Scooter-Curious And The Pavement Sage

[You don’t need big motors to have big fun. That’s something I didn’t know when I was younger. I figured it out when I started to get into impressive mayhem with my 200cc Yamaha TW dirtbike. When I bought it I worried it would be too weak. Instead the crude little beast punches well above its weight class. It can do anything I’ve got the balls to try.

This spring I sought a “tourer” and choose, against all likely options, a tame little (actually it doesn’t look little at all) 800cc Honda Pacific Coast. It’s very old. It was cheap to buy. Like my dirtbike, the smaller displacement tourer punches well above it’s weight class. Can it do anything a battlecruiser sized 1800cc Goldwing does? Not quite. It would lose a drag race against a new $25k ‘wing. But it’s functionally close. It would catch up at the next stoplight and it carries roughly the same amount of gear. Did I mention it costs an order of magnitude less and gets great MPG?

I described these two bikes to a friend (who has an Africa Twin but also a Grom) he said “I’ll bet you’re scooter curious”.

He’s right! I like the idea of scooters (which are functionally the same as saying “tiny motorcycles”). I don’t have one butI’d happily park a scooter in amid my motorcycles. (Alas it’s snowing so I’ll ride no more this year. Bummer!)]

In the last few years American markets are starting to see scooters gain in popularity. I love them! If they sold in America at the dirt cheap prices they’re sold in Asia I’d already have one (or two). In particular, the Honda ADV 160 seems like it can handle 55MPH easily and still go on a dirt road without puking parts. It has a big cargo “hold” and gets around 100 MPG.

The interesting part is that these silly machines appeal not just to a nut like me but other people who I assume are less nutty. It’s weird to see that in America. Americans invariably prefer their machinery to be overpowered, heavy, fast, loud, and expensive. Tiny scooters were mocked in the past. That’s what I would expect.

Yet, perhaps driven by economics or demographics, scooters are gradually gaining acceptance. They’re considered legit adult machines. Sure, lots of beefy dudes in bars swear they’d never ride one but many “real” riders (like yours truly) enjoy like the idea. More importantly, people who aren’t “biker people” might be timidly joining the hobby.

I didn’t expect that. I’m “scooter curious” myself but I never expected to have company. In a world where a sizeable tonnage of 4×4 SUV is considered “necessary”, scooters are an outlier. I hope we’ll see more of them in the future.

Pondering this reminded me of a thing that happened long ago. I’ve probably written about it before. Too bad, I remember it fondly and will re-tell the story. It’s my blog after all.

About 20 years ago I was riding “the loneliest highway in America”. That’s route 50 in Utah/Nevada and it is heaven; a dusty empty deserted heaven.

I’d spent the night in Green River, UT. That’s an equally beautiful area of the Rockies even if it is on the Interstate. I was heading west. I crossed over to route 50, gassed up near Delta, and hadn’t seen a human being since. If you’re worried about planetary overpopulation, spend time in Utah!

The conditions were good. I headed west more or less bumping into the rev limiter of my 1100cc cruiser. It was roaring happily. I was grinning like a loon. I had sufficient fuel and hoped to tank up at the Nevada line. That was my only plan. Ride west, fuel up, ride more.

Somewhere out there in the glorious nothing I spotted a speck on the horizon. I closed distance like a cruise missile. In a split second I recognized it as a little scooter. I blew past it in an absolute cacophony of power and speed; like an F-14 crossing paths with a butterfly. In the blink of an eye, the little critter faded in my rear view mirror.

A while later I saw a dry lakebed. Google tells me it was Sevler Lake. There was water out there somewhere but I sure as hell couldn’t see it. I parked on the dry mud and explored on foot. There was a sign that said “Do not drive on the lake bed. You will get stuck! Tow costs $150.” I didn’t doubt it. There were truck tracks and it looked like even lifted Jeeps would struggle in that soft goo.

I hiked a bit out into the mud but even walking was sketchy. I turned around, very thankful I hadn’t done anything stupid to get my bike stuck. I fired up my bike and rolled back onto pavement.

A few minutes later I saw the scooter again. As before, I blew past it like a thunderbolt. This time I held out my hand with a thumb’s up. I was impressed. Dude had somehow gotten in front of me in a “tortoise and hare” moment. Good on him!

I don’t remember how much further it was to the Nevada line. Maybe an hour at 95-ish miles per hour?

I tanked up my bike and spent some time soaking up air conditioning. I was eating crappy road food and looking out the window when the little scooter showed up. Amazing!

This was a long time ago when scooters were called mopeds. It probably had 50cc at most. It was a urban street toy. Yet somehow that little gadget had rolled all the way to the middle of the damn desert.

I walked out to congratulate the guy. “Dude, you rode all the way here on that? Awesome!”

He was a nice guy. I don’t remember his appearance well. He was non-descript, like an accountant. He wasn’t equipped (or at least obviously so) for long range desert shenanigans. I think he had a T-shirt and jeans.

I was the opposite. My bike was laden with gear. I had a container of spare gas, and plenty of water. I was dressed in the classic cruiser safety mode; like a combination goth lunatic and leather fetishist. My helmet had a mirror shield and probably cost more than that guy’s whole machine. My bike was massive and chrome. Internally it was liquid cooled, shaft driven, had electronics to keep me from frying it by flogging it too hard.

I was loaded for bear, this guy looked like an accountant making a quick run to Kinkos down by the mall. Yet here we were… both of us.

I was impressed!

We struck up a conversation. Turns out he was from Salt Lake City. He’d been riding this little lunch box well over 200 miles!

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He had no idea. Now that I think about it, I didn’t have a plan for myself either. Dredging my memory, I think I spent the night at Battle Mountain, NV, some 300 miles northwest. Such a distance was inconceivable on a scooter; then again look where he’d already gotten. Sometimes inconceivable means impossible but often it means “I wish I’d tried that too”.

We only talked a little bit. I bid him farewell not 10 minutes later, roaring back on the road like a dragon with it’s ass on fire. I’ll always remember what he said:

“I dunno’. I guess I want to see how far I’ll get.”

He was probably one of the freest people I’ve ever met.

I’m not sure if he was fleeing something in Salt Lake, seeking something in Nevada, or just soaking up the sun. I know only that he was sputtering through God’s country without a care in the world.

I’ll always have a special place in my heart for that guy. I assume he somehow made it to the Pacific. I like to think he did whatever he intended to do. As much as I love my big cruiser he made me think it was superfluous. I started wondering about smaller bikes. Hell, that guy was traveling damn near at the speed of mule and yet he was getting wherever he was going. He probably spent no more than pocket change on gas. He was the real deal.

In my mind I nicknamed him the Pavement Sage. I was (and am) truly a rider, but he was something more. I’m glad I met him.