Modern Buddy

Does it ever go away?

This is week two of owning our first scooter. I have driven it back and forth to work a couple of times, but mostly I have been taking afternoon rides around the tree-lined streets of our neighborhood. This afternoon it is cool, with an approaching storm front bringing grey clouds and the threat of rain. The smells and the cool wind in my face made me not want to come home. It started raining, or I would still be out there.

I can't decide if I am just a kid with a new toy, or if the scooter has possessed me a little bit. I can't wait until the afternoon ride comes, and when I had to skip it yesterday due to torrential rains, I was bummed out.

By this fall I am getting my own scoot so my wife and I can ride together. She unwittingly opened a can of worms when she convinced me to buy her this scooter.

So how about you? Have you been riding long enough to wear out your scooter grin? Do you still have the fever?

You said "our". Does that mean you and your SO? If so, you think it's bad now? Wait until you get your *second* scoot!

Yeah I guess so...(The bit about the fever)

Been riding over fifty years.......the grin hasn't faded yet.

Rob

Hello, I'm in week #8 of riding my first scooter ever. It's all I think about, and according to my friends and bf, it's all I talk about too. The word "obsessed" has been used in relation to my scooter. This sort of surprised me because I never thought of myself as a PTW person - heck - not even a TW person! But here I am anyway, scheming for reasons to go the long way home

Syd wrote:You said "our". Does that mean you and your SO? If so, you think it's bad now? Wait until you get your *second* scoot!

Yeah, the tangerine Buddy was a birthday gift for my wife. I will be getting a black Buddy at the end of August. Then we will be getting our first Stella sometime in 2014.

sfchorus wrote:Hello, I'm in week #8 of riding my first scooter ever. It's all I think about, and according to my friends and bf, it's all I talk about too. The word "obsessed" has been used in relation to my scooter. This sort of surprised me because I never thought of myself as a PTW person - heck - not even a TW person! But here I am anyway, scheming for reasons to go the long way home

My wife and I spent a week in SF two winters ago, and I was frustrated with the hills in our car. I can't imagine trying to scoot up and down those inclines.

My wife and I bought scooters a few weeks ago and just got our licenses before the weekend. We are having a little trouble finding good riding routes that still allow us to follow the engine break-in procedures without peril.

Aaand like potato chips, you cant have just one....

I never had any issues with driving my car until my 1st weeked on the scooter. After that, the idea of getting in that big isolation chamber has been mind numbing. I already told my husband I want to get an old Jeep Wrangler (he just started rebuilding one for him) just so on days that I have to be on 4 wheels, like when I travel with the kid or the dogs, I can take a ride rather than just drive there.

No it doesn't wear off. On my 7th year. If anything it is less infatuation and more like settled love should be. I feel very blue if I'm not riding for even a day or 2. When I lived in the chilly Midwest I would ride in the most bitter temps. When there was too much snow, I'd ride around the condo garage. But keep in mind I might be an outlier with regard to this sickness.

For some (like me) it never wears off.
I had a bad accident on a motorcycle years ago; was hit by a car and landed on my face after flying over the car. I was off bikes for many years but bought my scooter in July of 2008. I have over 35K miles on it now and it's still pure joy.
I had my rear tire puncture a week ago and I plugged it. The plug isn't perfect and my tire loses a few pounds of pressure overnight and a few pounds while sitting at work. Did I drive a car to work though? Nope! I know it's a risk but I just can't stop riding my scooter.
I'm not completely stupid. I re-plugged the tire tonight to see if it'll hold air better til my new tire arrives Friday.

Don't judge me, everyone. I'm really not taking huge chances. I check the pressure each time before riding and it's a slow leak.

I started riding 42 years ago. It is still one of the things that makes me most happy. It is a simple pleasure but sometimes those are best.

It becomes an adiction, but a good adiction.

36,000+ miles ridden and today scooting is all the more of a joy. The only thing that has changed for me is that what used to seem a long full day in the saddle now feels like just a warm up. Scooting is my reward, my therapy, and my vacation all rolled into one.

After a decade it still is there mostly all the time, and as a mood shifter it is pretty darned reliable. Also it will bring you closer to that which you perceive as god when some cager pulls out in front of you, and scares the bejeasus out of you. R

I was given a '64 Vespa 150 back in 1984 by one of my newspaper customers. I was stoked back then and the fire still hasn't gone out. Wish I still had that old Vespa though.

Scooter49 wrote:Does it ever go away?

Do you still have the fever?

MY fever has extended to owning 3 scooters... so yeah... I DO!

Not quite 2 years in for me, and I've already purchased a total of 5 scooters. 2 have been sold.

I still lust after good deals on CL.

My wife loves her 125. What started as "eh" turned into "I like riding on the back" into "I had the day off so I rode around until it looked like rain"

I'm on week 5 or 6 and very much loving it, wish I could ride more. Pure fun, even when you add the gear you have to wear and attention you have to pay when you put cagers into the mix. Drove my van on a +/-25 mile trip the other night and can't help but grimace when thinking about the fact that that was enough fuel to scoot for a month at the rate I have been...

And I am days away from getting the Wolf Classic 150, and want to keep the Buddy even so... although financially it is not the wisest call to do that, I can still come up with several justifications for it...

"DariaSen" put it great: it is much better to take a ride, than to just drive. You become involved, a integral part of the entire process, not just a cog in the machine...

I've been riding since 1962, other then my first small bikes all on Motorcycles. I got my first Scooter in 1984, a Honda Areo 125. It's funny, I never did really enjoy that scooter. it seemed heavy, and very very slow, even being a 125 two stroke. I bought my Buddy 125 at the end of May this year, and I'm still smiling. I ride it almost every day, and I have a 20.000 dollar Harley in the garage, LOL. No, it doesn't replace the Harley, but it sure is nice for riding back and forth to work, or going to the store for a few things, and doing just as you said, riding in the evening just sight seeing. It is so nimble and light you can go anywhere, and if the road ends, it's not an ordeal to turn it around. 225 pounds is a lot easier in tight spots then 1000, LOL.... Big bikes can be almost like "work" when your in town and traffic, and tight places....but they can't be beat out on the road for a 1000 mile weekend.. I find myself smiling quite a bit every time i ride my Buddy....It brought back my first feelings as a kid when I for the first time rode a Vespa.... It just never gets old......

Not only do I have the fever...i'm contagious.

I handed down my 150cc Chinascoot to my sister a year and a half ago so she and her husband would have a second vehicle.

Yesterday she IM'ed me saying, "taking Cosmo out to Arvada this weekend made it crystal clear to me I need a new scoot"

She wants a Kymco People 250.

I just got my first scoot April of 2012. April of this year I started working from home, with no commute

.... At the end of the day i'm dying to go out for a ride.
I never though there would be a downside to working from home.

ravenlore wrote:N
She wants a Kymco People 250.

Dammit! She's only 2 months late. She could have had mine for a very reasonable price.

iMoses wrote:

Scooter49 wrote:Does it ever go away?

Do you still have the fever?

MY fever has extended to owning 3 scooters... so yeah... I DO!

Hey Moses, do you still have the HD200? Do you ever visit the SYM forum? It's not such a nice place as here, and it's not a busy forum, so it could use all the friendly SYM owners it can get.

skully93 wrote:

ravenlore wrote:N
She wants a Kymco People 250.

Dammit! She's only 2 months late. She could have had mine for a very reasonable price.

I know. I noticed when you got the 'beo and posted the People, but it wasn't feasible then :-/

heck, she's not quite ready to pull the trigger now, but she's closer.

Well, maybe when they pry my cold, dead hand off the throttle .

We should hide this thread ASAP. DO NOT allow your husbands, wives, significant others or friends to see this.

No, it doesn't go away. EVER. In fact, IT GETS WORSE.

I was one of those who spent decades with a serious case of scooter fever before I even owned one. I still have old parts catalogs and Scoot! magazines from when I obsessed over them. I'm pretty sure my wife caved on letting me buy one just to shut me up.

Little did either of us know how consuming a passion it would become.

I may kid (a bit), but no regrets, of course! At least not for me. My wife and friends all think I'm nuts. What non-scootering friends are left, that is.

the need to have a back up and a Sunday go to meeting scooter... R

Possible to have the fever without even owning a scooter yet? Because I've got something bad, lol.

I am 7 years into the addiction and no, it does not go away!

It only gets more intense and if I could, I'd own 4 or 5 of them!

(and park them in the living room!...don't tell "the management"!)