Like you David I regret not starting riding sooner. I let other people stop me. My fault.

I love those old films. YouTube is a wealth of similar material.

MAN tested– shows where the world was. Not unlike the things seen in the TV series “Mad Men”.

Never mind my mistrust of proclamations of “cheap oil for the rest of the decade.” If I were an investment sort, I’d be shorting any company that swallowed that bit of snake oil…Fiat-Chrysler topping the list at the moment. What’s driving sales of PTWs in large cities (I can speak of New York from personal experience) isn’t simply fuel economy: it’s urban congestion, and the related pain of owning and driving a four-wheled vehicle in those squeezed urban circumstances. Driving’s a drag, parking is dicey on the street (your shiny beauty won’t stay that way for long outside – it’s not exactly great for scooters either), and expensive off the street. Throw in the costs of wear-and-tear and you’re left with a lot of people, millenials in particular, deciding to chuck the idea of car ownership entirely – if they must drive someplace, there’s always Zipcar or the like. Otherwise there’s public transport, or, for the slightly more independence-minded, a scooter. The scooter ecosphere in Gotham, while not quite as rich as in some European cities, is nonetheless fairly active, and Vespas are well represented.

Now, if only things can get started here in Asbury…

Well here’s a few people in Taiwan using them:

https://youtu.be/ccFhOCo-rDo [2 minute video]

I’m always absolutely amazed at the number of scooters AND motorcycles in Europe. They come in all shapes and sizes, and are so much more practical than cars in the big cities.

The off-road test was interesting, too. Who knew scooters were put through man tests such as those? 🙂

Thanks for sharing.