Modern Buddy

well, i will never let anyone ever ride my scooter again. she decided to drive it straight into a curb, thankfully not that fast, but now it has a slight wobble from the front wheel. I have a feeling it is a bent rim, but am hoping it isn't the fork. what are the chances it could be either of these? she couldn't have accelerated to more than 5-7 mph. it wasn't pretty. anyone have any experience with something like this?

its a 2007 buddy 125 italia, just hit 1000k. going to the shop on thursday and hoping for the best.

My daughter hit a curb with my SYM Citycom. She made a left wide and hit the curb and scraped up the right side of my scooter the second day I had it. The scooter is just too big for her. Part of life. She was very upset about it. I ended up getting her her own scooter which is smaller. She loves it. Now only I ride my scooter. I will let my son ride it and one friend of mine but thats it.

yea, definitely learned my lesson on this one. im just scared about the damage. I assume a bent fork is worse than a bent rim. it is slight, but i don't feel comfortable going above 20 with even a slight wobble. she also broke one of my mirrors.

Like I said, if anyone has any insight into the likelihood of either a bent rim or fork, I would greatly appreciate it to ease my fears.

by the way, I just joined this site today and its great. I look forward to chatting with all of you for years to come.

The only other person I ever allowed on my scooter is Luna to teach her in a parking lot the club's president this weekend since he didn't have his own bike at the rally (and I was entirely too drunk to go anywhere )

I have a full set of chrome protection on it but if I lend it out it's under understanding of you break it, you fix it.

strambley wrote:well, i will never let anyone ever ride my scooter again. she decided to drive it straight into a curb, thankfully not that fast, but now it has a slight wobble from the front wheel. I have a feeling it is a bent rim, but am hoping it isn't the fork. what are the chances it could be either of these? she couldn't have accelerated to more than 5-7 mph. it wasn't pretty. anyone have any experience with something like this?

its a 2007 buddy 125 italia, just hit 1000k. going to the shop on thursday and hoping for the best.

Probably the rim and not the forks. Bent forks will just put the wheel out of alignment but the bent rim will cause a wobble.
Easy enough to check. Put the scooter on the center stand and have someone push down on the back so the front wheel is off the ground. spin the front wheel and look for the wobble.

Sad to say there have been more than a few threads that have started with, "well, i will never let anyone ever ride my scooter again."

That sucks. Hopefully you can get it fixed soon...

it's gotta be the wheel or the axle. If the wheel doesn't wobble as Tocsik suggested to test, it very well could be the axle. Do you know if it's a side to side wobble or more of a bounce? The bounce would lend the diagnosis towards the axle.

This is why when I was teaching my girlfriend to ride we started in a grass field. I put emphasis on her moving forward 10' then stopping over and over again. Gotta get comfortable with those brakes and putting your feet down before you do the throttle. Worked like a charm.

BeefSupreme wrote:This is why when I was teaching my girlfriend to ride we started in a grass field. I put emphasis on her moving forward 10' then stopping over and over again. Gotta get comfortable with those brakes and putting your feet down before you do the throttle. Worked like a charm.

Exactly. That's how I taught my fiance when we bought the Buddy. Give it a tiny bit of throttle, go straight, pick your feet up, then slow to a stop. Repeat, all the way down the street.

Thanks everyone for your kind responses. It's definitely more of a side to side wobble, so it sounds like it might be the rim. Like I said earlier, its slight, but definitely noticeable. Its going into the shop tomorrow, so I will know more, but I always like to have an idea with what I'm dealing with before I blindly hand it over to a mechanic.

All of this sounds better than a bent fork or frame, which of course were the first things I could think of.

I have just never seen someone so uncoordinated, I didn't think it was possible!

strambley wrote:
I have just never seen someone so uncoordinated, I didn't think it was possible!

You've never seen my mom taking disco lessons then

lesson learned, the hard way. When I first got mine, everyone wanted to try it. Stupid me, almost had the same thing happen and watched it carren towards a dumpster. Hopefully the good guys at Mod Classics will have you patched up soon enough! Welcome to MB... from another Beltway Buddy.

Just want to pint out that plenty of men pull this and hit curbs, too. Not just women. Rather condescending (kidding or not) post regarding teaching "womenfolk" removed.

Just got back form the shop, definitely a bent rim. I feel much better now knowing it isn't worse than that. Unfortunately, they don't have the rim in stock so I am waiting for it to ship. Wobbly scooter until then!

but it bears repeating:

I consider other people's scooters and motorcycles like their wiminz....errr, SO's.
I don't ride theirs, and they don't ride mine.

Sorry about your incident.

sorry about the unfortunate events!

mattgordon wrote:but it bears repeating:

I consider other people's scooters and motorcycles like their wiminz....errr, SO's.
I don't ride theirs, and they don't ride mine.

Sorry about your incident.

People often offer to let me ride their scoots. I'm always very hesitant to do so, and rarely take them up on it. I'd feel horrible if I dropped a friend's scooter! (I did ride monamibuddy's around a parking lot at Amerivespa to check out his mods. Wooo!)

forget a curb i just hit a wall

picture this, if you will: man comes to a single step / curb. man is on running scoot. man gets off scoot and physically picks up its front end and places it on curb. man then gives the scooter a bit of gas to get the rear wheel up and on and over. a bit more gas...a bit more and yes! finally the rear wheel gains traction and up it goes!

you can guess the rest as the wall is only several feet in front of it

man falls, hurts his knee, scoot has front fascia battle scars and a broken left signal housing but otherwise checks out ok after close inspection and extended test ride

man feels like an ass

seems like the worst of the damage is to your ego. bummer. hope your scoot forgives you!

you nailed that one. ego, yup. happened close to friends, too. they did not witness it but i let them know about it. like most non riders they were completely uninterested. good thing, most likely

another lesson learned. safe on the road, trouble in my apartment complex. i am just glad no mechanical / hardware damage occurred beyond the front blinker housing and some scratches and scrapes to touch up. i will tape up the blinker until i get a new housing. glad the blinker works, too

won't do that again!