The MIGHTY Scooter

As a 60's kid I remember clutching chest high handlebars and being securely squeezed between my father's knees on a furtive Vespa ride. Back then Vespas were the rage in Hollywood, appearing in movies and straddled by gorgeous starlets. Scooters were mod in Britain and even the punks turned them into their rebellious Easy Riders. The engines were 150cc in size, needed two stroke oil added to the gas, kick started and clutch shifted. The brakes were worthless, but what youth wanted to slow down? This was FREEDOM BABY! Pretty girls in short minis riding side saddle, Italian style. The scooter craze was short-lived though, it's demise caused by a flood of cheap unreliable Vespa knock-offs and the rise of the American muscle car. It was now all about raw horsepower and scooters were soon left in the burning rubber.

During the 1970's the Arab oil embargo put a scare into America and the reintroduction of the cheap smoky 49cc scooter made it's snail-paced way back into our roadways and garages. Yes it was very fuel efficient but it was more nerdy than cool to ride. And that was before nerd meant anything like computer genius, it meant dork and NO ONE wants to be a dork! Bye Bye scooter.

Fast forward to the next millennium. Computers that could power a fleet of Apollo landing craft are cheaper than a big screen TV, big block V8's are losing ground to the Prius, 20's and 30's hipsters are nerds in a cool way, fixie bikes with no brakes are de rigour on the college scene and yes, the scooter is back! Scooters are now  'Green' and not meaning  'cheap-skate' any more. Old guys get waves from cute girls and even the Harley Davidson chopper guys on the TV program Orange County Choppers ride then in almost even episode. Mikey is now way cool!

Like most of America I too had my transportation revelation and now I was down-sizing from my own two wheel forms of the big bore engine and soon a shiny silver new 2007 Vespa GT200 arrived in the household. Gas prices were pegging $4.50 a gallon and this was to be my wife's new commuter car replacement. She was an experience dirt motorcycle rider and this would be a piece of cake for her to ride. No clutch to mar nice office shoes, a full wrap-around cowling for modest skirt wearing and an extra tall windshield behind which she would bravely push commuting limits of winter temperatures of 21F! She and her trusty Vespa would rack up more than 10,000 miles in the first three years of ownership. Now that she had so bravely forged the path of Vespa limits I bought a nice lightly used 2007 250ie Vespa (fuel injected, not an aspirated carburetor like hers).  With dual ownership came forth the ITCH, and soon the DREAM, well actually it was the VISION in deed was hatched...a VESPA EXPEDITION. Short mileage and great camping. Do it enough days in a row and well now you have a real trip!