With the lowest elevation and best morning temperatures yet, the little Buddy Kick was flying through miles. I don’t have a lot to report for the last day and my focus was on just finishing this adventure and putting the entire chapter behind me.

The route had a difficult finish in more ways than one. The increasing tropical heat and humidity took a bit of a toll on everyone, but perhaps the most challenging element was waiting in traffic to get across the narrow bridges and roads to the finish line. Hilton Head, South Carolina experiences a significant amount of tourist traffic on weekends and getting caught in that without air movement was fairly brutal.

The end checkpoint and associated hotel was in a very confined space without any accommodation for the support truck. While looking for a place to put the truck, it nearly overheated while stuck in traffic.

Content with just leaving all of that chaos, we packed up the scooter and headed to our final destination of Savannah, Georgia for our flight back to Minneapolis.

After some time to digest the data and everything that happened, I am fairly confident that:

• Heat and elevation had perhaps the most significant impact on the performance of the Buddy Kick.
• Scooter transmissions hate heat and steep grade. Replacing belts helped me get back up to 70mph but each mountain pass meant less belt to work with
• There may have been an issue with O2 sensors and the fuel pump.
• Load weight put me at a severe disadvantage. The other rider of a Buddy Kick made this observation in the politest way possible at the end of day three. In fact, he finished the SCBR. I agreed with his comments but at the time was focused on ruling out ancillary or unrelated technical issues as my stress tests months earlier did not indicate my gear and body weight had any notable effects.

For a medley of different reasons I won’t be doing anything with the SCBR again, but I’ll be kicking around the country in the weeks and months to come. : – )