About Scooters as a Vehicle Class

Article Table of Contents

• non-american scooter norms
• Check out the map of where I’ve ridden my scooter
• not scooters, not cars
• How I got into scooting, as a normal person
• On maps, displaying trips
• Various reasons josh likes scooters
• Scooters and bicycles
• Scooters and motorcycles
• Footnotes

this page is still in a bit of a draft mode.

I pursue ease, joy, and meaningfulness. Sometimes successfully.

some of this ease, joy, for me comes from being able to effortlessly move around the city I live in, parking literally where ever I want, always very close to my destination. I ride something a bit bigger than a bicycle, that is fairly fast, and powered by something other than my own legs, that is not a motorcycle.

It’s a scooter, and you deserve to be warned that I’m going to low-key try to convince you that it’s reasonable to buy yourself a scooter. For many potential readers, I must note that if one’s defaults are based in American-style road norms, it’s pretty hostile to scooters.

I’d like to point out an example of a place that handles scooters very gracefully, and thus gets tons of benefits totally unavailable to a place so colonized, or affected, by some groups. In The Power Broker there’s a chapter titled “The Highwaymen”, about, well, rubber, concrete, steel, cars, petroleum, glass, and more. more here

Sometimes a scooter is best contrasted to a different vehicle like a bicycle, but sometimes it’s best contrasted to a vehicle like a car. I still maintain it’s a class unto itself, and maybe you’ll agree. I’m also terrified of motorcycle culture and fast vehicles in general. I find american roads very unsafe for everyone for a bunch of reasons, maybe we’ll talk about them someday.

A big part of this sort of vehicle usage in America is, thus, using it safely, especially given how american drivers sometimes treat bicyclists or pedestrians or other ‘vulnerable’ road users. With savvy, awareness, and skill one can traverse pretty much any environment unobtrusively, peacefully, smoothly enough, even sometimes quickly, even at night or in the cold, even/especially if/when there is rush hour traffic.

Lastly, you’re right to find “other people also using the road” to be the most dangerous part of using a scooter. If it was just you and empty asphalt, it would feel and would be much more safe.

The danger is instantly multiplied when there are other users of the space, especially users inside of cars and car-like things. generally internal combustion engines and four tires, sometimes electric, sometimes six tires. You get the vibe. They weigh 3000-6000 lbs, can be very throttly, etc. We can talk about all of this, and it’s the part that stresses me out the most, and it’s rooted in supremacy in american institutions and the people who built them!

But this can all be navigated safely, and the bump in mobility one gets by having a scooter, even if “just” for 1-3 mile trips, is quite distinctive. It’s fun and engaging, very inexpensive, and is a close-enough full replacement for a vehicle that to depend on a car but not have the option of something like a scooter also feels uncomfortable to me, now.

a vehicle like that could move around like a fluid.

One of my favorite things about using a scooter in the USA, especially in cities, is how they can be parked anywhere, and in large numbers. If me and a few friends are meeting up for something, parking is virtually effortless, even in places otherwise full of cars.

• a video from my tiktok about scooting
• taking several bags of groceries home from the nearest trader joes in Denver, effortless on a scooter
• I always get the best/closest/most-convenient parking spaces on this vehicle, at every stop of the way. all the parking at my building I’ve discussed with everyone involved, and they’re fine with it. I end up with free, covered parking, at my house it’s often inside a locked gate, and I leave a cover over it, for extra weather/dust protection and the ‘security via obscurity’ thing.
• there was an event downtown and traffic was super stopped… but not for scooters

I believe scooters are a tremendous and convivial vehicle class, and those who do the work of learning how to safely and comfortably operate them in a certain range of conditions can unlock shocking ease and adventure for themselves.

In the time lapses, sometimes one can detect very conventional riding, and then less conventional, or more akin to a mountain bike than a car. (tiny u-turns, easing up and over a curb). Sometimes one can feel and perhaps be quite interesting, piecing together trips from place to place.

here’s a nighttime scoot in Denver:

• throwback to a cousin doing a test ride of the first scooter I owned, right after I obtained it. its delightful. note the full-face helmet and temp tags. I had the full-face helmet before I bought the scooter
• a little about the specific scooter I have

non-american scooter norms #

This whole piece is already long, I extracted this section into it’s own piece.

Sometimes I’ve told people “I ride with Asian scooter norms.” or “I ride with Balinese scooter norms”. This deserves its own page of explanation.

👉 non-western scooter norms

Check out the map of where I’ve ridden my scooter #

around Denver, and the world.

I’ve traveled nearly each block and alley of shocking amounts of the city of Denver.

Even on foot, friends/co-workers would note how quickly and eagerly I always explore alleys and turns and such. ¹

I’d spent years of my life hardly going beyond Golden, CO (limited to what was bikable) then got a scooter and all of denver opened up. Then I separated from my then partner, got divorced, moved a few times, my partner and child moved, i’ve done work in different places, I meander hard even on the best of days, and more. Zoom out, and appreciate how shocking it is, the amount of the city and front range I’ve traveled with this vehicle:

And that vehicle did this particular trip once too:

There’s gaps on this map, but not many:

Josh’s mobility data, visualized open it and zoom around!

not scooters, not cars #

I would love to follow a scooter rider around when I have my drone above them. I tried something similar with a group of people, some on regular bicycles, I think one on an e-bike, and maybe one on a scooter, riding along and chatting.

Here is: take 1 take 0

This kind of movement pattern is extremely accessible on the scooter.

How I got into scooting, as a normal person #

Here’s a recap of my journey into scooting:

1. As a kid, I had a mountain bike and rode adventurously in the neighborhood and surrounding areas. built little jumps and ramps and obstacles for myself and the other kids. I’m not skilled at all compared to some people, and I’m deeply skilled on a bicycle compared to others.
2. Later, as a young adult, did bike commuting, while also using trains and busses, Got pretty good and aware at riding around a city with a bicycle, including knowing some paths/routes at all times of day/different conditions
3. had a car, always a used sedan by honda or toyota, as an older adult, and quite infrequently.
4. got a city commuting bike when living in Golden, CO, late 20s/early 30s and spent a TON of time riding it around the city of Golden, CO, esp during Covid. Take a look here to see some of my biking (and walking/running) in Golden.
5. eventually found myself a bit limited for getting around, especially if my destination was a bit outside of Golden, or there was nighttime or inclement weather to take into account
6. didn’t feel great about an e-bike (quite expensive, and still limited to ‘bicycle stuff’), also didn’t feel good about a motorcycle.
7. the first covid cancellation I had in february 2020 was my motorcycle riders training class. It was cancelled, I ended up not rescheduling for over a year.
8. I finally took it, anyway, thought I might some day want a small motorcycle but really didn’t like the machines, even the little ones they had for the course. This was sometime in 2021
9. at a bike event in Golden, found myself chatting with an emergency room doctor, talking about his really cool cargo e-bike, that was carrying many people and things. He loved it, and it was more expensive than any car I’d ever purchased. (It was $11k!) He agreed with me about not liking motorcycles, and he suggested I consider a scooter. At that point I hadn’t considered this, so this nudge was extremely helpful.
10. I’d forgotten that I’d ridden a 50cc scooter in Greece once, as a rental to get around the island of Kalymnos for climbing, and didn’t enjoy how loud it was, and it didn’t feel safe, especially with a passenger and a hill and their bucket style helmets. What I ended up with in Golden was vastly improved, smoother, nearly completely silent.
11. I drove myself to sportique scooters and rode a few scooters around. A few days later, I purchased a brand new 125cc scooter. It was cute, gave Luca vibes.
12. I used that scooter for a year or so and many miles, eventually started riding it to and from Denver once or twice a week, when I got a job at a company that had the option of using an office.
13. Eventually it got stolen (tragic!), I replaced it with a larger scooter, my current scooter, $3200 brand new, and my life was changed. This was the best vehicle I’d ever encountered, it unlocked an unbelievable amount of enjoyable experiences. ²

It was the summer of 2021, that I got my first scooter, after biking around town exclusively and finding some things about it lacking, and so began a huge shift for my life.

Originally, I rode this 125cc scooter around Golden, exclusively. Mostly where I rode my bike. I figured out how to ride safely with traffic, and had a TON of fun finding all the places I could go with the scooter.

I subsequently got a remote job but with an available to use if I wanted office in Denver, and at least some times would ride my scooter from Golden, to Denver, and back.

That commute was where I really squared away a lot of details, a lot of beta, for getting a lot of usage out of this sort of vehicle. The 125cc scooter was not quite up to the task, in ways I didn’t fully appreciate until being forced to get a different scooter (theft!) and I got a 170cc scooter with slightly larger tires. It made all the difference.

I’d not locked the steering column when I left it outside a climbing gym, and someone had been driving by in a box truck, spotted it, parked, and simply rolled the scooter into the back of the van and drove off. I eventually recovered the vehicle, but it had been hotwired, the seat was broken open, and then the main problem was it was crashed, so the front forks were damaged. It ended up at the denver police vehicle impound lot, supposedly someone was arrested while riding it, but it was heavily damaged and unridable when I got it at the police impound lot, so who knows what happened.

I replaced it with a 170cc scooter with larger tires and a little more weight and suspension. This instantly made my commute from Golden to Denver much more comfortable and safe.

I eventually rode that 170cc scooter from Denver to Canada, then Seattle, and back.

That trip helped me get MUCH more beta about skilled scootering. Weather, distance, hammock camping, and more.

I then spent a bunch of time in different parts of Asia. (Bali, Taiwan, Thailand, Nepal) riding scooters in each country. I found it possible to be safe in all of the places I rode.

I ride with ‘asian scooter norms’ or ‘balinese scooter norms’, as I’ve mentioned. more on that here

For instance:

I’ve got lots of timelapse footage floating around, and appreciate that when I post a big timelapse, it might look like I’m moving a lot faster than I actually am. My favorite speed is “never wanting or needing to go any faster than 30mph”.

On maps, displaying trips #

I’ve got a whole thing with tracking the exact places I’ve gone, and then putting it on a map, and doing interesting things with the data.

For starters, look here

This is a banal intersection in Denver, Colorado. The lines represent my ‘paths’ I’ve taken, when I’ve walked around or been riding my scooter, and ‘recording’ my trip.

I use a certain phone application called Strava to record very accurately where I have traveled. The data can be quite accurate. I’ve been tracking my own location data in a ahem non-trivial fashion for a while, precisely to build the map you can look at above.

So, you can zoom out on that map link above, and see that I have traveled around rather a lot of the city of Denver, and beyond.

This page is ultimately aimed at trying to get you to consider buying this sort of vehicle for yourself, even if ‘just’ for occasional use. There’s a common sort of conversations about scooters, often comparing and contrasting them with either e-bikes, stand-up type e-scooters, motorcycles, and cars.

In each of these cases, I want to say, firmly, something like “Yes, I see what you are saying, but I still maintain that there is a fundamental mis-apprehension you have for how flexible and convenient this sort of vehicle is and can be.”

If you’re looking at this page, it’s possible you’ve seen my scooter parked somewhere, and indeed scanned the QR code on the side.

I plan on making a little complaints form on this page, so if something I’ve done with the scooter causes you consternation, I’d love to hear about it. It’s possible that I believe you, and or/I agree with you, and/or I care. Regardless, there’s only one way to know, so feel free to email me.

Various reasons josh likes scooters #

They are cheap. My first scooter, a Genuine Buddy Kick, 125 was $3500, new. This is not cheap compared to my first bike, but it’s cheap compared to a car. My bicycle cost me $130, but that was pre-covid. I know people that spend $3000 on a bike, or much more.

That scooter eventually got stolen, and I replaced it with a Lance Cabo 200i also for $3500. It was an unexpectedly delightful upgrade, with larger tires and displacement, doing better with passengers, gear, and higher speeds. I ended up realizing I could easily do hammock camping with it, while riding around the front range, and then I rode it to Canada and back, for a training in building buildings in the style of ‘rammed earth’.

Insurance is cheap. (I’ve got State Farm, full, comprehensive coverage, for like $60/month)

A tank of gas is $4.50, and gets close to 100mpg. The tank is only 1.5 in size, and you never run it down to empty. I often enough put just a gallon of gas in it at a time.

I can park it almost anywhere. Including sidewalks, and scooter friends can as well, so even going to something like a night market or park event or convention or concert or Red Rocks, I can zip right to the closest spot to the door/entrance, and find a place to park.

Free use of parking garages. You can ride around the gate or through a pedestrian access point.

Scooters and bicycles #

I’ll also mention motorcycle comparisons sometimes too, after comparing scooters and bicycles. I have so many friends in Denver that ride bicycles, and then will say they’re not ‘brave enough’ to ride a scooter.

I’m always shocked - riding a bike around an american city, and thus having to share car infrastructure, or use the bike infrastructure if it’s available, seems terrifying to me.

• all forms of signaling to other road users on a bicycle is challenging. sometimes it’s nice to have a brake light and turn signals. on a bicycle, if I’m slowing and making a right-hand turn, I cannot signal to anyone else that I am slowing down, and I have to remove a hand from the handlebar and the brake lever, to wave about what direction I’m turning, and then I have to do the turn.
• on a scooter, I can toggle the turn signal with my thumb, and the turn signal that faces forward and backwards stays on until I turn it off. I have automatically activated brake lights, like a car. I can signal braking and turning to everyone around without taking a hand off the handlebar, or even thinking about it, and it’s extremely visible, during the entire turn, to people ahead of me and behind me, what I am doing.
• Scooters have a low center of gravity and more mass than a bycycle, so adding another person to a scooter feels much less challenging than a person on a bicycle. It was intimidating, but I once carried a 180lb friend AND 50 lbs of his stuff, plus me, on my scooter.
• Scooters have built in headlights and high beams, and built in power systems for those lights, and they are not removable, so there’s no theft risk of leaving the lights on your scooter when not at the scooter, and there’s never a time when you might want to use the vehicle but won’t have lights with you.
• Scooters can get up to speed and take space in a lane that mimics a motorcycle, and cars don’t even consider trying to overtake a scooter, like is common on a bicycle.
• Scooters have incredible stability, really hard to appreciate until riding one around and then a bicycle in short order.
• Scooters have no shifting, it’s simpler than riding a bike with gears. No peddling, either. All of your attention can go to navigating the environment, vs the complication of dealing with shifting, peddling.
• Scooters carry most added weight low (backpack on floor boards, for instance), next to 12” tires, instead of high, like above the seat on 26” tires. I remember how the bicycle balance would change if I put 20 lbs of gear on the front basket. I can put 60 lbs on the floorboards of my scooter and very little about the handling changes.
• Scooters allow for both feet to easily be placed on the ground when stationary, and you can begin applying throttle while feet are still on the ground.

Scooters and motorcycles #

I am quite comfortable and happy with scooters, and often enough notice when people think that I must also feel positively about riding motorcycles. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am afraid of them, I don’t like them (either to ride on them or, in the USA, to have them ride near me) and I don’t anticipate ever riding one again. I rode a motorcycle when taking a Motorcycle Rider’s Safety Course, to get my motorcyclist endorsement on my license.

To operate a motorcycle, one needs to use a throttle in conjunction with a shifter, in conjunction with a clutch. Scooters have a continuous variable transmission, that is operated exclusively by a twist throttle on the right hand. There’s no clutch, there’s no shifting mechanism, there’s no shifting up or down. Motorcycles will consume ten times the congnitive resources to move smoothly, which leaves vastly less time and attention to attend to other things, like other car drivers and road conditions.

Scooters have a very low center of gravity compared to a motorcycle. This is particularly relevant when pushing around on the scooter on legs, while getting in and out of parking spots and such.

Never does one ‘speed down a highway’ on a scooter on an American highway. It’s unenjoyable to go above 55 mph on the size scooters I’ve ridden, and even that is way faster than I usually prefer.

When I first started riding my scooter, it was an upgrade from my regular leg-powered bycycle, and so I rode it on the same paths and places as I rode my bicycle. I always look for things like bike infrastructure, or quiet and peaceful roads to operate my vehicle on.

Again, riding a scooter in America is a very different, much worse experience than riding a scooter in say Taipei or a city in Bali.

Scooters are light and don’t need to be driven quickly. The seating position is very comfortable.

Footnotes #