Love to ride

[glennw]

Although not a ?Vision? experience. I thought you might enjoy this story. The weekend in Santa Barbara the local Veparado?s had their annual scooter run. Though most of you will laugh at the thought of riding a scooter, living by the beach they are a great way to zip around. We had two large group rides, one Saturday with 85 scooters.
It sounding like the start of a motocross event everytime the light changed. Being a Yamaha guy, I had the only my old 200cc Riva with a dirt bike silencer, the only Jap bike. There is no discrimination in scooterland!!
Everybody had a great time, a very diverse group of people who just like to ride.
Well at noon on Sunday we got up about 50 of us the go up the Cold Springs caf? (about 15 miles up a 55 MPH highway). This is the local leather and fringe cruiser stop on Sundays. Well we somehow beat most of the other bikes to the shaded ?Motorcycles Only? parking lot that we pretty much filled up. This is when it got interesting?.
Groups of 5 or 10 (mostly) Harley riders pulling up to find THERE lot full of all things? Scooters!!! The displays of snobbery (by a few) were unbelievable!  Lots of grumbling and revved potato, potatoes.
The sport bike guy?s seemed to actually WANT to talk to us.
The moral of the story is wave to every body you see on any kind of bike because (most of them) just love to ride as much as you do!

[ArrrGeee]

Wow Glenn,
 that's a great story.
 I'd heard scooters were making a comeback but I had no idea.

 so were there any "real vespa's" the reason I ask
 is because when I was a kid, my Dad and one of the
 guy's he worked with bought late 50's vespa's to restore.
 they came out really nice.  the other guy, Leo painted his
 fire engine red and white, my dad's was 57 chevy turquoise
 and white.
 My dad actually rode it back and forth to work during the
 summer for two years. the great part for me was getting a
 ride on the thing.

 I remember when I was in kindergarten he would come home
 for lunch and give me a ride to school on it. of course I was
 just a little kid so I would stand up in front of him on the
 floor of the thing and hold on to the handlebar.
 Amazing that I would remember that!
 it's probably one of the reasons I'm a biker.
 
 yeah, those old scooters were pretty cool.

-Ron

[glennw]

Yes Ron they had real Vespas, I am not sure of the model years but I know quite a few were from the sixties. Many Lambretta's also, some with the two "tractor" seat set up. I think I will try to find an old Lambretta. The are low slug and cool looking. Of course their were some yuppies on the new 150cc four stroke Vespas (at $4000.00 a pop). The strange part is these folks run them in any and every conditions from rusty hulks to totally restored and they all have just as much fun. This attitude would got along way in the motorcycle world.

[supervision]

Hey Glenn, just happened to notice your scooter ride story, that sounds like a big deal 50 scooters!   Ron was mentioning about you doing a scooter run that he saw, said some of them guys were going pretty fast in the turns.  It's quite fun doing organized events, I did the Craig Vetter gas mileage contest twice (v45 sabre, cb77superhawk)  and  also rode my Ossa 230 Wildefire in the Cycle World rolling concourse at Sears Point.     That CROV  rally was certainly fun , what do ya think!   Lets get the gang together  sv

[darkvision]

Hi guys,
I just joined ROV and missed out on last year's CROV ride.  If there are plans for a 2005 CROV ride please keep me posted. I definitely would love to participate. Great job by the organizers!
Best wishes, Dark V

[glennw]

For those of you crazy enough to live in California and own a scooter capable of 45mph, April 22 will mark the next ?Hedonism? scooter run from Bakersfield to Lake Isabella.
60 miles each way on some of the roads from the CROV run last fall. 125cc Vespa?s are about as small as can keep up with the 45 MPH minimum. If you want to see a diverse group of two wheeled folk, this is the ride for you. Not all the details are up but here is the sponsoring clubs web site:

http://www.unforgivensc.org/scoot.html

GlennW

[Lucky]

Hedonism means naked right?  8)
Naked guys on scooters..I think i'll stay on the east coast, lol

[glennw]

Webster says:  
Main Entry: he?do?nism
Pronunciation: 'hE-d&n-"i-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek hEdonE pleasure; akin to Greek hEdys sweet -- more at SWEET
1 : the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life

Glenn says: Yahoo!

Lucky: if that means naked to you well.. what can I say..lol