Just Which Scooter is right for you?

For some years now, I have been looking into buying a motor scooter or motor bike of some sort. I had my first bike licence lesson today and have thought of many many ways to save to be able to purchase the right one. But which is the right one? Which scooter is the one that will suit my various needs and desires?

There are so many scooter makers to choose from and once you “meet your maker”, then you have a great big job on your hands in choosing your model. In one Australian magazine alone you have listed 20 different brand names and each of them have numerous models listed.

Aprilia - 6 models; Benelli - 7; Bowell Scoota - 14; Bug - 6; Bug-Kymco - 2; Derbi - 1; Giamoto - 1; Gilera - 2; Honda - 4; Hyosung - 6; Italjet - 3; Motobella - 1; Peugeot - 11; Piaggio - 2; SCP - 4; Suzuki - 2; TGB - 5; Vespa - 7; V-Moto - 3; Yamaha - 6.

And these are changing all the time and only include all the new machines on the market at the time of publication, there are no 'classics' listed there like the Lambretta…who make watches now…go figure!

So where do you start?

Why do you want one?

Why not a small car? There are some great small cars that are very fuel efficient, even a hybrid car that is good for the environment too! For me the choose of a scooter is not instead of a car. We have a family car but are feeling like the days of running two cars as a family are coming to an end. It cost me sometimes $10 a day in public transport! Having said that, even if my work offered to supply a car or a scooter, I think I would ask for a scooter. One my the choices is environmental. The footprint each of us leave on the planet is making a deeper impact than ever before and we need to begin to wake up to this issue. A small scooter can use less than 3 L/100km which is significantly less than the 20L/100km that a RV uses. As we enter the 21st century serious questions are being asked about the sustainability of our current way of life. Global demand for fossil fuels is outstripping supply. World oil peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels is upon us now (see The End of Suburbia). Sure scooters use fuel too, this one day may be an issue as well, but much work is going into experimenting with various fuel alternatives.

I think the other issue for me is fun. Plain old fun. The thought of riding around with the wind in your hair on a sunny day, heading down the coast with a few mates to the cafe strip to chat about life and sip on a well made espresso…hmmm I am ready to go! The thought of picking my daughter up after a netball game, popping on the spare helmet and zipping down the shops for a milkshake…love it! What about just my wife and I going out for a Sunday afternoon cruise, kids at the neighbours house, sun in the sky, ready for a ride, a picnic, a movie or just a cruise down the coast!

And of course there is convenience. The ease of parking, the moving in and out of traffic at peak hour and the “I’m just going down to the shop for some milk sweetheart!” ease of jumping on and out and back in a flash. Where does it park? In a garden shed, an big store room, the workshop, maybe yours has its own bedroom inside the house, but hey, it could share a room with another scooter…not a car in the world you could say that about!

Oh one more thing I forgot to say - image. There is a kind of nostalgia attached to some of the older bikes or new retro looking bikes - romance, ‘the coolness factor’. Of course you want to buy the old look goggles and half helmet, I know you want some chrome accessories and some extra mirrors, maybe even a big arial. Admit it, scooter image is a BIG factor.

But what do you need in a scooter?

Where will you go on your scooter? Is this just a runabout for your local suburb? Are you heading little further than a 50km radius? Are there any challenging hills in your part of town? How heavy are you? A 50cc scooter, even a top quality one will not suit your purposes if you are desiring long trips on a regular basis, (my opinion only). From my reading, most people who buy a small capacity scooter and do some serious moving, end up regretting the purchase and trading up or out. People who want to use freeways and highways without getting arrested or abused or worse, need to consider upwards of 125cc. If you are over 85kg I would suggest you ride some bikes around before deciding on a 50cc scooter too. Look for leg well space, suspension issues such as wobble and bottom out. (try some speed humps!)

If you are planning on some long rides or at least some short but fast rides, get looking at a 125cc and over scooter. There are other factors to the ride than the engine size; such as tyre size, seat hight and so on. My advice, ask for a test drive.

Obviously you need a bike licence in many places if you are riding a bike over 50cc, so make sure you check all that out.

Scooter Purchase Price will be a factor for most, but sometimes if you want something bad enough you will even start a blog about scooters just to try to earn some money to buy one! I love the smooth feel of the top of the line Vespa GTS i.e. 250 with it’s twist and go and all the digital read outs and extra fruit (about AU$9200 on road), but love the old lines of the PX200 (about AU$8200 on road)and the classic feel of changing gears. But also I love the thought of restoring an old Lambretta. You might just want to take what’s in your bank account and buy what you can get for less than AU$2000, a imported Chinese VMoto, Australia’s top selling scooter would do you just fine! All I am saying is that you can get many nice looking machines out there, some are plastic, some are classic pressed metal, some with last a lifetime and go forever, some are fun machines that you may use till they die or have some fun and move on to your next obsession.

Speaking of obsession, let's talk desire - colour, style, accessories…the works.

Some of you are simple people, you just want a scooter. Go to the local scooter dealer and ask the man to show you one. Still others like sporty and fast looking machines, there are some reading this that like a big solid cruiser, maybe even with it’s own stereo system and mobile phone holder. There are some that want a ‘pink one’. Some just want ‘my first scooter’. You might be like me and love the old style classic, retro feel to a scooter and love looking at old restorations of classic Lambrettas and 1960 Vespas…hmmmm. Even the sound ‘Vespa’ makes as you say it…oh sorry, I was somewhere else for a second! :) Some might be in between. I like the old style but I can’t afford to be fixing it all the time so I will go for an old name, but a new model like the GT200 Grandtouismo Vespa, or better still the more classic looking PX Vespa which retains the rounded front, the manual gears and so on, but has the advantage of a new model machine with warrantee from a dealer if bought new.

The advantage of buying new is that accessorising the bike does not require endless searching for long lost parts from Italy or the collector of all things fine…and expensive, down the road. But then for many all that is half the fun! The new bikes come with matching top boxes, side bars and gear racks - the works, ready for you to buy up and put on board.

I restored a car once, a soft top four wheel drive, so I do know what it feels like to drive along with the wind in your hair, I also know what it feels like covered in grease, to wander into your wife every evening at 11pm and say, “I think I need a new XYZ, that thing is stuffed”. An endless money pit is what restoration often is. Then when the shiny new red car reappeared in my drive way after I had put it all back together again, I never wanted to drive it much, certainly not out in the bush! It was my baby!

Not sure I want to go through all that again with a scooter, as satisfying as it was when it was finished, I think I will leave restorations to people with more patience than I have.

So there it is. Want a scooter? Have I confused you more? Helped you more? Let me know if you have any questions and I will do some of the hard yards for you in the research department and post back here again.