Well, it was quite an interesting afternoon. My buddy - who has been riding motorcyles and scooters since he could walk - came over to help ascertain my squirrely, steering issue. I thought I was almost imaginging this and tried to tell myself that it was because I was new back on a two wheeler, etc but after my buddy rode it, it was apparant that this was a real issue.
He came back from a test ride shaking his head and was in disbelief that I even went on the short Sat morning ride with the local scooter club. He said there was something seriously wrong with the steering and he suggested not even riding it until we figured out the problem. We decided to take off the front plastic and he determined that the steering nut collars (? Do I have that term correct?) were cranked down waaaay too tight. He did some adjusting...a couple of adjustments actually and test rode after each one...he said it was
better but still not the way it should be. We decided to take off the collars entirely and this is what we found....
There is a bearing missing! I'm not sure how much this would attribute to this steering issue but he feels it is causing some of it. Needless to say....I'll write to Scooter Madness AGAIN asking them so send another part.
We put most everything back together and I did my own test ride and I have to say...even after he just adjusted the collar nuts (and even with a missing bearing from the cage) it seemed to "track" much better while riding...I thought it was night and day. He thinks it's about 50% better.
Anyone else think one missing bearing would affect the ride?