The classic scooterists club magazine

Scooter Tales: Sharing mishaps is part of the fun

To the everyday motorist, pedestrian or bus driver, manhole covers and drain grids in the road mean nothing. But for scooterists, that little chunk of metal can turn into a mini ice rink in the wet, sending the front or back wheel sliding sideways in any direction, leaving the rider fighting to stay upright. I’m sure many of us have the scrapes and bruises as reminders of why it pays to have your wits about you. Likewise, buses (the old double-decker variety that has a big steadying pole at the back to help people get on). It’s not unknown for Lambretta riders who find themselves caught in a traffic queue to try to sneak past on the left, between the back of the bus and the kerb. It’s also not unknown for their kick-start pedal to get wrapped round the steadying pole, meaning rider and scooter are painfully separated. At least one person reading this is now blushing. You know who you are!

Another side effect of scooter riding is the inevitable slipstream. When I was a young wannabe Mod, my mates and I used to buy packets of king-size cigarettes, then paint them different colours. We wanted to impress the girls by being sophisticated smokers of exotic coloured foreign brands. For the record, this never actually worked. The girls remained firmly unimpressed.

I went one better. My father smoked cigars (medium-sized torpedoes that, according to the TV adverts, you could buy for the price of a pint). He’d loads stashed away because friends and relatives couldn’t think of anything else to buy him for Christmas and birthdays. I liberated some for my own use from time to time, determined to impress the girls with my even greater levels of sophistication. You couldn’t inhale with them and after puffing and posing around with one, I stubbed it out and put it in my Parka pocket for re-use later.

This went horribly wrong one afternoon when I was waved down by the local hard nut as I turned into the cul-de-sac where I lived. “Wot you doin’ c***?”  he asked in his usual friendly fashion. “I’m off home, John,” I replied nervously, trying to forget the rumours that he had a metal plate in his head, the trophy from some previous bit of nastiness. Glaring at my waist, he asked “Why is your f**** Parka on fire?”. I looked down – he was right – it was! The scooter’s slipstream had re-ignited the not-quite extinguished cigar in my pocket and my Parka had smoke and flames coming out of it.

There’s not much you can say in that situation. I tried to shrug it off, attempting to convince John that I always did this sort of thing and thought nothing of it. He glared a bit more and then turned and walked off, without even offering to help beat out the flames.

As I said earlier, scooter-riding seems to lead to situations that just don’t happen with other vehicles. So I’ll leave you with a few hints and tips to avoid some of the pitfalls:

Don’t think the container lids will necessarily stay on when you pick up your Chinese from the local takeaway and stuff it inside your toolbox, or hang the carrier bag from the hook on your old Vespa to take it home. They probably won’t. The resulting mess is best avoided.

Don’t offer to give your mate a lift home because he’s drunk too much. Beer-fuelled inertia and relaxed muscles mean that when you accelerate hard he will probably not still be there when you next look.

Be careful about personalising your customised paint job to include your other half’s name. It may win you a few romantic Brownie points, but on balance, girls’ names are a ‘no-no’. There’s a real danger that Lorraine, your latest love, may get a bit sniffy about Sharon, whose name figures in the artwork. Same theory applies to tattoos. Naturally, it’s easier to change your paintwork rather than your tattoo. But hey, why risk the expense? Stick to the Small Faces, The Specials, or whatever. At least Lorraine won’t have reason to start getting difficult.

Dick Smith