.

Regardless of the dodgy riding, the ride was fun. We ended at the beach for a BBQ which was top notch. I didn't mind paying for it, since most free BBQs are barely edible. Tasty Santa Maria tri-tip, chicken and grilled veggies with salads and bread. Yum! Also soda and mini-kegs of beer.

After eating & socializing, the raffle yielded many cool prizes, including a $100 gift certificate for me. Sweet! After the final prize was given: a custom-painted ET2, the group broke up to reconvene that evening for the drunken trolley that would go up & down State street, the downtown shopping & bar center.

That's where I left the rally, but it seems that everyone had a great time. My scootering was cut short by a hole in my exhaust pipe which began shooting gas out onto the street. EEEK!

However, it was a fun rally & I encourage you to attend next year.

After Saturday's ride, many were dog-tired!

MotoBars II: The Rematch

In an earlier edition of ScooterGal Confidential we reviewed the Lemon Blueberry Motobar with negative results. Word got back to Merlino Baking, home of the Motobar and their Vice President emailed us to see what went wrong. He offered to send us some other samples and challenged us to try them out.

A box showed up promptly with five of their eight flavors. ScooterGal Confidential set up a 4-person taste test and here are our results:

Lemon Blueberry: Still yucky. All of our testers disliked it. Lori B said: "It tastes like Windex," which summed up the feelings of the rest of us.
Banana Split: Tasty blend of banana and chocolate with a substantive bread-like texture. A jazzed-up banana nut bread, of sorts. Everyone loved it.
Cranberry Almond: 3 out of four liked it. The 4th thought it was OK. The cranberry was tasty, but you should expect a more marzipan flavor than a straight almond taste. Member #4 hastes marzipan.
Cozy Pumpkin Pie: a real crowd-pleaser. Good, even pumpkin taste with big pecan pieces. Very tasty. I kept the second bar for future eating..er..examination.
Finally...Cranberry Orange: tasty with a real orange flavor. Everyone enjoyed it.

Results

The crowd liked the Banana Split and Pumpkin Pie the best. We did not review the Capuccino, Apple Cinnamon nor Peanut Butter and Jelly flavors that are also advertised on their site. We decided to publish our reviews not to placate the company who sent the samples, but to inform you of our findings. We hear that their rally sponsorship policies have changed and you can contact them with sponsorship requests.