Ever find yourself riding on a surface street in a 35 MPH zone and suddenly wake up and find yourself doing 50 MPH, or more? (Or did the policeman tell you your speed after he stopped you as he was writing up your speeding ticket?)

Let's face it, we are used to riding our bikes a lot faster than 35 MPH and it is difficult to keep the scooters from 'automatically' getting up to speed - they like it up there. Sure, there are a few speed freaks that think nothing of doing 50 MPH in a 35 MPH zone, but most people reading this are not likely that type.

So, here's a tip that will reduce the number of tickets you get for inadvertent speeding to zero:

• When riding on surface streets always run in a lower gear than you need

Simple, huh?

When I ride in a 35 MPH zone I do it in SECOND gear! The engine races when I ease it up over that speed and that's all it takes to remind me that I'm in a speed zone. Most of our surface street speeding tickets, I think, are the result of not thinking at all about how fast we are going and relying on the sound of our engines.

Lower the gear you run in and you can't help but stay conscious of your speed.

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