Thinking About Size

I shouldn’t be surprised how many ways there are to dismiss people and things with a word or a gesture.  Humanity revels in differentiating one group from another.  On a near insignificant level it happens with motorcycles and scooters.  “That’s an entry level bike,” or “That’s a chick bike,” can be taken in a number of ways.  At least the first phrase.

Entry level can refer to a machine that’s easy to handle for a beginning rider — light, nimble and manageable power.  Or it can mean a first step in a series of machines leading to a logical end — an arbitrary assessment by the person applying the phrase.  Usually it means a path to a larger, more powerful machine and assumes bigger is better.  And then entry level can be applied as a dismissive term — only losers and cowards, the Casper Milktoasts of riders would even consider such a machine.

The more straightforward dismissal is to refer to a motorcycle as a chick bike — as if I real man would not be caught dead on such a device.  I always wonder if women riders have some similar dismissive terms for various motorcycles and scooters.  I know they have them for pick up trucks and the boys that drive them.  Often it’s just a hand signal involving the thumb and index finger.

Scooters are all entry level machines from one perspective.  And even among scooter riders there’s a hierarchy.  The only chick scooters seem to be the pink ones.

When my friend Paul and I rode to breakfast last weekend I was in the odd position of having the “big” machine.  The Vespa GTS 250 dwarfs the 1965 Vespa.  But the real story — the vintage Vespa moved along just as fast as the new one on the roads we traveled.Continue Reading