Everywhere we went, the questions were the same: “You rode from where?” On those?”
Yes. We did. Me and
my scooter girl amigas. Less than an
hour into our first foray on rented scooters this past Spring, we were
unanimous in our assessment: “We. Have. To. Get. These!” And so commenced our
mission to purchase scooters and start riding.
I’d been coveting the opportunity for a few years now. Living in a resort community, with the
attending traffic and parking woes, and given that my local surf spot has very
limited FREE parking space (and the fact that I refuse to pay outrageously
exorbitant daily parking fees when I only need a few hours surfing time) and
the fact that scooters get outrageously incredible gas mileage (80-100mpgs!) it
seemed a no-brainer to me.
Alas, there was the initial outlay of cash expenditure and the
fact that I’m poorer than a church mouse.
Yet when Carole and Tammi acquired their Honda Metropolitans, I knew I
would just have to find a way, cuz, baby, I had the will.
A little Googling found me a website where I could purchase
a cheap(er) Chinese “knock-off” model for less than half the price of the
Hondas. What’s more, I could pay in
installments, which I did for the next few weeks, until my little scooter was
delivered to my driveway in mid-August.
Granted, “some assembly” was acquired, (front wheel, handlebars, oil
change, connecting electrical system, battery installation, and wrestling the
*$%@! Plastic front panels into place) and I was up until 5am the night before
our most epic ride of the summer, trying to put the pieces together. Flopping into bed out of sheer frustration, I
awoke ready to attack the panels but by the time I finally screwed them into
place, and Tammi and Carole had arrived at my house, we discovered the dang
thing wouldn’t start!
Fortunately, there’s a private mechanic down the road from
me and we bribed him (a bottle of booze and some cash) into coming to my house
to have a go at it; turned out the oil used for shipping purposes had clogged
the fuel line and carburetor but with about a half hour of toil, he had that
puppy runnin!
All motor vehicles recommend a gentle “break-in” period, but
we had places to go that day. Indeed, my
first ride was a trip out through Sanford from my home in Wells, to Wolfeboro,
then a circumnavigation around Lake Winnipesaukee, before finally riding to
Tammi’s house in Kingston NH, arriving at 12:30 am, where I crashed on her
couch a few hours before I was up with the sun and off home again, (after
making it to work in York and pulling a five hour shift.)
Many more adventures and muchas, muchas mileage were put on
our scooters after that day, covering all sorts of sights and scenery in both
NH and Maine. I even found a way to
attach my surfboard and on a crowded summer day pulled up at my surf spot
without the hassle of worrying about parking.
Yay!
It’s funny, we’ve had a lot of fun, met a lot of people, and
been asked a lot of questions about our scooters and adventures, but it always
starts with those two outlined above.
Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. Yes, they don’t cover ground as quickly, but
they do it far, far more cheaply; over $50 to fill up my Subaru, less than $3
to fill up my scooter. No-brainer. And when you think about it, scooters and
mopeds are the prime means of motorized transportation in most of the
third-world; people commute and travel all over on much less intricate and
sophisticated highway and secondary road systems and they have no problem. In America though, where so many are used to
the notion that “bigger is better,” and “comfort is best,” we seem odd and even
a bit crazy to be cruising around on our
little bikes. Most see them as toys to tootle
around town on. “Why not just get a
motorcycle?” many of them say. Why? Because
maybe we’ve discovered that bigger and more powerful just might not always be
better. Maybe you see more, appreciate
the ride and freedom more at a slower pace.
Maybe cuz they’re just so darn much fun!
Though it’s getting to that time of the year where we might
have to put the scooters away, we’ve still managed to get in some shorter rides
during the milder days; mine is still parked in the driveway, ready to be rode
on the right day. And me and my scooter
girls are already planning new adventures for next spring. Who knows, maybe even some longer, overnight
trips. Hell, in a recent conversation I
had about my scooter adventures, a friend told me of the elderly man he met in
a New Hampshire campground this year. The
guy was there with his little red 50cc Vespa and a trailer he was towing. Talking to the guy, my friend discovered he’d
ridden all the way up from Alabama. What’s
more, he was on his way to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia for a Vespa
convention. Crazy? Why? I
just smiled cuz I knew exactly why…and I bet that elderly man looked my friend
right in the eye and said: “Why not?”
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