A Buyers Guide to Motor Scooters!
Which is the right one? Which scooter is the one that will suit your various needs and desires?
There are so many scooters to choose from and once you “meet your maker”, then you have a great big job on your hands in choosing your model.
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. The choice of a scooter is not instead of a car. You can have a family car, but the days of having two cars as a family are coming to an end. With the ever rising cost of gas, having two cars is becoming too costly for the average consumer.
Having said that another reason to choose a scooter is for environmental purposes. The footprint each of us leaves 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 get up to 80 miles to the gallon, which is significantly more than the average car. 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.
And that leaves us with another reason as to why you would want one. Plain Old Fun. Embrace the image of going out for a Sunday afternoon cruise, 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 hours and the “I’m just going down to the store for some milk” ease of jumping on and out and back in a flash.
Where does it park? In a garden shed, a big store room, the workshop. Maybe yours has its own bedroom inside the house. Or hey, it could share a room with another scooter…not a car in the world could do that!
There is also a kind of nostalgia attached to some of the older bikes or new retro looking bikes - ‘the coolness factor’. Of course you'll want to buy the old look goggles and half helmet. Admit it, scooter image is a BIG factor.
Where will you go on your scooter?
Is this just a runabout for your local suburb? Are you heading a little further than a 30 mile 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. Most people who buy a small capacity scooter and do some serious moving end up regretting the purchase and trade up.
People who want to use freeways and highways need to consider upwards of 125cc. If you are over 185 pounds you should ride some bikes around before deciding on a 50cc scooter. 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, looking at a 125cc and over scooter would be your best choice. There are other factors to the ride than the engine size, such as tire size, seat height and so on.
Obviously you need a bike license in many places if you are riding a bike over 50cc, so make sure you check all that out also.
Scooter Purchase Price
This will be a factor for most. Some prefer the smooth feel of the top of the line Vespa GTS , with its twist and go and all the digital read outs and extras (about $8,500), but others love the old lines of the Vespa PX200 (about $7,500) and the classic feel of changing gears. You should know that some models are plastic, while others are classic pressed metal. Some are fun machines that you may use till they die and then move on to your next scooter.
The Obsession: Let's talk desire - color, style, accessories…the works.
Some of you are simple people, you just want a scooter. 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 may want a ‘pink one’. Some just want ‘my first scooter’. You might even like the retro feel to a scooter and love looking at old restorations of classic 1960 Vespas.
Some might be in between who want 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 accessorizing the scooter does not require endless searching. The new scooters come with matching top boxes, side bars and gear racks - the works, ready for you to buy up and put on.
So there it is. Want a scooter? Have we confused you more? Helped you more? Let us know if you have any questions and we will do some of the hard work for you in the research department and post back here again. You can send us an email by clicking here.
Happy shopping!