The Joy of Mobility

The true pleasure of riding a two-wheeled vehicle is the deep sense of mobility it offers. Driving generally makes me feel free: I am going where I want to go and, when it's a holiday drive, moving in the direction and at the pace I want to go. But a car only connects me visually to the landscapes and cityscapes I'm driving through. On a scooter, I smell the pizza shop at the corner, the flowers in a garden or the rotting food on the days when the green bins sit on the curb. On a scooter, I hear the radio in the car beside me and the conversation on the sidewalk. On a scooter, I feel the sun, the rain and most of all, definitely most of all, the wind. As each sensation comes and goes I am constantly reminded of the movement of my body on the scooter. And although I don't usually dwell on this, the risk of riding a scooter in traffic, the knowledge that my mobility could be destroyed by a wrong decision on my part or an idiotic move on someone else's part adds to my appreciation of the fragility of mobility and my responsibility for doing all I can to safeguard it.

Mobility  - moving easily and freely - is important to me and I do know how lucky I am to be able to enjoy it. I remember how my daughter screamed each time she was fastened in a car seat as a toddler. I related to the constriction she felt even though I was the enforcer. I also remember exactly how I felt the first time I left the Dadaab Refugee Camps in Kenya after witnessing the lives of refugees who had been stuck in the camps for almost twenty years. When the plane taking me away from the camp took off I felt such relief - and such guilt - at my ability to move. And I just have to hear the roar of a motorcycle to take me back to a time when I felt stuck as a teenager at the dining table when the boys in town were out on the roads moving at their own free will.

I've been thinking about mobility a lot lately because I've been riding my scooter back and forth to first a hospital and now a rehab centre where my husband is recovering from an operation to return mobility to a hip and leg (his story to tell, which I'm sure he will). As I watch him learn how to move about without putting weight on one leg, how to manage the simple steps of life that those without injuries or illness take for granted, I am both awed at how he copes and aware how difficult I would find the situation.

Yesterday, riding my scooter to see him I realized I was not enjoying my ride. In fact, I was so preoccupied by so many things that I was almost unaware of my own movement. Then, when I turned on a street that was nearly empty and downhill I felt the wind slap my face as I picked up speed, forcing me to pay attention. It was a wonderful moment.  I actually felt my eyes closing to savour the moment. Then I laughed at the ridiculousness of my reaction and I became aware of my movement again.

My husband and a friend with a bad knee used to have an inside joke; they described those without mobility problems as TABs or Temporarily Able Bodied. We are all TABS and those of lucky enough to enjoy free movement should be grateful.

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To follow up on my post about trying to use my scooter as a beast of burden, here's a stair basket I found on wonderful Spadina Avenue in Toronto. It's perfect for carrying odd-shaped, light packages - keep the heavy items for under the seat or the backpack. Make sure to balance things properly.

You know scooters are getting popular when...

I'm pretty lucky really. I've had my scooter for about seven years now and, other than fearing I'd lost it to the businessman who was supposed to store it safely one winter, I've never encountered a scooter thief. I do take some precautions, like locking the steering whenever I park the bike and storing it out of site at home. I have even used a U bolt on the back tire when I parked it outside my workplace, knowing that all locks can be broken but also knowing it would take a thief some time to take it apart on a busy Toronto street. But I have done stupid things too, like forgetting my keys in the ignition. In fact, one day I left my scooter the whole working day on that same busy street with the key in the ignition attached to an inviting blue key chain. I thanked the Scooter Gods that day.

When any product becomes popular with consumers, it becomes attractive to thieves. It has ever thus been so. - Think of the stories of copper rooves being torn off churches in England as the price of the metal rises - Motorcycles and scooters are no exception; in fact, they are easy targets. They are small enough that they can be carted away by a group of burly thieves and mechanically simple enough to be tampered with by a smart one who can roll it away. Stories about scooter thefts turn up around the world. The police in Delhi, India just arrested a gang who had been stealing scooters and selling them at junk markets. They caught another thief last week after noticing a crowd chasing a man through the streets. He had just tried to steal a scooter using a master key, something he is alleged to have done before. But it's not just in India; police in Australia, Great Britain report higher rates of scooter theft. One of the saddest stories of late came from England. Ricky made what living he could in a depressed economy delivering fast food on his scooter. It was stolen outside a friend's house and now Ricky can't work.

The United States is no exception. In Florida, Cpl Doug White of the Hillsborough Country Sheriff's Office reported that although his county has seen "almost a double-digit decrease in crime in the last few years," it has witnessed a 10 percent increase in motorcycle and scooter thefts in the first half of this year. "These scooter are an economical way for families to get around," he said.

There's even an on line site where U.S. riders register their stolen scooter: http://scoot.net/stolen/  .

So how easily is it done? According to the police from Hillsborough County it doesn't help when people leave the keys in the ignition (whoops), don't lock their steering mechanism, or leave their scooters in their garages with the doors open (think I've done that too.)

But some thiefs will just break the steering mechanism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN9RqQBPxJk Watch a thief try to do that. He doesn't manage it but did cause extensive damage to the scooter.

Atlanta police released this video of scooter thieves in action. It takes a while to see what they are doing and it's hard to tell how they got the scooter or whether it was locked, but they did roll it away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_3futDKypM

So what can be done? The Annapolis police have created a Scooter Watch Theft Protection Plan. It involves decals that are applied to the front and the rear of the scooter which means riders are willing to be stopped by police to prove ownership.

http://www.annapolis.gov/Government/Departments/PoliceDepartment/CommunityConnection/ScooterWatch.aspx

If you don't mind being stopped by police, it's not a bad idea. But there are other ways to decrease the risk of having your scooter stolen - beyond the simple ones like taking your key with you, locking your steering if you can and keeping your scooter out of site at home. The site Safe Rider recommends securing your scooter to something fixed with chains, or using U bolts and disc locks. It also suggests marking as many parts of the bike as you can to make it less attractive to thieves for resale. This, it suggests, can be done with ultra violet pens.

Other sites recommend alarms, some that go off if the scooter is tilted, some that are attached to the disc brakes.

I eventually stopped using my U lock. It took time to put it on and off and I got complacent. I guess every scooter rider has to assess the risk of every situation. The extra precautions may take some of the fun out of scootering but could mean you'll be doing it longer.

The Men with the Door

The way I see it, there are three reasons to ride a scooter. It's fun - that almost goes without saying; it's an efficient, economical means of urban transportation; and it's a beast of burden.

Beast of Burden? When you hear those words you probably think more of this:

Donkeys in the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya used to carry needed loads of firewood.

                                                                                                  Photo: Debi Goodwin

Donkeys, horses, elephants: they are the beasts that save people's backs in much of the world. In North America, cars and trucks have become the beasts of burden for most of us. They're how we get our lumber, our food, our patio furniture to our homes. And in countries where scooters and small motorcycles outnumber cars it's astonishing to see the extent to which they are used as beasts of burden.

In Vietnam, watching riders pass by, loaded down with everything from toilet paper to trees to - yes - flat-screen TVs, I was impressed by just how much they could load on their vehicles and how ingeniously they managed to strap their loads down.

                                                              

                                                       

              
                                                                                                    All photos: Debi Goodwin

I've been thinking a lot about how to use my scooter since I came back from Vietnam. Being a practical person, I like the things I own to be useful. So now that I don't ride my scooter for my daily commute, I'm looking for different ways to use it and justification for owning it beyond the fun rides. More and more I am taking my scooter for errands that I used to use the car for. With a backpack, a bag between my legs and storage under the seat I am now able to carry home a week's worth of groceries.

However, I still have a far way to go to match the riders in Vietnam. Sometimes, I think about the men with the door. I saw them on a busy street in Ho Chi Minh City and had to laugh - I just couldn't imagine anyone trying to carry a door through a busy North American city on a small motorcycle, but there they were. Who knows how far they had to go with the passenger sitting on the very back of the bike - the equivalent part of my scooter says: "do not sit"  - holding tight to the door squeezed between them.

                                                                                                   Photo: Debi Goodwin

Not that I plan to try carry doors. But I would like to figure out a way to carry odd-shaped things: strips of lumber and flats of plants and that sort of thing. Yesterday, I thought I'd give it a go. I had a coupon that was running out for the expensive furnace filters we like. I thought I'd try to find a way to bring a package of them home on my scooter. I had bungee cords and some rope, but when I tried to lash down a similar filter I had at home onto my scooter, I couldn't seem to keep it from sticking out too far on one side, or too far off the back of the scooter. It was also too high to stick between my legs and two wide for a backpack. In the end, as rain threatened, I just got in my car. But I've been puzzling over it since and realized I was thinking of the scooter with my North American brain. As soon as I thought of the seat as part of a transportation platform, I had the filters on in no time. Strips of lumber: I still have to think about them.

                                                                                                    Photo: Debi Goodwin

Scooting into the Future

There's no surer sign that scooters are becoming essential all over the world than the number of businesses jumping at getting into the scooter market. And there's no surer sign that those businesses believe scooters are here to stay than the innovative features, like built-in GPS, they're coming up with, and engines they're redesigning for the green market.

We're not just seeing more "super" or "hyper'' scooters that are powerful enough to cut into the motorcycle market, and more three-wheeled scooters for riders who want an even greater sense of balance. We're seeing products designed for the future like BMW's new electric scooter. This is not the electric scooter we're used to, the one that can only piddle along in bicycle lanes, confusing drivers and causing lawmakers to scratch their heads over how to licence them. No. This is a real scooter that just happens to be electrically powered. A scooter that can go up to 75 miles an hour. A real vehicle that one can keep up with urban traffic and, therefore, follow the laws of the roads. Sure you have to charge it after 62 miles but you can get around a lot of city and suburbia on that. And it's clean.

Perhaps more intriguing is a scooter coming out of China. It's a hydrogen-powered scooter that promises to be more than two times more efficient than gasoline models. We've been talking about hydrogen-powered vehicles for years in Canada. I remember doing a story a long time back on the prototype hydrogen-powered buses that came out of Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver. Ballard was working on the fuel cells; for the fuel itself we went to a company in Toronto. Everyone we met there talked of a great hydrogen future.  As I remember, the expense of the cells as well as the difficulty of creating a network of "stations" for hydrogen fuel were obstacles back then; obstacles that are still far from being overcome. It seems we're still stuck in the "demonstation" stage in Canada. Hydrogen anything seems a long way off.

In a country like China, however, with its billion plus people and its mega industrial complexes, hydrogen scooters are becoming a reality. They will cost a lot at first but with the speedy rate of Chinese production, prices are expected to drop in the next ten years which will make them an attractive option throughout Asia.

Here's a link that explains how real they are becoming:

http://www.h2journal.com/displaynews.php?NewsID=702
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And, here's an another interesting international story that shows countries like Great Britain are catching on to what urban dwellers in much of Asia and Africa have understood for years: small motorcyles and scooters of 125 cc are great city vehicles.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motorbikes/9444621/125cc-scooters-and-motorcycle-buck-the-sales-trend.html

Mobile mobile scooters

I have been too busy to write here or even ride my scooter much lately. I will get to another post shortly, but, in the meantime, here's an interesting advance in scooter technology from Piaggio. I'm not sure how I feel about the need to be connected everywhere - especially during a scooter ride when distractions should be kept to a minimum. But in a crunch, this could be a handy device for commuters who go some distance.

http://www.multimediaplatform.piaggio.com/eng/come_funziona.htm