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Posted on 07/22/2008 9:37:16 AM PDT by decimon
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Record gasoline prices are fueling a boom in sales of fuel-efficient scooters across the United States, as commuters ditch their gas-guzzlers and don helmets and goggles to beat high prices at the pump.
U.S. scooter sales have risen 65.7 percent in the first half of 2008, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council, making the industry one of the biggest beneficiaries of a more than 30 percent spike in oil prices this year.
"They are just flying out of here," said Steve Travers, who manages a scooter and motorcycle dealership in midtown Manhattan. "Consumers want to escape gas prices, they can't afford to drive their cars and they want an inexpensive way to get around."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Scooters NEVER win in a contest with a Car.
This action seems like a death wish.
A related article, considering how many scooter/bike purchases are older people who are getting back into motorcycling. Everything below this is a quote, not my work:
*********
(Original article was in City Bike, www.citybike.com)
By Gabe Ets-Hokin
I just quit working as a motorcycle salesman, so now I can bitch about these guys to you. I call them “un-frozen cavemen,” in honor of the hilarious character invented by Phil Hartman on “Saturday Night Live.”
On the show, Hartman plays a 20,000-year-old caveman who was frozen in a glacier and then is thawed out in modern times. Our modern ways “frighten and confuse” him. My un-frozen cave men (UCM’s) sheepishly wander into dealerships all over the USA daily. They have just thawed themselves out from 15 to 40 years of motorcycle-less hibernation and are looking at motorcycles again for the first time since Nixon bombed Cambodia (to protect us from terrorists, of course).
They usually describe pretty limited motorcycle experience, and aren’t even sure of the model of bike they owned. (“Oh, it was a Honda. I’m pretty sure it was a Honda. Anyway, it was my brother-in-law’s. Man, was I crazy!”) Today I met the man who just 15 years ago had a BMW R75S, the only one ever known to have existed. He must have had a good relationship with BMW, for them to make a unique one-off bike like that for him.
The UCM’s gave it up because they bought a house, or they had a kid, or simply because the wife asked them to.
Frequently, they have an inflated image of their past selves. Sometimes they were the fastest guy on Mt. Tam. Other times they were the top motocrosser in the state. The common thread is that they had to abandon such craziness before they got their fool selves killed.
Running through my salesman’s list of steps to move the customer towards a sale (or maybe just to weed out the timewasters, which is what 75% of these guys are), I’ve now determined their riding experience, and now I want to find out what they want out of a motorcycle.
“Well, I just want to have something to putz around on.” is what a huge number of them say.
Putz around. “Putz” is Yiddish slang for the male reproductive organ, and is more commonly used to describe an oafish or stupid man. Yeah. Judging from the rare UCM who actually buys a motorcycle, “putzing” involves wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and boat shoes while wobbling down the street on a motorcycle with under 1000 miles on it. A man can do a lot of putzing (or putting) on a 50cc scooter, but they don’t want that. A 250 Virago or Ninja won’t do it either. I’ve seen a lot of putzes on scooters, especially in San Francisco, so it would seem an ideal putzing tool, but apparently not. I’ve never sold a small scooter or a small displacement bike to a UCM. “Putzing”, as an activity, needs to be done on a motorcycle with far, far, far more capability than the putzer could ever possibly use. It’s wacky, huh? Sort of like using a Porsche to pick up dry cleaning. Actually, they do that a lot, too. At least in Marin, which is probably the only place outside of Stuttgart where you can see actual traffic jams of Porsche 911’s.
Once I figure out what kind of riding style they’re interested in, I show the UCM a model or two. And it’s here the fun begins, as I have to explain every single technological advancement in motorcycle technology since 1968, starting with disc brakes. By the time I work my way up to liquid cooling, I’m ready to fake an epileptic seizure so I can stop talking to this guy.
“Liquid cooling? I don’t need that! I’ll just be putzing around on this thing. I won’t be racing or anything like that.”
I can just imagine a frustrated salesman talking to some prospect in 1910. “Rubber tires? With inner tubes? I’ve been riding on steel rims and wooden spokes since 1885. I don’t need any of that fancy crap! It’s not like I want to be riding around at 20 miles per hour or anything like that!”
Seriously, re-entry riders really need to be mature and intelligent about their re-entry purchase. Sure, a 30 horsepower Bonneville with drum brakes and barely-functioning suspension was OK back in the ‘70s, when the Bay Area’s population was a third of what it was now, and the roads were smooth and well-maintained, and most drivers were insured and driving well-maintained and relatively slow cars. But now the roads are heavily trafficked with SUV’s and monster trucks driven by inattentive sociopaths at breakneck speeds.
Introduce a putz on a modern motorcycle, a motorcycle with a power-to-weight ratio far better than anything available in the 1970s into the soup and it’s a recipe for lots of crashing. Especially when you consider that these guys never get any kind of advanced motorcycle training, much less a license.
The UCM is unable to comprehend the technological advances of the last three decades, so he just goes by what he knows about. This usually fits in with what I call the “I’m a pretty big guy” syndrome.
PBGS is a condition where the UCM’s creeping weight gain has convinced him that he needs a huge amount of horsepower to propel his expanding ass at a sufficient speed. The manifestations of PBGS are disregard for any motorcycle smaller than 750cc and a preference for “comfortable” seating positions. This means the UCM usually rejects any handlebar lower than nipple height as being “one of them Ninja-bikes.”
“I’d probably kill myself on one of those things.”
The UCM will usually tell the salesman that he had a 750 or a 900 back in the day, so he needs something at least that big. The salesman will try to explain that even the slowest, cheapest 600 today makes more horsepower and weighs far less than the most extreme, exotic, high powered liter bike 30 years ago, but the UCM’s primitive higher brain functions cannot comprehend such a concept. Big guys get big bikes. Manly men get the most powerful bike they can afford. A 750 is more powerful than a 600, and the 1400cc Harley must be the baddest, most fearsome bike at all.
It’s not like he’s buying a Kawasaki Z1 or anything like that! I remember I rode one of those things once, and I could barely control it, it went so fast!
Anyway, a pretty big guy needs at least a 750 for putzing around on. That’s just a basic safety issue. And I’m just being sarcastic. If these were real concerns I had, then the average age of motorcycle crash fatalities would be rising steadily over the last decade as more and more UCM’s re-discover the joys of ‘70s style unregulated, untrained motorcycling with the help of no formal training.
*********
(Note: The average age of motorcycle crash fatalities HAS been going up over the last year alone. And there’s sarcasm and disdain dripping from every paragraph of the above...)
So does voting Republican sometimes, but since when has *that* stopped anyone?
Warning: Do not watch this video if you have sensitive eyes. It is a truck vs. scooter accident. Your imagination can probably do the rest. If not, here is the link. I warned you. I am not joking, this contains gore (not AL).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okYWzsMSDyo&feature=related
I just need a nice little liquorcycle to get to and from the bar...
The really fun stuff is when the scooter driver discovers that scooters don’t handle hills very well, especially if you are packing a few extra pounds. Pretty soon, you are chugging along at 15 mph in a 35 zone
don’t worry the libs will find a way for you to survive. maybe pass a law that you have to wrap yourself in a full bubble suit before riding.
That depends on the scooter. You know they make 650cc scooters that will do well over 100mph now, right?
Hooligan PING
ON the other hand, there are some of us who rode in the 60s who are doing their homework and have conncluded that we don’t want a car engine on a bike frame.
I’m looking for a bike but I am doing the homework.
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I found a Harley 883 Sportster for a good price.
It will haul my fat a** and my wife's slim a** around just fine. Doesn't have the terrific acceleration of a "crotch rocket" but does have a Mustang seat on it for the comfortable ride.
I got a good deal on it or I wouldn't have anything yet.
Just for kicks I'll give you my bonafides.
I rode a Honda CBR360 for 3 years, age 18 through 21, year round. Ice, snow, sleet, rain, heat it didn't matter. It was all I had.
I rode a Yamaha 185 dirt bkke in the Philippines for 2 years, age 26 through 28.
Now I ride again. I'm still frozen so don't thaw me out.
Amazing! How did you get Honda to make you a one-off CBR360, never seen by any other man?????
From experience, I can tell you that your 883 is slower than even a Rebel 450.
Honda still sells the Nighthawk 750 - pretty much the same thing they sold in 1969, with a number of updates. No car engine.
Of course, it’s significantly detuned compared to the parent bike, my 86 Nighthawk 700S. Redline 10,750, shaft drive, ungodly accel above 7K. Still keeps up with most 600-class sport bikes 0-60.
Wholesale gasoline down 35 cents from peak of two weeks ago. Should be showing up at retail outlets over the next few days.
Chit, it was a Honda CB360. My bad.
That truck driver must be blind. Excellent CCTV image.
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