|
The World of
Scootering - According to Just Gotta Scoot
 When
this website launched (2005) I was just re-entering the world of
scootering having left it in favor of those "other" powered
two-wheel conveyances - motorcycles. I started my riding life on
scooters in the days of rotary dial telephones, black & white
televisions (assuming one HAD a television), and muscle cars with
large displacement V-8 powerplants. As my age and pocketbook
increased I acquired motorcycles, lots and lots of motorcycles. Some
scooters did sneak into the garage during this period. I purchased a
Honda Helix in the late 1980s and put a LOT of miles on it as a
second vehicle and guest use transport. When relatives and friends
visited, I offered up the Helix and it was frequently taken. A chain
of events led to my wife (Bev) getting a Yamaha Vino 125 in the
early 2000s. At that time my primary two-wheeler was a BMW R1200C
Stiletto that weighed in at about 550 pounds. It was not an ideal
machine to accompany my wife on rides around city parkways. I needed
a scooter.
Into the story comes Bob Hedstrom and Scooterville. I ended up
getting a Genuine Stella from Bob that reminded me of my old Vespa
P-series from back in the day. I mean it wasn't like I was going to
get some kind of twist and go automatic scooter when a new shifty
was available. The Stella was light, quick and fun to ride. Some
accessories and modifications made it quicker and quite practical
for around town use.
Hanging about at Scooterville lead to getting rid of the Vino 125 in
favour of a Genuine Buddy 125 that was quicker, faster, handled
better, had more accessories, etc. Before long I was snapping up a
Kymco People 250 to have a highway scooter and Bev added a Genuine
Blur and, well, you get the idea. The stable of motorcycles
decreased (though never disappeared) and the stable of scooters
grew.
I enjoyed playing around with the website and doing the odd scooter
review didn't interfere with my real job which was ticking alone
quite nicely thank you very much. Over the years I was privileged to
add some scooter-related contract work to my engineering and
business endeavors and even dabbled in scooter podcasts for a bit. I
met a lot of wonderful people through scootering and spent some time
with several of the local clubs and groups. Uniformly fantastic
people..... except Joe.... he's kind of a dick. I was thrilled to
get so much positive feedback on my reviews and tried to put forth a
bit of engineering perspective while falling deeper down the rabbit
hole of scooter fun. From day one it has been the combination of
stellar practicality and giddy good times that convinced me of the
value of scooters as personal transport.
Scooters as Commuters
Honda has sold more than sixty million Cubs. Sixty million. The
venerable Volkswagen Beetle? About twenty-one million. Those number
alone should make it clear that powered two-wheeled conveyances make
for VERY practical transport. They can, and have done, carry people
and goods efficiently and inexpensively. They still do - have a look
at Hans Kemp's "Bikes of Burden" for a fascinating picture book of
the utilization of scooters and small motorcycles. The use of
scooters as commuters has been a driving force behind JustGottaScoot
since the beginning. In my personal memory, scooters did enjoy a
surge in popularity here in the USA during Woodrow Wilson's
presidency... if you fell for that, probably best to stop reading
now. During the "gas crisis" years of the 1970s, scooters (and
mopeds) did enjoy some popularity in the USA due to their fuel
efficiency. Since the gas crunch, scooters have had periods of
increased sales here but still haven't "caught on" the way they have
in nearly every other part of the world. Remember those sixty
million Honda Cubs? I expect a fraction of one percent were sold in
the USA. For a start, The USA is a car-centric society. HUGE amounts
of infrastructure have been built around the automobile. The USA is
a large county covering many climates. Places like Minnesota are
certainly NOT suited to scooter commuting year-round. Then we get
into USA attitudes about wealth, display, individualism, and so
forth. Big, extravagant, expensive vehicles sell quite well here.
While so much of the rest of the world sees scooters as the
wonderful efficient transport they are, they are viewed as novelties
and even "toys" to a large extent in the USA.
Since 2005, I have seen small gains in this area - driven to a large
extent by cost. In many localities certain scooters (moped-legal
ones in Minnesota) enjoy free parking in expensive areas like
downtowns and on campuses. More people are realizing that a scooter
makes for an excellent (and inexpensive) second vehicle. Why drive
yourself in that large SUV on a nice day when you can park your
scooter easily and at no cost? I can also think of at least one
example of scooter commuters gaining significant ground - My City
Rides in Memphis Tennessee.
Remember that scooter related contract work I mentioned earlier? I
was privileged to work with
Andyix back in 2017-2018 as a consultant while a new idea was taking
shape: reliable, affordable transportation for people in the
workforce with limited means. Memphis has a challenged public
transit system and getting to and from work was a deal-breaker for a
lot of workers. Seemed that a non-profit organization that partners
with local employers to provide the aforementioned transportation
would be a game changer. Turns out it was. The VERY generous support
of Jay Martin of Juice
Plus allowed
the development and execution of this scooter-based workforce
development tool. Imagine that. Scooters as commuters being
ENCOURAGED and delivering real benefits to the community. This
successful endeavor gives me hope for the future of scooters in the
USA. Check
it out and
please consider donating to their efforts.
These days I don't have a daily to-the-office commute and I
have moved to the far northeast edge of the metro but I ride for
transport as often as I can.
Manufacturers & Brands
The first brand most people associate with scooters is Vespa
(manufactured by Piaggio). The Piaggio story as it pertains to the
USA market would fill a book. Honda has been a strong player in the
motorcycle market with some forays into scooters in the USA. Suzuki
has done well here with their maxi-scooters. Taiwan has given us a
brief visit from CPI and both SYM and KYMCO have been in the USA for
some time. Mainland China has littered the USA with throw-away
garbage scooters AND some very good machines. India gave us (through
Genuine Scooters) the LML Stella. As LML is no longer a going
concern for scooters we won't delve into that one here. Brands have
come and gone, many of them selling Chinese product. A few (Genuine
Scooters) are still viable in the USA.
Europe
Piaggio (Vespa) and Innocenti (Lambretta) were the players from
Italy. There were others, but those were the big two. Innocenti is
gone, but the Lambretta name and scooter design "look" continues on.
In 2005 I didn't think much of the build quality of most of
Piaggio's offerings. The plastic body modern Piaggios and metal
monocoque chassis Vespas had issues. The new-at-the-time Vespa GTS
250 was the best of the lot, but the 150cc scooters left something
to be desired in terms of reliability and support. Over the years,
something happened. Piaggio machines got better and better. I swore
I'd never own a "modern" (ET or LX) 150cc Vespa then they went away
from carburetion in favor of fuel injection. Other component and
build quality seemed to improve about the same time. Today there is
a Vespa LXV 150 in my garage and the Piaggio Liberty
150 is
my favorite scooter in its class. Vespa scooters have held their
value well over the years. They are more expensive than others to
acquire, but they will likely be worth more than others as the years
pass. Vespas are gorgeous, iconic, and have one of the broadest and
best ergonomic platforms. A wide range of riders will find a Vespa
comfortable from the get go with no modifications. While modern
Piaggio scooters may not have the iconic look of the Vespas, they
currently offer excellent utility and quality. The Piaggio BV350 is
one of my favorite "do everything" scooters with true freeway
capabilities AND urban ease of use.
Though not currently of European manufacture, the Lambretta design
lives on in Scooters by SYM and Royal
Alloy.
The RA Grand Tourer 150 is brought to the USA by Genuine Scooters
and is sort of the market segment heir of the Stella. Other
Lambrettaesque designs are out there and they might trickle to the
USA market in coming years.
BMW has been involved in powered two wheeled conveyances since 1921
(making engines for others) with their first motorcycle hitting the
market in 1923. The BMW C1 scooter debuted in 2000. They have
interested me since the C600 & C650, with Taiwanese KYMCO
powerplants, hit in 2012 (2013 for the USA). I recently purchased a
used C600 and will be delving deeper into that scooter in the
future. The C Evolution (electric) and C400 (mid-sized) are in the
current BMW line-up. Quality of BMW scooters has been high and my
first season of riding a C600 confirms this.
Japan
This is probably a good time to mention that scooters from companies
with a particular national origin are not necessarily manufactured,
in whole or part, in that country (BMW with a Taiwanese motor). This
is certainly true of Honda. They have had manufacturing contracts
with facilities in other countries for many years. The venerable Cub
has been built in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, China, Mexico and other
places. The 2010 Honda Elite 2010 was manufactured in China and it
was a very fine quality scooter. Built in China does not necessarily
mean garbage by any means. For our purposes we're looking at Honda,
Yamaha and Suzuki for Japanese scooters in the USA.
Honda has
been doing well in the USA market since the days of "You Meet the
Nicest People on a Honda" (1963). Small displacement was their forte
until the earth-shattering introduction of the CB750 in 1969. The
mighty Honda Cub did well as the "Passport" (I had one and loved it)
and in the 1980s Honda's marketing of scooters such as the Elite
with wonderful celebrity advertisements showed their interest in USA
scooter sales. Really, go to YouTube and search for Honda scooter
ads. The Honda Metropolitan and Ruckus 50cc scooters attracted
buyers with the Ruckus becoming something of a cult scooter. Honda
dealers tended to relegate scooters to the back room because their
margins on them were low, and they were focused on motorcycle sales.
I suspect this is true of a lot of Japanese brand dealerships as I
have heard an astounding number of potential buyer complaints about
their treatment in dealerships when shopping for a scooter. Still,
with over 1,000 pwersports dealerships in the USA Honda scooters
enjoy a strong market presence if not sales figures. Of course it is
important to remember that the size of the USA scooter market is
tiny compared to the rest of the world. Though sales figures
sometimes aren't all that reliable, I believe Honda sells more SH150
scooters in Europe than they sell ALL of their scooter models in the
USA for example. Recent Honda model line-ups in the USA have not
given us some of their most interesting models. Though we did see a
few SH150s here, what about the excellent and very freeway capable
SH300? Coming up for 2021 it appears that Honda is paying attention
to the "mini-moto" market with the Super Cub and Trail Cub being
brought to the USA. The also have a 150cc "adventure" scooter in the
ADV150. I have already purchased a Super Cub and will be keeping my
eyes open for a Trail (or "Hunter").
Yamaha,
though nothing like as large a presence in the USA as Honda, brought
us one of the great cult scooters - the Zuma. With the demise of the
two-stroke Zuma, the 50cc Yamahas have become fairly uninteresting.
I LOVED the C3 which was, in my opinion, the heir to the Cushman
scooter of old. I have also owned a Yamaha Morphous, a 250cc sort of
ultra low-rider scooter, and a 400cc Majesty. All were very good
quality, reliable and fun. These days Yamaha dealers in the USA can
offer us a 125cc Zuma, a 155cc SMAX (capable of limited highway use)
and the 300cc XMAX. I'd like to review both the "MAX" scooters, but
that isn't likely to happen.
Suzuki's USA
scooter presence has revolved around the maxi-scooter - a larger,
freeway capable, touring-focused machine. In my opinion, Suzuki
produced the king of this category in the Burgman 650. I have owned
three of them. I got the first one in the mid-2000s and I think it
was a 2003 or 2004 model. Dead stock it was a fabulous touring
scooter. Comfortable, good performance, reliable, capable of
gobbling up mile after mile on the freeway/highway. The Burgman 650
Executive offered an even better touring platform. I was considering
a fourth Burgman 650 when I bought the BMW C600. If I was REALLY
going to do this right, I should have BOTH a new BMW and Burgman for
a serious side-by-side comparison. Yeah, that's not going to happen.
For 2021 Suzuki is offering the USA three Burgmans, 200, 400 & 650.
Taiwan
If there is a manufacturing country in Asia that deserves a stellar
reputation for quality it is probably Taiwan. In the USA we tend to
place Japan atop the "quality" manufacturing mountain but my
experience has been that Taiwan is often equal or a very close
second. In 2005 & 2006 it was the Taiwanese builders KYMCO and PGO
that captured my attention. PGO-built scooters were offered to the
USA via Genuine Scooters of Chicago in the form of the Genuine
Buddy. Talk about a home run... while the Stella introduced Genuine
to the marketplace, the Buddy resulted in Genuine's growth and
success. KYMCO is a well established Taiwanese manufacturer with a
history of contract work for Honda and a reputation for excellent
quality scooters. My first KYMCO was a People 250 (nearly 15 years
ago) and it was an amazing machine. Big wheels, 250cc liquid-cooled
engine, ultra reliable, it got me started on scooter touring. Over
the years I owned a few more KYMCO scooters and they were uniformly
great. The People 50 two-stroke I had was the best moped-legal
scooter I've ever owned. Though KYMCO still makes some high quality
machines their presence in the USA has fallen off significantly in
recent years. A change in ownership of USA distribution seems to be
the culprit. They have very nearly abandoned the USA scooter market
with just a few offerings for 2021. They appear to be focused on
ATVs at this time. Sad, as the rest of the world gets some great
machines from KYMCO. SYM appears to be on other side of the coin -
their USA presence is growing. SYM started out rough in the USA
market and went through a very difficult time with their USA
distributor ending with a warehouse fire! In 2011 Lance Scooters
became the USA distributor. They had previously dealt in pretty low
end Chinese scooters so there wasn't much faith in them being able
to bring SYM to a good place. They certainly struggled initially but
over the years they did a fine job of improving support, growing a
good dealer network and bringing some great SYM scooters to this
market. Today they enjoy a better position in the USA than KYMCO.
Remember My City Rides in Memphis? They utilize the SYM Fiddle III
and it has worked out very well fro them.
China
Since 2005 the USA scooter market has seen a WIDE range of products
from China. In the early days the majority of the Chinese scooters
were VERY low quality and often unsupported machines sold through
nefarious networks of "dealers" who frequently worked from the back
of a semi trailer. There have been more "brand" names in the USA
than I can remember, many of them with European sounding names that
sold frighteningly poor quality, and sometimes illegal, machines.
There were a few that brought better quality scooters to market (CF
Moto for example) but they couldn't overcome the damage to
perception done to the USA marketplace by all the garbage. There are
still a few low end Chinese scooter brands in the market but many of
the made-in-China machines currently being sold are part of other
brands and offer pretty good quality. China is undoubtedly capable
of producing fine machines and the current difficulty in the USA
market seems to stem from tariffs as opposed to quality or support
issues. If a tariff makes a Chinese scooter nearly as expensive as a
Taiwanese scooter why would you buy it?
Electric Scooters
Scooters, as we think about them, have been around since about
1916's Autoped. Electric "consumer" scooters since the 1996 Peugeot
Scoot'Elec. I have been a fan of electric scooters (and cars for
that matter) for many years. Depending on how one's home electricity
is generated, electric vehicles offers a step in the right direction
emission-wise and they can be great fun to ride/drive. Torque NOW
being perhaps the best feature. Similar to "scooters as commuters"
electrics have been slow to catch on in the USA. Aside from the
previously mentioned issues in this market with scooters in general,
electric scooters also suffer from range anxiety, price and
distribution issues. Range anxiety is a non-issue for the majority
of commuters. Especially if one has access to a power outlet at
work. In the Twin Cities metro the average daily commute round trip
is 22 miles. Approximately 6% of commuters here have a round trip of
50 miles or greater. With 25 miles one way, even most of those long
distance commuters could plug in at work and easily cover their
daily range. When it comes to recreational use and touring, range
limitations are a real thing.
Price for acquisition is an issue. An electric scooter is going to
be more expensive to purchase (sometimes MUCH more expensive) than a
comparable petroleum powered machine. Of course an electric should
be significantly less expensive to operate over time.
The distribution issues with electrics revolve around a weak dealer
presence, NOT a lack of companies distributing. Good local dealer
support is essential for ANY scooter purchase and electrics have not
yet garnered that much dealer attention...... except in Minneapolis.
Scooterville has tried like crazy to get electric scooters into the
hands of end users. Since 2004 (eGo, Vectrix, others I can't
remember) through today there has almost always been an electric
option on Scooterville's showfloor. Most frequently it is failure on
the part of the manufacturer or distributor that has orphaned these
scooters over the years.
Today there appears to be increased interest in electric scooters.
Like electric cars, there are scooters that utilize advancements in
technology to narrow the price difference with their petroleum
siblings. I also think range anxiety is lessening for commuting
applications. Scooterville is carrying the NIU
scooters which
are being distributed through Genuine Scooters. I have ridden them
in the area around Scooterville and they are impressive. I will do
my best to review a couple of them in 2021. I have high hopes that
the USA scooter marketplace is going to see the growth of electrics
in the coming years.
Reviews
We get lots of emails requesting reviews on specific scooter models.
While we'd like nothing more than to be able to review every scooter
available in the US market, this just isn't going to happen for
several reasons. First and foremost, most
of the major brands will NOT provide "media" scooters for
JustGottaScoot.com to review. Because we don't accept advertising,
we are not considered a "real" scooter website. That's right, you're
currently reading a figment of your imagination online right now.
Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Piaggio (Vespa) and BMW have made it
very clear that unless we take their advertising money, we are NOT
going to get any scooters to review. But didn't we recently do a
couple of Piaggio reviews? Yes. Those were facilitated by a VERY
generous dealer who doesn't really care if he's not following
Piaggio's rules. Of course the last thing we want is to create a
problem for scooter dealers with their manufacturers/distributors.
A few brands (Genuine & SYM) have been, and continue to be,
much more receptive to reviews at JustGottaScoot.com.
Format is a growing issue. Our reviews are written as opposed to
video. Though I do have some experience with video, I don't believe
anybody wants to see an old man blather on and on about a scooter.
Few people want to READ an old man's scooter blatherings but at
least they don't have to look at him. Videos require more time and
equipment to create, especially if one wants to make them watchable.
As an unsponsored and (financially) unsupported website that would
be too big an investment to handle.
Logistics don't help with reviews. I now live in a far northeastern
Twin Cities suburb and don't have a job to go to in Minneapolis.
Reviewing a 50cc or low-top-speed electric would present some real
issues. I can't afford to purchase a bunch of new scooters to review
and how interested would people be in my reviews of a few older used
scooters? I will do what I can to get a few new reviews completed
and posted on this website in 2021. Just can't promise a lot of them
or the latest scooters.
Today, and Tomorrow
Let's look at the situation for JustGottaScoot.com currently. This
website is run by a semi-retired old man with limited resources who
doesn't really want to start a YouTube channel and who no longer
lives in the core metro area. My excitement over scooters continues
unabated and I believe the USA is FINALLY gaining ground in the
scooters-as-commuters arena. I don't want to fall into the
advertising trap. I simply don't see how I can present myself as an
unbiased reviewer while accepting money from scooter
manufacturers/distributors/dealers.
What to do.....
If you've read this far (or shown the intelligence to skip down to
the end) I'd like to hear from you. Please e-mail me at: david@harringtonbusinessgroup.com with
your comments. Should I chase after ad money? Should I sell the
website (I've had offers)? Should I continue on with the small
amount of new content I can muster? Should I just go away and leave
you alone already?
|
