Scooters. It’s Summer In the City

Yesterday my wife and I rode our bikes to the outskirts of Chicago.  That’s where the scooter dealers are.  We have been toying with purchasing a scooter for awhile-but haven’t pulled the trigger.  We are a one car family.  Just have a diesel powered BMW X5.  It’s a great car for what we needed it for.  We bought it in Jan of 2009, and have 85,000 miles on it.

We are thinking of taking a long driving trip out west. If we do that, I suppose we will eventually turn 90k this year!

One of our daughters wants a scooter, no surprise there.  I had some time on my hands and decided to ride bikes and do some investigatory work.

I don’t know anything about scooters.  We have some needs.  It’s got to be big enough to cart me around at a reasonable price.  It has to be automatic.  Not clutch.  My oldest daughter had a Chinese scooter and found they were cheap.  So, no Chinese scooters.

We checked out the Buddy 150′s.  They seem to have enough power, with enough storage to be something other than a way to get around.  A friend of mine pointed out, Buddy Scooters are a Chicago startup story.

I went online-and there is a dearth of anything about scooters. There aren’t too many online sights that sell them. I went to eBay ($EBAY), and there weren’t a ton of listings. Perhaps they aren’t too popular.

Vespa is the standard when it comes to scooters. But they are also the most expensive. I like the looks of the Vespa 300-but it’s right around $7000. But they are cool looking.

We want low maintenance. I realize there is some, but I want it to be idiot proof.

I think the wheel size makes a difference. Smaller wheels equal more bumps. Chicago doesn’t exactly have the smoothest roads. Bigger wheels will make a difference. We found some Taiwan scooters that had bigger wheel size. Lance seems to make a nice one.

Scooters are great for getting around the city. What does anyone know about them?

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