Tag Archives: Scooters

July 15, 2010 — The two-wheel community in the Twin Cities is as varied as it is awesome. One of my favorite local shops is Bluecat Motors in St. Paul. It’s an unassuming little shop nestled in the shadow of an old water tower, in one end of an old warehouse, in the old industrial part of town. The reason I appreciate Bluecat Motors so much is their complete lack of snobbery. If it’s got two wheels and a motor, they’re into it. They’ll work on it. They’ll help you find parts for it. They’ve got their specialties — cafe racer conversions, near-vintage Japanese and British motorcycles — but even if you’ve got something weird and old they’ve never seen before, they’ll at least try to help you out with it. Bluecat is also one of the only places I know of where you can find restored Lambretta scooters on the showroom floor. Beyond their sales and service, Bluecat is a perenial major sponsor of the Rattle My Bones scooter rally, the local Mods and Rockers event, and the Bearded Lady Motorcycle Freak Show. Recently I discovered that Bluecat started doing a Third Thursday event this year, so this week I hopped on my CB650 to check it out.

Today we get our first real snowstorm of winter. What that means, among other things, is that the 2009 riding season is officially over. I winterized my Vespa several weeks ago, but this makes it official. 2009 is done.

In November, I reached the two year riding mark. I’ve now ridden about 10,000 miles on four different scooters. In short, it’s been a blast. This is easily one of the best things I’ve ever gotten into. But as fun as the …

I’m talking to you, Winter. Show up or shut up.

October 31, 2009 — With The Mrs out of town visiting friends, the nearly 60º weather today meant I simply had to get on my Vespa while I still could. Weather lately has been gloomy at best. With the wettest October in the history of civilization, I had pretty much given up hope on doing any more riding in 2009. Weather forecasts now look like rideable weather all week long. I’m not really complaining, it’s just that I thought we were done. I’ve already started winterizing the scooters! And by winterize, I mean run stabilized fuel through both scooters until they run out of gas, then park them for the winter. Thankfully, neither bike is fully empty yet, so I was able to make it to a nearby station and fill up for a much needed ride.

October 4, 2009 — Today I went for the best ride I’ve had all season. It wasn’t a long ride, only about an hour. What made it such a great ride was two things: I met someone interesting, and I rediscovered a great stretch of scenic road.

September 26th, 2009 — I love autumn in Minnesota. I started riding scooters in November two years ago and this time of year re-energizes my love for riding. Perfectly on cue, the leaves started changing right on labor day this year and though a lot of green remains, this weekend was the first time the weather turned just slightly chilly and truly autumnal. Such a great time to ride.

Special thanks to the folks over at Los Vesparados for featuring my Flickr set of their site.

Los Vesparados: The Art of the Scooter Ride Log: Los Vesparados

August 23, 2009 — So this morning I had only one thing on my agenda: attend the Wheels of Italy car and bike show over at Lake Calhoun. This seemed a simple enough photo mission and I was already imagining the kinds of groovy Ferrari and Lambo photos I would be posting to Flickr before the day was done. I sent a text message to my buddy Bree to see if he wanted to attend and then set about having a simple breakfast, putting on simple clothes, and getting ready for my simple day. Feel that sense of impending doom? I sure didn’t.

August 14, 2009 — For each scooter season here in the Twin Cities, there is one event that defines the year: Rattle My Bones. This year was no exception. The last three years have really — at least in my opinion — been extremely good events. The first year of RMB was also my first time attending a scooter rally. I didn’t even own a bike yet, but still had a great time. I couldn’t believe there was such a thing, let alone that it included stuff like gymkhana, paintball jousting, or hundreds of scooters of every make, model and decade. Last year I learned the pure adrenaline sport that is ride blocking. This year was all of that and more.