You meet the nicest people...

...On a scooter.

Of course, the original quote was "You meet the nicest people on a Honda," which was an add campaign run in the 60's. It worked brilliantly for them at the time, and sold them tons of Honda 50's.

In the early 60's, Honda was faced with selling motorcycles to an American public for whom the image of a motorcycle was the outlaw biker. They came up with an ingenious add campaign which painted the Honda 50 as the common people's motorcycle upon which the friendliest people in the world could be found. Honda has a little blurb about this campaign here.

What I've found to be true, more than fifty years later, is that the nicest people in the world seem to be drawn to scooters. Of course, this is a subjective opinion, but then, that's what blogging is all about.

I can't think of any scooter rider I've met who did not give the first impression of being a friendly individual. Scooters do not have the stigma attached to motorcycles, which helps nudge the perception along that scootsters, such as myself, are friendly folk.

I get lots of smiles from people, and two days ago, I even had a lady intentionally set off a traffic light sensor for me even though she could have made a right turn rather than sitting on the sensor in the turning lane.

Sure, there are folks who look at those of us who ride scooters as dorky, effeminate (except for those scootsters who are already female of course), socially inept, etc., but those folks are shallow and not worth heeding. The vast majority of people I've come across, whilst riding my scoot, return my smile and exchange friendly smalltalk, if the situation allows.

Now, if only I could find an old Honda 50 in decent condition and not pay a mint for it...

More test riding - Piaggio BV-500

**Edited to add: HEY! Post 200. Man I write a lot!**

I did a lot of roaming yesterday. I had to make a delivery to a co-worker who was at Goodwill's Homefields farm. It is a wonderful program which allows persons with developmental disabilities to work in an agricultural setting.
The smell of the earth was intoxicating. Couple that with the smell of strawberry plants, and there's a wonderful bouquet for the olfactory nerves.


After leaving the farm, I headed west toward Washington Borough. I'd never been in that part of Lancaster county, but it reminded me a lot of my home in New England. The woods were dense and the hilly areas were cool and refreshing.


I turned south and found my way to the Conestoga River where I finally turned around to head back toward Washington Borough and Columbia. In Columbia, I turned onto rt. 462 toward York and stopped at Don's Yamaha in Hellam. They sell Kymco scooters, so I thought they might have an Xciting 500 Ri for me to try out. They did not, so I headed home.

Today, my son and I rode to Lebanon to visit the Vespa dealer there. I finally had my chance to ride the Piaggio BV-500. It was, to say the least, impressive.

Upon first sitting on the scooter, I was immediately aware of the solidity it possesses. It is well put together and the fit and finish are far better than other scooters I have sat upon. It sits a little higher than the People 150, or at least, it feels like it does. The BV-150 has an unmistakable feeling of mass, which, when combined with the hum of the engine, gives it a presence that is exhilarating.


The BV-500 is not only stable at speed, but also for slow cornering. It feels much like riding the People 150, though the engine has considerably more power and the acceleration was much more peppy, not that this was unexpected. The BV 500 does not feel quite as nimble, though it is very close, then again, it is substantially heavier than the People 150.

The rear disk brake is very nice. It had enough stopping power on its own, without the help of the front brakes, though out of habit, I did use both. Considering how good the rear brake is, the dual front disks are, unsurprizingly, even more grippy.

The seat was very comfortable, which is a big issue for me since I plan on taking very long rides. I didn't feel any hint of discomfort in the half-hour I was riding. That was quite nice. There is a definite depression in the seat where the operator's posterior comes to rest, with a slight lower back support, which at first felt a little strange, but after a few minutes was hardly noticable. The Vespa dealer had actually suggested that I take the scooter on a far longer ride, but due to time constraints, that wasn't possible. It was a nice gesture though.

The single cylinder operated smoothly with none of the pounding I sensed when I rode the Yamaha Majesty. It was obvious I was riding a thumper, but not blatantly so. Rather than a violent shaking, the scooter gave more of a smooth, intermittent vibration.

Storage is minimal compared to most other maxi-scooters I have looked at. It wasn't nearly as poor as a Morphous or my People 150, but it has about half the storage of the Majesty. Of course, adding a top box would fix the problem completely.

All in all, the BV-500 is a beautiful scooter. It is more than capable for the riding I do, and my conclusion at this point, barring falling in love with something else, is that I really, really like the BV-500.

Addendum added later:

I would like to add an interesting note. The BV I rode evidenced a strange canting from side to side. It was very slight, but noticable. I spoke to the dealer after the ride and he explained that the scooter had taken a spill when they took it off the trailer after the Ephrata Ride-in on Sunday. The spill had scraped some of the paint on the right side and cracked the right mirror. To some extent, I wish they had allowed me to use an undamaged scooter because it might have given a better idea of the performance of the vehicle.

I also disliked that there was only a small "Flyscreen" on the scooter. For something with the capacity for speed that the BV-500 has, a windshield is a must in my opinion. Traveling along at 65 with my cheeks flapping is not exactly my idea of a good time.

The last issue I had was with the price. The dealer wants to add on various dealer fees, prep, and so on. These are the sort of things that a savvy buyer generally will attempt to haggle down. If I do decide to buy the BV-500 from them (a nice midnight blue one, not the beige demo model), I will try to get them to throw in a full set of riding armor and a full helmet if they want to charge almost $7,500.

Still, the price is better than a new Silverwing...oh to dream.

June Ride-in

Yesterday was the first Sunday of June, so it was time for the monthly Ephrata Ride-in. I've decided to make it my custom to go to the ride-ins, then go to church from there. Unlike last month, the skies were mostly clear, and the sun was shining steadily. My son and I parked the scoot next to a row of cycles and headed up to the main parking area to look around. I only took one pic of the gathered bikes so as not to annoy anyone.

There were only a few scooters aside from my own that I noticed, and they were all maxi's. I had begun to lose all hope for humanity, until I happened to see a Vespa across the sea of chrome. My son and I made a bee-line in that direction whilst dodging pedestrians and riders alike. As we drew near, I noticed an MP3, and then a Fly-50, and finally a trailer proudly advertizing Vespa of Lebanon. At first I was a bit disapointed, since I had been hoping to find like minded folks. I perked up when I noted the ivory colored BV-500 and went over to have a look. It was sitting right next to an MP3-500 which is significantly smaller in person than it at first appears when viewed in pictures on the Internet. The front wheels are also very small at 12", which I find a little off-putting. I've become so accustomed to the larger wheels on my People 150 that I'm not sure how well I'd like going back to 12's. I know I certainly did not like them on the GV-250.


Back to the BV-500. The gentleman attending the booth was kind enough to allow my son and I to sit on it. My son's feet reached the rear foot rests with ease and knee room to spare, so that would be no issue. I found the foot space to be a little better than the People 150, though it still had that annoying hump in the middle (One advantage of the Kymco GrandVista is that it has a flat floorboard with lots of room). On the subject of foot-room, the BV does not have any forward footrests as do the maxi-scoots, so the rider is stuck with their feet flat on the floor. Of course, the riding position of the big-wheel scooters tends more toward that of a standard street bike, whereas the maxi's have more in common with the seating position of a cruiser.


The BV-500 is certainly sharp looking, and the seat seemed very comfortable for the short time I was ensconced upon it.

After looking at the scooters, we visited a few of the other stands, and then left for church at promptly 10:00. We took the back roads to get there as it would have only taken about 10 minutes had we taken the direct route, and that would have been little fun.

After church, we started on our way home, only to become stuck in traffic on our way back through Ephrata. Thankfully, there was some entertainment at a Cycle business (the name escapes me) near the Honda dealer, so my son and I stopped to watch for a brief moment.


The riders seemed very skilled, but I wanted to get home, so we left after only a few minutes. My son was fascinated, but he reluctantly put on his helmet and hopped on the back of the scooter for the ride home.

Minimalism...the good and the bad

In researching my options for a larger scooter, I have come to an annoying, but interesting conclusion. There really aren't that many options out there. If I were able to ride a motorcycle, I would have tons of options, and many at very reasonable prices. Larger displacement scooters seem to be very light on choices here in the U.S.

From my perspective, not having a lot of choices has its positive and negative sides. For the negative, I think having few choices in a market where there is little push for competition leaves consumers with little chance of having a significant effect on what manufacturers build. Overseas, there are more options simply because there is more of a market for scoots over there. Here, we are limited to a mere handful of reputable manufacturers who make anything bigger than a 250. from my observations, the european and asian markets seem to have much more input with the manufacturers than does the U.S. market. Even the Canadians seem to get some extra goodies that don't appear on U.S. Scooters.

On the positive side, having few choices makes the choosing easier. The choices we have are not horrible, and there are enough to keep the choosing mildly interesting, few though they may be.

The manufacturers and models that I have found available in my area are as follows:

• Yamaha - Majesty and T-Max
• Suzuki - Burgman 400 and 650
• Honda - Silverwing
• Kymco - Xciting 500Ri
• SYM - CityCom 300i (actually only a 263, but still a bit better than a 250)
• Piaggio - BV-500, MP3 400 and 500
• Vespa - GTS 300 Super
• Aprilia - Scarabeo 500ie

I can't think of any other manufacturers, but these seven makes are the ones I know off hand. The SYM CityCom 300i might be interesting, but might still be a little underpowered. Vespa's GTS 300 Super might be a good choice, but a Piaggio BV 500 tourer can be had new for nearly the same price as can a Scarabeo. So, the 300's, while I will probably test ride them (and may test ride a BV-250 since it comes highly recomended), are not at the top of my list.

It's really the 500 class that interests me the most. It seems to be a good round number I suppose, but moreso, I'm a little concerned that a 400 just wouldn't be enough to keep me hooked the long haul. I liked the 400 that I rode, and think I could be satisfied with one, but I'd like to try a few 500's before I make a final decision.

So, once the rain quits, I'll get my skinny butt out to one of the dealers round here for a few more test rides.

Rained on my parade...

Well, I'd planned to have done some more test riding over the last few days, but the inclement weather has made that impossible. I'm hoping to go up to Lebanon tomorrow if it dries up some, but my Weatherbug is telling me that tomorrow will be rainy as well.

I've gotten some good input from a few other folks, and I've enjoyed the two rides I've taken so far.

I discovered a little something about my "waterproof" gloves. they only work if water does not get in at the cuff. They are designed to fit over the cuff's of one's raincoat, but that is only effective if one's hands are above one's elbows. Since my scooter's handlebars are somewhat low, the rain went right down my sleeves into my gloves.

This occurred in a torrential downpour that started just as I left for work on Tuesday and stopped just as I arrived. Isn't it amazing how that happens? In any event, when I arrived at work, my waterproof gloves were waterlogged, rain had dribbled off my chin and down my neck into my rain coat, and had run down my rain pants into my shoes, which were drenched.

Now that I know this, I have been careful to put the cuffs of my jacket over the cuffs of the gloves. I've also tried to make sure that the cuffs of my pantlegs sit over the top of my shoes rather than off center. That worked very well today. I traveled home from work in a steady rain and arrived at home dry and comfortable, right down to my toes.

As soon as I get an opportunity to test some other scoots, I'll pass along what I find.