Georgetown bike enthusiast sees you H8N his Land Doo

In case anyone doesn’t know why there were so many motorcyclists around here last weekend, it was because of Ocean City BikeFest. Every year, thousands of motorcycle riders from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York take Route 1 on their way to the party.

It’s not unusual to see large packs of motorcycles. What is unusual is coming across a single biker on a custom job that’s turned his ride into a personal watercraft lookalike. That’s what I saw the other day as Georgetown’s Justin Bonneville merged his bright-yellow ride from Route 9 onto Route 1 on his way to BikeFest.

I had my camera and I was prepared to hop out of my car for a photo if there was a red light at the intersection with Wescoats Road. Unfortunately, it was green, but as luck would have it, Bonneville followed me into the Wawa parking lot up the road. He was nice enough to entertain my questions, because I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass.

First, he’s named it a Land Doo, and he said the job took him roughly 100 hours to complete, which he did in June. “That’s why it still looks nice,” he said.

It’s not actually a motorcycle. Bonneville said it’s a 400cc Suzuki scooter that he says, “can go 65 to 70 miles per hour comfortably, but can go faster.”

The original personal watercraft was sitting in someone’s yard and he bought it for a few hundred bucks, said Bonneville. Luckily, the conversion was pretty easy, he said.

He didn’t come up with the idea, but Bonneville did do the work, noting that he first saw the conversion online from someone down in Florida. Then, at last year’s BikeFest, he saw someone riding a blue-and-white model.

“I wanted to talk to them about it, but we never crossed paths again,” said Bonneville.

By trade, Bonneville works in heavy construction, but he said he’s been modifying bikes since he was a teenager. Soon after last year’s BikeFest, he said, he undertook the challenge.

“It wasn’t too hard, but it’s not like you can go online and buy plans for something like this. It worked out pretty well,” he said.

Finally, yes, just like a real Jet Ski, his Land Doo squirts water.

“Sometimes I have to remember how far it goes. I’ll be sitting at a red light entertaining the people next to me and at the same time getting the car behind me,” he said, laughing.

Working theory on why SpaceX rocket’s tail was so bright

I hate that I don’t have a photo to prove it, but I was lucky enough to have seen the SpaceX rocket in the predawn hours of Sept. 10. I was out on my morning run. I saw it as I was turning right onto Country Road from Route 16. It stopped me in my tracks, and I watched until it was no longer visible. The rocket tail illuminated the sky in a way I had never seen before. I thought it was a huge meteor with a large debris field. I later found out it was the rocket.

I have a working theory as to why the tail was so bright. The rocket took off at 5:23 a.m. in Florida. Not too much later, it was making its way over the Cape Region. Sunrise that morning around here was at 6:39 a.m., but the day’s earliest light was beginning to show on the horizon. I think the rocket was high enough in the sky that the sun was illuminating the tail in the area’s still-dark skies.

Whatever the reason, it was amazing.

Joke of the Week

I was in Oceanside, Calif., recently to volunteer at the U.S. Open Adaptive Surf Championships. The day I got there, I walked out to the end of the city’s pier just to see what was going on. About two-thirds of the way down, I took a photo of a seagull that was missing a foot. The event’s huge banner happens to be in the background. Taking its photo seemed appropriate. Jeff, another one of the volunteers from this area who was at the event too, sent me some jokes after seeing the photo. I chose this one because it was a favorite of my children for a number of years. As always, send jokes to cflood@capegazette.com.

Q: What do you call a seagull when it flies over the bay?

A: A bagel.