The availability of amenities, a reasonable level of safety, appropriate riding weather, and the presence of other scooters all contribute to a positive scooting environment.

Of course, it’s possible to be a safe and happy scooterist even if you’re the only one in town, there’s no designated scooter parking, and the nearest repair shop is a day’s drive away. But the more scooter-friendly the area where you live is, the easier and more fun owning and riding your scooter will be.

Here are some of the characteristics of a scooter friendly city. See how your town stacks up.

Amenities

• Scooter Parking
  You need accessible parking to keep your scooter safely tucked away while you’re out and about. Public garages that allow scooter parking are a plus – bonus points if they reduce the fee for cycles or let you park free! And if your city has designated on-street scooter and motorcycle parking like San Francisco and Seattle, you win.
• Scooter service and repair
  When you need to bring your scooter in to be serviced or repaired, the closer the shop is the better. If there’s no repair facilities for 200 miles, you’ll need a way to get your non-running scooter there.
• Scooter retailers
  Granted, you can buy pretty much anything online, but your town gets a bonus if there’s a scooter retail presence – whether selling scooters, riding apparel, or even just topcases and tires.

Weather

If your geographic area boasts a year-round riding season, congratulations! Where I live in the Pacific Northwest, using the phrase “riding season” gets you openly mocked in some scootering circles. Our mild – though wet! – winters make for year-round scooting. Rain is easy enough to ride in, once you learn proper safety techniques and get good rain gear, a windscreen, and all-weather tires.

Most areas provide a manageable riding season, even if it’s only a few months. You can still ride a scooter in upstate New York – just don’t plan on it being your primary mode of transportation in January. (Trust me – you don’t want to be on two wheels in the snow!)

Some people ride in sub-freezing temperatures if there’s no precipitation. I’m not one of them. Invisible black ice will take you down effortlessly, and it’s not worth the risk.

If the trees in your area lose their leaves seasonally, keep that in mind as well. Damp leaves are slick as ice and can be disastrous on two wheels. As always, I speak from highly personal experience.

If your area of residence does not offer year-round riding, make sure you have someplace to store your scooter off-season. When I lived in Boston, I packed my scoot away late November until April. Learn good wintering techniques so your scooter is ready to go after the thaw.

Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe I’ll move to San Diego. I’d have to leave the Frankenstella behind though since California’s not a fan of two-stroke engines.

Safety

• Available scooter safety courses
  The Motorcycle Safety Foundation has a presence in most major cities. Kudos to your city if it’s one of them.
• Clear laws for two-wheelers
  If your local laws are clear on how scooters should be treated, everyone is safer. Cars need to know if and when you get your own lane. You need to know if you’re expected to have a cycle endorsement on your driver’s license, and where it’s legal to park.
• Manageable Crime Risk
  All cities have some degree of crime. But if theft and vandalism are so rampant in your area that you’re afraid to leave your scooter unattended, riding on a daily basis will become an anxious affair. I’ve had a scooter stolen twice in Boston, and malicious tagging ruined several neighbors’ scooters parked on my block in Seattle, but I still consider both cities “scooter friendly.”

Community

• Other scooters on the road
  It’s true that there is safety in numbers! If you notice a lot of scooters on the road where you live, it’s probably a decent place to ride. A large scooter presence also means two-wheelers are not a foreign concept to cars, making the roads a little safer for everyone.
• Active scooter clubs
  A town with one or more scooter clubs is truly an evolved place to live! Your local scooter club provides a wealth of knowledge, support, resources, and opportunities for community.

When it comes to scooting, how does your city measure up? If you live in scooter central, plug into the community and take advantage of all it has to offer. If your town is lacking in scooter amenities and community, here’s your chance to start spreading the word about scooters and get your town on the path to scooter paradise.

Click led the Westenders on an awesome ride today. He even ordered sun for us and everything! What a guy.

We started at Alki Bakery in West Seattle, moved on to Bakery Nouveau, then to Essential Baking Co. and finally Grand Central. I headed home at that point but some folks continued on to Macrina in Queen Anne. I had to go warm up – I had quite a chill going and the hot cider stopped working.

The ride was fab and I was excited to get out amongst my fellow scooterists in the dead of winter. Plus Doc saved me a huge chunk of change by showing me how to re-align the Frankenstella myself. I’m looking forward to fixing that because that scooter has been super squirrely since the last time I wiped out and smashed the left handgrip into the pavement.

There’s some photos I took over on the Flickr. I’m sure the Westenders SC Group Pool on Flickr will have a ton from other folks.

Soon to follow: a group ride to all local gyms followed by a group run around Lake Union.

If you join a scooter club, and I recommend you do, you’ll eventually find yourself riding with some other scooterists. If you’re new to scooting or to group riding, tell the group leader and some of the other scooterists. We love to have newbies along for the ride, and notifying other folks allows them to keep an eye out for you and make sure you’re safe and enjoying yourself. And always show up for a ride with a full tank — you never know when you’ll be able to stop for fuel!

Group riding can be a blast – here are some guidelines to keep the experience safe and fun.

Ride Within Your Ability

This is the single most important rule. Discuss the planned route ahead of time. Find out if the ride is conducive to your size of scooter and your experience level. For example, if you’ve been riding for a few weeks, you may not feel ready to hit the freeway. Or perhaps you feel ready, but your 50cc scooter is not up to the task. Finding out ahead of time can prevent mishaps.

Never hesitate to leave a group ride if you feel it’s beyond your ability – everyone will understand and your safety is your number one priority. Just tell someone you’re leaving so they can vouch for you if there’s a head count.

I made the mistake of following a group ride into uncharted territory once and paid the price. Our group of twenty approached an unpaved gravel road with enormous potholes and puddles. My gut told me this was beyond my expertise, but I went along with the group.

Not too far in, the scooter in front of me stopped short and I attempted to brake while coming out of a giant, water-filled pothole. The Frankenstella and I went down — into the muddy watering hole. Two other scooters went down as well. I scratched my cowls and banged up my knee and spent the rest of the 35 degree ride soaking wet. It was unpleasant and the last time I attempted to stay with the group when I thought better of it.

I learned my lesson! I’ve since left several rides partway in, including the first ride I went on with my brand new Vespa GTS, which I was not 100% comfortable on yet.

Always ride within your ability — for your safety and everyone else’s.

Stay Toward the Front

The safest spot is up front, so stay as close to the ride leader as possible. If you keep to the front of the pack, you’ll also avoid getting separated from the group at traffic lights. While getting separated is not the end of the world, it’s one less thing to worry about when you’re getting used to group riding.

Let the Ride Leader Lead

Never ride next to the ride leader, and allow her room at stops in case she needs to change course.

Use Staggered Formation

Maintain a staggered formation, with the ride leader in the left position. Leave two seconds of space between riders. This allows each rider time to react and room to swerve to avoid hazards. It also keeps the group tight enough to discourage cars from cutting in, while still allowing everyone in the group breathing room.

Use Single Formation When Necessary

Some riding conditions will require temporary single formation riding, which the ride leader will signal by holding an index finger high in the air. A good staggered formation group will easily close up to single file. Narrow roads, limited visibility, entering and exiting the highway may call for single file riding. The group leader will signal when it’s safe to return to staggered formation by holding up two fingers.

Use Hand Signals

When changing lanes within the group, signal your intent with your hands. Riders have a lot to focus on in a group and may not see your scooter’s turn signal. If you want to change from the outside of the lane to the inside, point to the open spot that you intend to occupy and be sure the riders around you are aware of your intentions.

Send Messages Back

Group riding is a bit like a game of “Telephone” — the ride leader will signal the intended action, and each scooterist passes the message back all the way through the group using hand signals. That way the riders at the back of the group know a turn is coming up even though they can’t see the turn signals at the front of the group. Riders may also signal an unexpected stop, or point out road hazards with their feet.

Listen to the Ride Marshalls

Larger rides may have ride marshals — group members who are responsible for stopping traffic at intersections to keep everyone together safely. If your ride has marshals, follow their directions and then thank them profusely after the ride because they make the experience much more enjoyable.

Watch the Turns

Turns can prove tricky in a big group. Riders in the left part of the lane have a tendency to cut the corner when turning, and riders on the right may swing wide. Stay in your lane, leave extra room around you, and keep an eye on others nearby.

Maintain a Safe Distance and Respect Others’ Distance

Leave yourself enough room to stop and don’t ride alongside anyone else. If a group member is carrying a passenger, don’t jump in front of them to close the gap — they may need the extra space to stop with the additional weight.

Follow Group Protocol

Some scooter clubs or riding groups have their own protocol with additional guidelines they follow — find out in advance. As an example, check out the guide for one of my scooter clubs: Westenders Riding Protocol.

If you follow these recommendations and any others that your ride leader provides, you’ll be on your way to a fun day seeing the sights with fellow scooterists. Enjoy!

The vast majority of scooter/car collisions happen at an intersection. Being vigilant at intersections and increasing your visibility to cars minimizes your chances of becoming a part of this statistic.

These days, you’re up against very distracted drivers. Text messaging, GPS displays, and mobile phone conversations all mean less attention placed on you. So it’s largely up to us as scooterists to save our own hide. It’s unfair, but we need to take total responsibility for our own safety.

A good rule of thumb: pretend you are invisible. At intersections, assume every car is going to turn in front of you. Riding in this way saves me, literally, on a daily basis.

Intersection Dangers

Here are a few of the most common issues you can encounter at intersections when riding.

Left-turning cars

Most intersection collisions involving cycles are caused by a car in an oncoming lane turning left in front of you. If you assume that the cars don’t see you and will turn in front of you, you will be ready to react when they do.

There’s a strange phenomenon that happens with car drivers: even if the driver sees you and makes eye contact, they may still turn in front of you. Cars turn in front of scooters for a few different reasons:

• You are smaller so you appear to be going slower and they think they have time to turn.
• Drivers are looking for threats to their own safety, i.e. other cars, so you don’t “register,” even though they see you.
• They’re updating Twitter and simply don’t see you.

Even if you’ve got the green light, slow down as you enter an intersection so you can stop quickly if needed. There is a fine line between slowing down so much that you encourage people to turn in front of you and keeping your speed in check so you can stop in an emergency. Be cautious, but don’t be hesitant.

• Ride in the part of the lane that makes you the most visible
• Wear reflective gear and a bright helmet
• Sound your horn if you think someone doesn’t see you
• Wait a few seconds after your signal turns green in case someone runs the light

Tag-along turners

The really dangerous left-turners are not the car you see, but the driver that turns right behind them, hoping to squeeze in behind the first car. They totally cannot see you and most of the time are just crossing their fingers as they speed through the intersection hoping to make it in time. You’ll see these troublemakers cutting you off at both green and red signals.

Four-way stops

The city where I live has many four-way stops, and the right-of-way defaults to whomever got to the intersection first. I would estimate that nearly half the time, when it’s my turn to go, the cars at the intersection skip me. I can’t explain it, but it happens reliably. Because I’m expecting it, I can avoid this danger. I often use my horn in these circumstances. And sometimes a select finger.

Keep Your Speed in Check

The faster you are traveling, the less time you have to react. Other people on the road also have less time to react to you. Speed also affects your cornering. The faster you are going, the longer it takes to stop. Braking at high speed also increases your chances of a wipeout.

Keep to the speed limit, and less when necessary. Remember that speed limits are designed for cars and you may need to be traveling a little slower, especially in construction areas or twisty turns.

Make Yourself More Visible

There are many ways to increase your visibility to other vehicles and decrease your likelihood of a collision. Correct lane position and brightly colored riding gear both make you more visible to traffic. For night time riding add reflective decals to your scooter and topcase, and upgrade to LED tail lights and halogen headlights if you don’t already have them.

The good news is that you can have an enormous impact on your safety by following these guidelines. Many dangerous situations you meet on the road can be prevented or avoided. So be vigilant at intersections and keep the rubber side down!

Hey kids! Hope the year is going splendidly for you so far.

I’ve been away working mightily on a new scootering project. However, for a million reasons I won’t bore you with including technology like PHP mapping and SQL server queries, it’s turning into the biggest pain in the patootie ever. So despite the million hours I poured into it, I’ve been sweeping it under the rug.

Then a little lightbulb went off. If my theme for 2010 is “Simplicity,” why am I making this so much more complicated than it needs to be?

So I’ve decided, for now at least, to just bring all the extensive content I’ve written for that project over to Scooterlust.

My idea was to create a spot for folks new to scooters. If you already ride, you know that walking into a cafe or grocery store with a helmet can suddenly make you the Most Interesting Person in America. I get so many questions from people about parking, gas mileage, cost, weather, and how the $#*&% do you get your groceries home, anyway?

It’s obviously I’m psyched about scooters when I talk about them. But I always walk away wishing I had somewhere to send this person where they could get all their questions answered in one place.

They can’t possible retain the eager string of statistics I throw at them, or the myriad resources they need to check out. Cause I don’t know about you, but my short-term memory? Not so good. That summer spent huffing spraypaint in the garage while attempting to restore the Frankenstella is finally catching up with me.

That singular clearinghouse for scooter data is not readily available online — at least without a dose of anti-rice-burner, cooler-than-thou, alpha male pissing contests, or snarky cynicism. Or all of the above. I’m talking about a nice, friendly place to get some basic scooter info without getting a load of crap alongside.

So I made it. I wrote over 100 articles – from figuring out which scooter is the best for your particular lifestyle, to how many MPGs you can expect, to joining a club, to getting insurance. All those “grocery line” questions.

I’m going to revamp them slightly and post them here. Apologies if this information is too basic for you. But I’ll make it entertaining – I promise. And perhaps you can send one of your friends, coworkers or significant others here to fill their gourd so we can get them up and running on two wheels ASAP.

Plus I’ll definitely be posting other stuff in between.

Bringing this project over here will help me focus on seven things at a time instead of eight, which is fab for the ‘ol ADD. It will free up some time to spend hanging out here. Oh and riding my scooters.

Hope you can join me.

I found this Uberkoot Vespa nightlight for sale on Etsy by thepinkcamellia. I’d snag it for my loo in a heartbeat if I had an outlet in there that worked in the dark!

{ photo courtesy of thepinkcamellia on Etsy }

This article from the Perthshire Advertiser was brought to my attention via the loverly 2strokebuzz. There are few things more drool-worthy to me than a sparkly pink Vespa.

That said, I encourage all the boys out there to man-up and follow my friend Doc’s example by straddling something hot and pink:

It’s good to give those stereotypes a run for their money every once in awhile!

My friends know that the way to a girl’s heart is through her scooter. This Christmas, my girl Kerry presented me with the ultimate scooter lover’s gift pack including two Vespa-themed items.

The magnet set is simply adorable and is the perfect addition to the fridge in my new apartment.

The notebook is awesome and perfect for me since I write tons and fill several of these each year.

I think she said she got both of these items at Barnes & Noble, of all places. Hope you all were lucky enough to get some scooter swag for your holiday of choice!

As part of the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, “We Are the Mods” will be playing at the Admiral Theater in West Seattle, Saturday, Oct. 24 at 7:00 pm.

“The complicated relationship developing between Sadie and Nico isn’t the only thing that makes WE ARE THE MODS a delight to watch: there’s also the gorgeous vintage Vespas, the spot-on mod fashion, gorgeous vintage Vespas, and a kick-ass soundtrack of new retro tunes.”

Three Dollar Bill cinema is offering a discount on tickets to local scooter groups and enthusiasts. Enter the code “Wesqream09″ (without quotation marks) and you can purchase tickets for $8 (regularly $10).

Get more info about the film or buy tickets.

See you there!